Not that there's anything to be done about it, but (as another 'employee',) I've more than once been grievously offended by the latitude (and other benefits) afforded to sweethearts at the office. I've avoided business entanglements of my own across my adult career, and it was often a tremendous sacrifice. Like, haunt-your-dreams sacrifice.

Jeez, I'm sorry you're horny or lonely or your clock is tocking or whatnot. But the rest of the world doesn't think you're cute or excusable… The rest of the world needs the job and has plans for the paycheck.

Make pen pals; go to church; form a weekend hobby group on the other side of town.

It's improper to ask someone on a date that you have the power to fire.

...to exclude sex from the workplace as a means of protecting women....

It's not just "to protect women." It protects all employees. How would you like to work next to someone who gets the plum assignments, best shifts, highest raises, etc. because he/she's dating the boss? I have, and that's the real power disparity.

Even the Bible warned against this with the story of David sending Bathsheba's husband off to die so he could have her to himself.

I watched at an early job as raises and promotions were frozen during a merger, yet the boss' paramour somehow won Employee of the Month every month. The cash prize that went along with the award gave her a de facto raise.

Eliza Collins of the Harvard Business Review once wrote that office romance “can break down the organizational structure." Loyalties that should be the company's become the other person's.

Think an office romance at a high level can't harm the company? Remember the William Agee - Mary Cunningham saga at Bendix. Whether they were having an affair didn't matter, the company was destroyed by the possibility they were.

So, a rule forbidding dating between employees in a reporting relationship is a good one in my book.

In this age of legal and HR conflagrations caused by #metoo sensibilities, any corporation would be well-advised to forbid relationships. Perhaps they should take it further and segregate the sexes to avoid all contact between the rapey men and the #metoo women.

Along with the favoritism and power imbalances created by relationships that cross hierarchical lines, there are the work
inefficiencies and widespread difficulties caused by relationships that break down. How many of us have had to make accommodations for those ex-couples that will no longer speak to each other or are actively sabotaging each other?

In this age of legal and HR conflagrations caused by #metoo sensibilities, any corporation would be well-advised to forbid relationships. Perhaps they should take it further and segregate the sexes to avoid all contact between the rapey men and the #metoo women.

I saw a survey that a large % of people used to find a spouse at work, but now hardly anyone does. This is not to everyone's advantage.

While saying a boss should not date his secretary makes sense, many companies and universities say no one can date anyone. A prof cannot date any student or faculty. In a college town this means the prof will remain single. So totally overboard.

Women are big enough to know what they want.

Yes they are. When I worked on a bullshit rig making down hole repairs on oil wells 35 years ago there were women who were big like that. For example, one woman was big enough to know when she wanted to stay an extra shift for some overtime, so when my crew needed a fourth man she would volunteer. Since she was dating one of the foremen and entertaining a couple of others she was always picked for the job.

She was also big enough to know that she did not want to be working her chunky ass off up in a derrick covered in crude oil in a rainstorm in the middle of the night. So about 15 minutes after we pulled up at the well the foreman would pick her up in a company car and off they would go into the night. Hours later when the well was on line and we were ready to move to the next one he would bring her back clean, dry and smiling. He was smiling too.

It would have been nice to have a fourth man on the crew for certain jobs - a 30-foot joint of 3.5-inch tubing with a collar weighs about 300 pounds; laying down and/or picking up 150 or more joints can wear your ass out - but we weren't really unhappy to work without her. She wore makeup and dangly earrings to work; she tied her hardhat on with a ribbon; she couldn't or wouldn't lift anything more than about 25 pounds; she often said she couldn't work up in the derrick because she was having PMS or cramps; and she didn't like to get dirty - at least not the kind of dirty one gets from working on oil wells; I suspect she got a different kind of dirty in the car with the foreman. Any man unable or unwilling to do the work would have been fired. But the bosses supported her in all this; her job was secure, her future promising. Apparently she had other abilities they valued more highly than the ability to function as a competent member of a crew making down-hole repairs on oil wells.

When a woman in the work place is big enough to know what she wants and willing to use sex to get it, it just changes everything for everybody.

Funny that ABC would run this at a time when Kamala Harris and Katie Hill, two women who're big enough to know what they want and how to get it, are prominent in the news.

Yes, the problem of someone dating the boss gaining unfair advantages exists. But like other conflicts of interest in the wider world, there is an easy solution: the senior person recuses him/herself, in advance, of decision making power over the subordinate s/he is going to date. Declare in writing that another manager (in the case of McDonalds, a VP) or HR should make those decisions from now on, and then date whom you want.

Conan already pointed out that this isn't merely to protect women. Or does anyone think that only men ever attain a position to hire or fire someone, and only women are subordinate and subject to the whims of predatory bosses?

And for that matter, why is everyone assuming that these relationships are always man-woman?

Another danger of dating someone in the same office is that, if the relationship goes sour (as it most likely will), you can't get away from each other.

"two women who're"

That's the kind of clever we need in this room.

I agree "no dating at all" goes a bit far. Yeah there's the fall out in case of a break-up.

I lost a job because of a supervisor-subordinate affair, and I wasn't even involved in it. The affair was between my (female) team lead and her (male) boss. He was an insanely jealous sort, and he didn't like other men in the office talking to her. But, being that she was my team lead, it was kind of necessary for me to talk to her. He didn't like that a bit.

He had her formally charge me with refusing to complete a task (which I had never heard of, and would not have been within my job description anyway). He used that to have me down-graded in my employee evaluation, at a time when the company was looking at layoffs. Sure enough, I wound up near the bottom of the list in my evaluation peer group, and I was laid off. This was a company that makes a big noise about ethics. I tried contacting our program's ethics officer (who was in another city) by phone and email. Never got a response. My last day came and they took me out for the customary going-away lunch. I invited my team lead to sit next to me, to make her uncomfortable and her paramour jealous. It was hilarious.

Three months later, that group lost a big contract. My former team lead and her boss had been off in the afternoons shagging, when they should have been working on their bid proposal. Their bid was deemed non-responsive by the government, and they lost a contract which should have been an easy win. Most of the department was laid off. By my being laid off earlier, I had a head start on my job search, and shortly after that I was working again. Some of the others, it took them upwards of six months to find new work.

Heck, with everyone else sharing their stories I've got to share mine. Thankfully I wasn't impacted in this one. Just got to watch on the sidelines.

In this situation the boss was a girl. A lesbian and a little elderly. Around 50ish if I had to guess. Earlier on she was just a worker and got her girlfriend a job at the same company. Later she got promoted to manager over the PCB assembly division. Unfortunately the lady has a roving eye. Her breakup with the first girlfriend was amicable and the girlfriend moved on to another company. Her next girlfriend was a direct report as well and she definitely was hitting on the other workers (most of whom were straight). Even for those not getting hit on still got impacted. I remember one lady complaining about needing to go suck up to the bosses wife if she wanted to get her vacation days approved.

There are very good reasons to not permit relationships between direct reports.

Bill and Melinda Gates.

The purpose of these rules is to maintain siome modicum of discipline in the workplace- even iof the workplace is not as strict or uptight as the United States Marine Corps.

There are a lot of situations where it is simply not possible to give genuine consent to a relationship.

If someone has the power to fire me and writes my performance reviews -- it is abuse for that person to ask me for a date, or engage in a sexual relationship.

That is the purpose of McDonald's rule and that is why they are to be commended for enforcing it even with their own CEO.