On: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

[MollyR]

It's honestly hard to tell sometimes. People are emotionally complex, and life is messy. But there is a reason office romances typically have HR rules in a lot of companies.

[biafra → MollyR]

What? There are workplace rules for romances? Is that legal? I have never heard about that. Are they in the contract? Or the house rules? What are they covering?

[MollyR → biafra]

Yea, my HR department has it in our contract. My last place had it so no couples were allowed in the same department.

[biafra → MollyR]

Interesting.

- What happens if people become couples that are in the same department?

- Is one of them send to a differrent department?

- Is one of them fired?

- Is it ignored until it becomes a problem?

- Do they have to announce it? If so at which point? The first date? The first kiss? When they have sex?

- What if they keep it a secret?

So many questions!

I am certain this would be illegal or void in Germany.

[MollyR → biafra]

Sorry don't have any answers, but I will say I met my husband at my last job, but I moved on to a new job to avoid the hr issues as he was the Team Lead.

It's actually why I find some of the advice from the other female engineers so troubling. Our relationship attraction first started when he took me for coffee break, to see how I was doing after my 6 month probationary period ended.