What would your reaction be if you were present?

Career Topics General
21

Guessing from who he’s fired, how he interacts with junior staffers, which female junior staffers he chooses to interact with, and how he evaluates junior staffers

22

Well, that’s not at all clear from your initial post, but if the senior men expect the women to flirt with them, that’s offensive.

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23

what if the senior person gives special treatment to those that flirt, but treats all others normally. Is that offensive?

24

male & female?

25

why would that matter?

26

instead of “flirt”, let’s say “extra banter”

27

I personally wouldn’t be offended, but it certainly makes him a bad manager.

28

depends how you define “extra banter”…

29

i dunno, laughing, joking around, saying things like “i didn’t mean it like that!”

30

i agree but the world doesn’t. The world thinks steve jobs was a brilliant manager

31

I think it’s human nature to treat those you are friendly with a little better. Even subconsciously.

I would expect those who banter with the boss to be more inline for a promotion regardless of technical ability as that is what is seen as “people skills”. That may cross into ‘flirting’ but banter <> flirting though share some overlap

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32

Depends how you define special treatment

33

Are you sure about that?

I have always heard Steve Jobs was an extremely shitty boss. Visionary and great marketer, but horrible to work for.

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34

if actually there, I likely would have said “oh boy” and then just moved on. there’s nothing more to do or say. (assuming no overt history of inapproriate stuff)

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35

i would definitely want steve jobs working for me though

36

Forget about offensive. If you could prove it, giving special treatment to those who flirt would be illegal. Of course you can’t prove these things, so the people who do this are pretty much safe unless they are really egregious.

Now, giving special treatment to those who act friendly is just rewarding people skills, which is a positive.

37

there’s a hugely complicated and interlocking continuum between friendly and flirting, and you’d like to insert a fine, jagged, porous line somewhere in the middle and call one side illegal and the other side good and proper. Good luck with that

2 Likes
38

That’s what my HR course I just took said though… that there is a line. I’m guessing in 99% of the ambiguous cases nothing happens.

39

So does that mean…all those people I meet at work are not actually friendly - they’re just acting friendly?

40

I’d say odds were good that when you’re talking about interactions between a subordinate and a boss, some of the cases of acting friendly aren’t actually being friendly.