Sex, alcohol, and the business trip; a lesson in avoidance
Posted on December 18, 2007
Filed Under Career Development, The HR Department, Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y
The other day a friend of mine, we’ll call him Joe, told me about a recent business trip and how he had narrowly sidestepped a major HR landmine. Joe manages a team of people, both men and women, many of them married. Recently they were all called together for quarterly meetings/training. During an evening event the alcohol flowed and everyone enjoyed themselves. At the end of the evening Joe went back to his hotel room, shortly after, his phone rang (do you see what’s coming?), it was a woman from his team, let’s call her Wendy. Wendy had called to tell Joe that she really needed to speak with him. Joe, not having been born yesterday was hesitant, but agreed. A few minutes later Wendy knocked on Joe’s door, Joe stepped out into the hall where Wendy (married, 4 kids) proceeded to tell Joe how she’d had a crush on him for sometime, blah, blah blah. They spoke for a few minutes and then Wendy suggested they go into Joe’s room as she was uncomfortable having thier conversation in the hallway. Against his better judgment Joe agreed, and then spent 15 minutes setting her straight and getting her out of his room.
The next day, it occurred to Joe that this was a potentially dangerous he said/she said situation and he called his boss to fill him in/cover his ass. His boss correctly instructed Joe to document what happened in an email and forward it to him (ever see Disclosure?).
As Joe recounted this incident I was reminded of a policy that my pastor mentioned some time ago that our church has. In states in short that no male and female can be alone together while working. This includes offices, lunches, car rides, and of course business trips. When I first heard of the policy, I thought for a church, probably not a bad idea, but it wasn’t needed or required in the real world. Joe’s experience certainly made me rethink this view.
I’ve traveled hundreds of times on business and never had a situation like Joe’s come up, but I’m sure many others have. The reality is in today’s business world many of us will be in situations with the opposite sex. Whether over dinner, drinks or an out of town business trip, isolation with one member of the opposite sex should probably be avoided. While this incident had a happy ending (no one got fired), I know of others that didn’t turn out as well. What are your thoughts or experiences?
Until next time…
[tags] relationships at work, disclosure, alcohol, HR
and don’t answer email after you’ve gone out to dinner and had 3-5 cocktails.
Jay Hargis’s last blog post..Measure Twice, Cut Once
yet more sound advice.