Bet he hates the Internet right about now too.
It went viral because of all the satires and parodies that popped up.
I’ve also heard that Coldplay actually puts on a very good show.
Long before the Internet there was the relationship between Bendix Corp. CEO William Agee and his 28-year old assistant Mary Cunningham, who was rapidly promoted to VP for Strategic Planning. They burned up both the business press and the tabloids for months before Cunningham divorced her husband and left the company. Agee later divorced his wife and married Cunningham, and the two of them lived happily ever after until her death in 2017.
He died, not her.
Or not, as the Wiki article states:
Agee died at age 79 from complications of respiratory failure caused by vascular degeneration, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Scleroderma, a connective tissue disease, at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle on December 20, 2017. Just prior to his death, and after 35 years of marriage, Agee filed for divorce from Cunningham. The divorce was not finalized due to his death in December 2017.
It doesn’t just implicate the cheater’s character; when a C-suite exec or director-level manager flaunts the ethical rules for fraternization with subordinates (often with complete impunity) that a less senior employee would be disciplined or dismissed for, it just shows how different the rules are for those in positions of power. At a personal level it isn’t only the cheaters and spouses that are impacted; children, other family, and close friends are also thrown into a situation of having to navigate the delicate and often emotionally explosive reactions.
Fuck that guy.
Stranger
Okay, there are rules, and he broke them. Fine, but that’s not the part I’m talking about, I’m just talking about extra-marital affairs generally.
But when you’re CEO everyone is a subordinate, and also your whole life is spent at work, so where else are you going to meet someone? Aside from the fact that he’s married (and who knows how that relationship was going), I can’t see that it’s a capital crime. Or that we regular folk are supposed to care.
They are supposed to report the relationship to HR and they subordinate isn’t allowed to be a subordinate anymore or whatever the rules are. People meet and fall in love at work all the time. There are rules governing that. The head of HR in this issue, how many people do you suppose that she’s fired in her career over something similar?
I mean, if he’s gotta:
You might have noticed there is a bit of a cultural zeitgeist about hating on corporate executives who seem to feel that ethics are for other, ‘lesser’ people and that empathy is a message to be massaged by PR flacks to convince the public that they really ‘care’ about ordinary customers while cutting every corner to maximize shareholder value. So, this guy stupidly got caught out doing something he’d happily fire a middle manager for doing and now people are getting their schadenfreude on, which may not be the most mature response but in our shame-and-blame society it’s kind of fun to stick it to someone other than just an errant celebrity who doesn’t actually have much real power over others outside of their entourage.
Personally, I don’t really particularly care about this guy but after reading the description of his conmpany’s ‘business’ I’m kind of hoping that it all burns down to the waterline over this because I’ve had my fill of fake businesses promoting “enabling AI and analytics at scale” that aren’t actually of use to anyone beyond filling the prospectus with buzzwords. So, not only fuck that guy, but fuck his entire company. And Coldplay for good measure, because Chris Martin just seems like such a talentless, self-impressed goober.
Stranger
If SNL had done a skit of what they did, I wouldn’t have found it funny but what they did was so over the top ridiculous that it was hilarious. If they kissed, we would have never heard of them. If they had (pretended) not to notice the camera, they may have gotten some boos but again, we wouldn’t know about them. If they turned & walked out; meh, they needed a bio break or wanted a drink but the shocked look on her face & then covering her face & turning away & him literally diving under the seat, in a delayed reaction was pure comedy gold. Even the singer realized something hinky was up. No, they fully knew what they were doing was wrong & just didn’t even think about how to handle something simple while being out in public
Given their positions they’ve probably had some formal training in crisis management/public speaking - how to deflect a question &/or give a non-answer answer which makes their reactions all the more egregious.
Why do people rubberneck at a car crash?
I wonder if they were the very first couple shown on the “kiss cam”? 'Cuz otherwise, you’d think that when they saw the kiss cam going down they would have thought… “Oh shit! I hope they don’t show us! Quick! let’s kneel down.”
Then what do they do when someone does pursue? Stand still?
It wasn’t a kiss cam. The schtick was to find various people, not necessarily couples. The first was a guy in a funny hat with a sash that said it was his birthday and the singer teased him a little. Next was our couple. After that were two people in banana costumes.
Did not know that. Still, doesn’t matter… instead of “kiss cam” think: random, roaming camera.
Agree but what are the odds? Also it was pretty quick from the birthday guy to them
True. Maybe the better thought would be a bit more pre-emptive: “We’re having an affair. Let’s not ever go out in public. 'K?”
Or at least not go to an event where 10,000 random people can see us together.
Like I said…didn’t cheaters normally sneak around and hide.
If you’re not good at realizing risks of this behaviour, maybe an affair is not for you.
Somebody is always watching.
The cel phone/social media thing is everywhere.
But to go to a big show, with prominant seats, AND stand up. They were fools.
Hmm, when I look at the story from a perspective outside the US, I get the impression that a typical American double standard of puritanism is at play here. On the one hand, marriage is highly valued, but on the other hand, there are an enormous number of divorces and extramarital affairs. Romantic relationships between employees of a company are prohibited under threat of dismissal. Why? Things could be resolved discreetly, e.g., one of the two people involved could work in a different department. Why does the company interfere in the private lives of its employees? There is always talk of high standards, etc., etc., which no one adheres to anyway. I don’t want to know what kind of relationships the employees at the White House have with each other. In the Coldplay story, the lives of a whole bunch of people were destroyed for a long time. Who benefits from that? The company’s high standards? Yes, the two behaved very stupidly, but do they have to pay for it with their professional lives? That’s not proportionate. Of course, there are also extramarital relationships between employees in Europe, but here you usually find diplomatic and, above all, more humane solutions. Puritanism doesn’t play a big role here.
I don’t believe puritanism is the problem Americans have to own.
The problem with affairs happening in workplace is, I believe, it causes less productivity if its carried out in the workplace.
It not only hurts the affairees lives and families, it hurts their work families.
And when they do screw up royally, as in this case, doubly so. They gotta rehire, get up to speed and train replacements. Maybe higher wages.
It will affect the bottomline if it happens much more than, rarely.
Like said by others everyone is subordinate to a CEO. They hold all the cards. It’s unfair to an HR lead.
A nasty break up, which often happens will cause undue issues with the regular worker bees. Yep. They know. They talk. Well, before the spouses, I’d bet.
Not good.
Get your divorce first people. Its just plain dumb to subject everyone you love or care about to this. Even if the camera hadn’t caught this couple, people were already being hurt.
I think that is usually what happens, if the company is big enough. Not sure if that one is big enough.
Of course the woman in question being HR really complicates things.
We live in a world where some underlings are threatened with job dismissal if they don’t perform sexual favors, so I’m not really bothered that “don’t date your subordinate” is a professional norm.
If you really need that fix, go read a romance novel because there is an entire subgenre devoted to this dynamic.