Depends. Do you think it’s just the cuckolded spouses’ tough luck? “Every man for himself”…
I’ve worked in HR for 20 years and I can’t imagine the kinds of HR departments that some people apparently have at their companies.
In most companies, HR would definitely want to know this was going on - not because they love you, but because they don’t want you (or either party to the affair) to turn around and sue the company. If it was happening at my current company, there would be an investigation and (assuming it is substantiated) both parties to the affair would be immediately terminated. We would not fire the whistle-blower; that is just begging for a wrongful termination suit.
Are you sure that you are making people’s lives better or are you just enjoying the “fireworks”?
The fact is that some huge proportion of people engage in infidelity at some point in their lives. Sometimes it destroys relationships. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, it is the business of the people involved in those relationships.
Sometimes the best thing is for it to end quietly without coming to light and for everyone to get beyond it. If there are children involved, that might very well be the best outcome. In that case it’s not necessarily a matter of “tough luck,” but rather that sometimes you’re better off not knowing.
The only thing I’m sure of is that I can’t say I know for sure what’s best for other people.
Sticking your nose in as a third party for the entertainment value—or just because you seem to think that you know what’s best for everyone—is reprehensible.
Some things are not your business. Other people’s sex lives and relationships are somewhere near the top of that list.
I was once a low-level accounting manager with about 4 -5 people reporting to me. I in turn reported to the corporate controller. At some point it became apparent to me that my boss was having a thing with one of my direct reports. This came to light right about performance review time, and I realized I was screwed - my boss was going to be damned strict on the review I’d prepared for his girlfriend as a result of his guilt. I managed to get Rachel the rating and increase she deserved (from the work that she produced for the company 
), but it pissed me right off that I was put in this position by Mr. Hotdick. I did not, however, let on to anyone that I knew what was afoot.
I realized I’d get no help from HR - she reported to the controller too. But in the meantime I found out some more information about the “situation” and realized I was going to have to handle it myself. So during a routine meeting with my boss I quite cheerfully reported to my boss, “Good news! I have an experienced temp lined up to take over as soon as Rachel starts her maternity leave!”
The look on his face confirmed that he had been unaware of either the upcoming maternity or the leave.
Well, look at it this way:
If it’s two people who are engaging in an affair, both of their own volition, I might conclude that they deserve each other. And I can give them enough rope until they hang themselves.
If, instead, it’s a man (unlikely it’d be the woman) hitting on an unwilling victim time and time again, then I might be more inspired to let the third party in on it, and then see what happens.
In any case, if the offending party is on my level, I would snub him/her totally–not even the time of day, leaving him/her to ponder why.
C’mon. We’re dying to know. Was the controller the baby daddy?
Document, document, document, then keep your mouth shut. HR is something to guard against, not something that will help you.
I was passed over for a cool business trip, a trip I had more than earned, because an upper manager (married) wanted to take one of his staff (married to someone else) on the trip. Neither of them had even participated in the project other than to sign off on it when it was done. She got a week of paid vacation and a promotion, I got squat and it’s anybody’s guess what he got. She more than earned whatever she got because that guy was disgusting.
When I brought this to HR’s attention they looked at me like I was an idiot. Someone finally caught the manager with his secretary bent over a copy machine and then the stories of all the bonuses and perks the ladies who worked for him were getting started coming out. When it couldn’t be ignored anymore they just moved the guy to another agency.
Similar thing happened at a place where I used to work. One of the security guys caugh a manager decorating his desk with his secretary, and reported it. The security guy who caught them shortly thereafter “left the company,” and there was a big house cleaning in the security department.
The manager got a promotion.
BTW, this manager was one of the managers who held the annual company seminars on “corporate compliance.”
A bank. I’ll say that a lot of the corporate weirdness we experienced was due to the bank being owned and run by one family. When the patriarch died (he was about a million years old), everyone else in the family dumped their shares and we were bought by a large, faceless corporation. After that (early in my 20 years with the bank), things went like pretty much any big company.
This stuff still happens with privately-owned companies. My best bud’s wife works for a small company whose owner/CEO has similarly inappropriate shindigs with accompanying scandals, like getting into a fight with his CFO over the guy’s affair with the CEO’s personal trainer mistress, in front of said CEO’s wife. Fallout? The CFO left, the CEO got divorced, married his personal trainer, and hired her - she works with my friend’s wife. The really fun part? My friend is a personal trainer, so the current Mrs CEO is always cornering him at these parties to talk shop (mostly about how people should only eat gravel), to the displeasure of his wife and her boss. 
Yeah, if it’s not affecting me, none of my business (assuming I’m not really friends with them or the cuckolded partners).
If there’s favoritism coming down, then first step is immediately unobtrusively start documenting everything (even if it’s just writing down the gist of a conversation and the date).
After that, it completely depends on the political and personality lay of the land. Is my boss a very low-level manager at a giant IBM-like corporation, who isn’t great in other ways, and my boss’s boss is very good and knows and likes my work? Then I’d probably sit down with my boss’s boss and go over everything in confidence, stressing that I just want help getting my due rewards (and letting boss’ boss make the call about how to handle it and whether to involve HR).
Is my boss kind of a dick and the owner of the company? Then I’m looking for another job, maybe investing in a consultation with a lawyer if circumstances make me think there’s something to sue over.
Heck, I could even imagine, if the boss is a particular kind of person, sitting down with him and pointing out how much he’s favoring one employee, and that it’s bad for morale. I mean, it’s at least conceivable there’s someone doing this who is not only unaware of their favoratism but would be appalled by it when it was pointed out.
Well I have just exposed my married boss sleeping with subordinate.
My boss is a hospital chair of 30 years, his wife works 3 doors down,she was unaware but was told it was me. After working with her for 6 months time had come to end the craziness. The paramour thought she was the boss and harrasesed me constantly.
I filed a complaint about her, the boss tried to stop me,I went to HR and told them of my findings in writing. I documented her days off and her work hours, she visited frequently to the office
, they would close the door for their meetings. I was informed by a patient that the boss went to co workers house 2x weekly at 1pm and ssaturdays at 11am, I had to have my info together if I was coming after the big boss. I then decided the wife needed to know to sideline the boss and make him exit the HR meeting and remove his influence. I told the wife and HR and reported him for prior exposure of himself before the wife came on board as well. It hit him for 3 days and then he was suspended for 4 days, his wife quit but he is still there. The co worker left 6 weeks later.
I wanted to call her boyfriend but he was not a part of this,he was completely in the dark.
I will have to tell him at some point as she moved in with him after exposure of sleeping with the boss. He will be super end for depositions soon.
I was suspended and harrasesed by boss for one month but will be returning to work with lawsuit in tow.
It was emotionally draining but thank god for disibility, the stress caused 2 months off with 70% pay weekly. It was worth it in the end , there is only one staff member left out of 4 under him, this must tell HR he was a corrupt boss.
Good for you! Heh.
Interpersonal relationships between employees is a matter of office policy, not law nor morality, and I do not consider it my place to police it.
I personally think this is a terrible idea. You would be painting a bullseye on your own forehead. Whatever I did would be completely anonymous unless I had a VERY good friend in HR who I could trust to keep my name out of it. And frankly there’s only 2 or 3 people in the whole world that I would trust that much.
I’m in HR and the picture is slightly less grim than painted, but not much. If the individual doing the naughty is a high-level performer for the company and not doing anything egregious (getting down on the conference room desk during the work day, for instance) or actionable (overtly discriminating against other employees for the benefit of his paramour), the most we will do is take a report and put it in the employee’s file.
However, there is one caveat. If we receive multiple reports on the same incident with the same individual, we will probably at least take it to management. If high value employees start quitting specifically because of the affair, we will definitely take it to management with an action recommendation. There is a critical mass to these things, and while management will be unwilling to lose a high-level performer for one disgruntled lower level employee, management will be equally unwilling to lose a large chunk of a productive workforce over the indiscretions of one high-level performer. The first employee likely to be fired would be the partner in the affair, but the high level guy might eventually have to go as well.
Although it grinds my gears to give this advice, the person who advocated shutting up and moving on is probably taking the safest tack.
HR still owned by setters! You were completely right! The paramour went! The dept head remains but he is lashing out and dragging others down with him. The wife quit after one day and HR was not pleased with me at all. I was fired but left with video testimony of witnesses who saw them during the affair.
I feel for his spouse, as his staff smiled in her face and hid the affair for him.
I guess I am not a team player, but HR did what you said, he was only asked to retire ASAP!
So, are you happy with this outcome? What do you expect to be able to do with this “video evidence?” I don’t expect it will do you any good in finding another job.
A better outcome would have been to press HR into letting you resign for some bullshit reason rather than firing you. Though it’s conceivable you may have some legal recourse if they’ve fired you for being a whistleblower.
Geez, idiot. I worked security for five years and I know better than that.
What you do is stand there and watch. Take a few pictures.
What are they going to do, report you for watching them have sex on the office equipment? 
So as a result of your deciding to push the issue, everyone is worse off now than they were before. High five!