Employing men, he’d run a serious risk of turning himself gay. Clearly you don’t understand how hormones work.
Right. Because firing someone is analogous to raping them.
As the saying goes, one of those things is not like the other.
Basically, it boils down to – between boss and employee, the boss will, generally, win.
Is this fair? No, it probably isn’t. But it’s the way the cookie crumbles. Got a lousy boss, for whatever reason? Be afraid, be very afraid for your job.
And in this particular case, while I think the dentist and his wife are both douches of the highest order, I have to accept that it’s not gender-based discrimination because:
- If it were a male employee and a female boss looking to the boss’s husband like they’re about to hit it off, who gets screwed? The employee.
- if it were co-gendered boss and employee and the boss is gay (and the boss’s spouse thinks they’re about to hit it off), who gets screwed? The employee once more.
So, yeah – sucks to be Ms. Attractive here, and the dentist is a lousy excuse for a human being, but it’s not gender discrimination. And it is, as much as I don’t like the idea, a legal firing. 
It has anothing to do with blame. AFAICT she is not to blame (any more than him, anyway). But he happens to own the practice.
If she was the dentist and he was the hygienist, then he would have to leave. But it’s his practice.
To be clear, unlike some of the others posting here, I’m not saying that he is legally in the clear but a douche or anything of the sort. I’m saying (unless there’s more that is not clear) he did the right thing, and I would recommend the same to any boss - of either gender - who found themself getting slowly drawn into a relationship with an employee.
As a thought experiment, imagine this did not involve a hot-button issue of this sort. Imagine it was someone asking advice in IMHO. He or she has a happy marriage, but is slowly getting more and more personally involved with a coworker of the opposite gender, gradually progressing to multiple text messages and sexual innuendo or worse. What to do? Does everyone say “just rely on an iron self-control, keep your relationship professional etc.”? Or do people say “you’ve got a problem, try to get transferred or get a new job etc.”?
I’m guessing based on history that people opt for the latter. And the naivete in this thread is based on it being related to hot button issue that have broader application (to women’s dress and work situations).
Otherwise it seems pretty straightforward to me.
Ha. An unwarranted interference?
What relationship? She is married and has no interest in him.
All it is, is an imaginary fantasy he has with the former employee, and an insecure wife.
I would say that when you’re exchanging multiple texts on personal matters, and confinding to each other on details of your sex lives, that the term “getting slowly drawn into a relationship” applies. YMMV.
But it makes no difference. Even if it’s all an imaginary fantasy, the same applies.
If the boss were here posting this question, I’d sure as shit not tell him to fire her with a month’s severance. I’d tell him to find her another job (after all, the local dental community is probably pretty close knit) and to grit his teeth and monitor his behavior until such a time as he found her a place.
The article in the OP defined the texts as, " mostly about personal matters, such as their families." No really surprising when you have worked closely with a person for 10 years. The only sexual comments came from him.
I still don’t see a relationship.
Now the question is, is it OK to fire someone because you want to sleep with them?
In my option, you should fire someone for incompetence, theft, financial reasons, or anything business related. Because you want to stick your penis in her is not on the list. Be an adult and control yourself.
Apparently she told him about a lack of sex with her husband (which is where the Lamborgini remark came in).
If you think there’s a reasonable chance that your desire will end up destroying your marriage, then yes. And this is true regardless of whether in theory you should control yourself. If you think there’s a realistic chance that you might not, then you have to go to Plan B.
I agree about the month severance.
I agree with this too, if it was feasible. Sounds like it may not have been though, because she is apparently no longer in the field.
I just don’t believe in punishing an innocent person for your own shortcomings.
The thing is, even when someone is very happily married, it’s not at all unheard of to meet someone and think “I could have been happy with them”. When that happens, I do think it’s a good idea to limit your contact with them–because that sort of proto-attraction can very quickly turn into a terrible problem if your marriage hits a rough spot for whatever reason, and all the pieces are in place for you to fall in love. Once you fall in love–something out of your control–there’s no good solution, even if you “control yourself”. Even if your spouse never finds out, it’s going to be a world of hurt for at least you, and do damage to your marriage. Hell, just keeping such an emotional roller coaster secret does damage: you’re going through a life-changing event and not sharing it.
However, as I said above, the solution isn’t a month’s severance and a “see ya”. If you’re the boss and you can’t find another job, you have to find them one. But I do think it’s reasonable to decide that one way or another, you shouldn’t keep working with someone.
Well, being fired after ten years for being a homewrecker probably doesn’t look great on the resume, and then suing also probably didn’t help. Even if it took six months to find her another job, he should have kept her on that long. This wasn’t an emergency.
ETA: as far as the “lamborgini” remark, I’ve made jokes with long-term co-workers like “Sex life? Ha! I have a toddler instead!”. That sort of thing doesn’t have to be intimate. It certainly isn’t a come-on.
Again, if feasible. (I’m sure the suing didn’t and won’t help her, but I don’t see any reason she would need to announce that she was fired for being a homewrecker.)
It doesn’t have to be (although in these days of heightened sexual harrassment awareness, people are - and should be - very wary of this sort of thing). But it’s not that incident in isolation. If you have a situation where the other party is already having difficulties in dealing with his infatuation, and you’re already exchanging after hours texts on personal matters, and staying late hours at the office alone with the guy, then it adds to the entanglement.
She would not ruin his life. If any life was being ruined, it would him ruining his own life. She is not responsible for his boner. Women are not magic penis traps. If he takes his dick out and sticks it in to anyone other than his wife, whatever consequences there are are entirely of his own making, based on his own freely made choice.
By all accounts, she was clueless about his attraction, happily married, and not at all interested in being a second party in any life-ruining.
In any case, we will all work with attractive coworkers at one point or another. We will all be face temptation. Removing all attractive women from your life is not possible, and even if it were, it would not fix the trust issues in this marriage.
Yeah, I think if this guy believes his temptation is going to be limited to this particular woman, he’s even stupider than he seems. If has has half a brain is head and actually wants to stay married, he’ll take this as a learning experience to quit fantasizing about other women, contemplating cheating, and engaging in behavior (like texting) that could lead to cheating. If he can’t do that, then maybe he shouldn’t be married.
This is almost word for word what I was going to say. If I was a female I wouldn’t go within a mile of his practice, for fear of “temping” him while doped up. What a fucking creepy loser.
I think that the solution would be for this guy to wear blinders. Or possibly attach a taser to his nuts, and every time he feels tempted by a woman, he should give himself a little zap.
You’re making this into a moral issue but it’s not a moral issue. It’s a practical one.
People hire other people and give them money in exchange for making their lives easier. They don’t pay them to make their lives harder. This woman’s employment was making his life more difficult.
That’s all you need to know. It’s not a judgment about whose ultimate responsibility it is.
Trying to find exactly the right word to describe your view of the employer-employee relationship. It would be like “simplistic” but at a galactic level.