To think the CEO caught at Coldplay resigning is a bit of a performance

[CEOhno]

I just... don't get it. I'm not condoning affairs but people do it all the time. I don't understand why they had to resign. Their personal lives deserve to blow up, of course, but it's a bit puritanical and false to pretend that, as a society, we care this much.

It doesn't affect their ability to do their jobs, if the cameras hadn't caught them there wouldn't have been nearly as much fuss. I hate the social media panic and showmanship.

I agree. There is zero expectation of privacy at concerts, especially not at concerts of major artists like coldplay. Hundreds of people will be recording from across the concert. I have literally seen the exact moment from different angles posted by other people.

I think it's ridiculous.

Bernard Looney - former CEO of BP - lost his job when undisclosed relationships with work colleagues became known.

His successor is in a relationship with a colleague but it was disclosed and that’s a whole different thing.

It definitely matters in the UK.

Abuse of power, lack of integrity, reputational damage, conflict of interest. There are any number of reasons why such a relationship is not tenable in a company.

It definitely matters in the UK.

And yet affairs in the workplace are so common...

He didn’t just resign though, so it’s not performative. The board will have required him to resign before they dismissed him for gross misconduct (bringing company into disrepute, etc.).

I have zero sympathy for him.

His behaviour, engaging in an affair in the first place, an ingrained sense of entitlement to do what he wants when he wants, no matter who might get hurt in the process (here, his own family). It also shows an incredible lack of judgment and a feeling of being untouchable to be so out and public with his affair, and I'm not referring to the kiss cam. He was happy to take the risk in the first place.

I have little doubt his inflated ego is also evident in how he interacts with people he manages and works with, and I suspect a lot of people there won't be sorry to see him gone,

He's just another entitled, self-important white American 'nice guy' who actually isn't very nice at all, and people really do need to start calling this out for what it is instead of feeling sorry for him and defending him and his job: ingrained misogyny.

This. I’m generally not a “but what about” type as the world is a many-faceted thing. But come on. What a distraction.

Whether they sit in your chain of command is also critical.

Companies are well aware that people fall in love (and fall in less high-minded things as well) and most don't even try to stop that happening. But at most companies, if you start a relationship with someone you work with directly and especially with someone in your chain of command, you must declare it asap so that from a work POV you can be separated, because you cannot have one person assessing the workplace performance and deciding the compensation of someone they're sleeping with.

Where the relationship is adulterous is where a lot of people come unstuck, because they don't want to declare and risk it getting back to their spouse, so when they do get caught, whoops, there goes their marriage along with their job. FAFO, as they say.

Imagine if someone did anything illegal/immoral/questionable, and was stupid enough to do it in a public place, and got caught on a Jumbotron.

I would argue the majority of people have done something illegal/immoral/questionable in public at some point. I did 25mph in my 20 mph zone late last night when I realised we had no milk.

If you want to know if the actions are too far, put yourself in the position of an Astronomer employee.

You want to go to HR about an issue regarding the CEO or company culture. You have an issue with HR, so need to go to their direct report, who happens to be the CEO she's having an affair with.

There is a clear conflict of interest and the misconduct would have came in, when neither party informed anyone of this conflict of interest.

Imagine you are a business. You were in negotiations to sign a contract with Astronomer, or provide funding. The news breaks that the CEO and HR director are having an affair and have caused widespread media mayhem. Both employees are kept on. Would you sign a contract or provide funding?

Astronomer did this to protect their business and their integrity for future business and funding, and to ensure theres no conflict of interest at the top. If they didnt, they would have lawsuits galore, which is what a start up will want to avoid.

It’s not about the shagging though. He has the responsibility of millions of dollars on his shoulders. The people who work there or who have invested in the business deserve to have their interests looked after by someone who is doing their job properly and with impartiality.

It is was discovered that his Mum was head of HR and he hadn’t told anyone it would be the same conflict of interest.

If this had happened to me I honestly wouldn’t want to live anymore. The humilation and pain caused to my family would kill me.

@Daffodilsarefading

excellent point

Exactly. And also the question of his hiring her not so long ago..

He was already separated from his wife apparently, living separately so I find less issue with it tbh. I agree with you

The real overplayed drama was the collective judgement of the entire internet on matters that have nothing to do with them, but they nevertheless wallow in a sanctimonious pit of their own collective schadenfraude.

I suspect it's this. It's crisis management from the company. They're in a PR nightmare because of this man.

They should look for a CEO with better judgement.

The social media storm surrounding this is absurd. The public shaming has gone too far. If every person online were standing face to face making those comments, it would resemble what happens to adulterers in certain parts of the Middle East, just without the stoning. It has gone too far.

I think what is distasteful about it is they are out on a date. It was clearly not just a sexual relationship contained to the bedroom. They are spending time together, swaying to music at a concert while their spouses are in the dark. I wonder if both claimed to be on a work trip or that a late meeting had run over in the evening.

The social media storm surrounding this is absurd. The public shaming has gone too far. If every person online were standing face to face making those comments, it would resemble what happens to adulterers in certain parts of the Middle East, just without the stoning. It has gone too far.

This

This, we have to declare relationships at work, we do one every year or if we were to enter a relationship with a work colleague. There are loads of married people or people in a relationship at my work they just don't report in to each other.
The CEO/HR connection could be seen as him influencing her work, favouring people or the sharing of confidential information about employees. I'm not saying she did or that he would but the rules are meant to protect us all.
It's a bit grim its an affair and it's all come out this way, I guess though that is a risk you take when having an affair.

In a way, isn't this how we would all like our cheating exes to be exposed - worldwide humiliation?

They shouldn't have had to resign, however, the brand damage done would make his position untenable

As well as the issues others have raised like conflict of interest, it’s also possible that they were using their expense accounts to conduct their affair to pay for meals out together etc. we will probably never know but I’m not at all surprised he resigned. I think she will do do too but that the company wanted him to go first so it didn’t look like they were blaming her more than him.

They weren't "out on a date", they were there with colleagues on a company jolly.