Sex and money are a powerful combination of aphrodisiacs. Hell, they are powerful on their own. Put them together and you get a reaction that the physicists in Iran would love to bottle but often work out badly in the investment management office. But not always. There can be happy endings. Yea right. And the moon is made of green cheese.
Andy recruited Bertha to join his office. She was an exceptionally attractive producer with an unusual prospecting technique that seemed clear after she joined Andy’s office. Simply put, she would sleep with married rich guys. And yes, there was apparently an eye witness account of her in action. In the office. But not during market hours.
If you cannot imagine how that turned out then you should stop reading this right now and tune into some reality TV so you can acquire some imagination. No dummy, she wasn’t terminated. No, you naïve newbie, she didn’t lose her license. You simply are not paying attention here. She rapidly rose to the top of the production ranks. She happily cashed several signing bonuses along the way when changing firms at the end of her contracts, and apparently never had a serious client complaint. Go figure.
This is something of a difficult thing for a manager. On one hand, this is two consenting adults and a manager has little or no sway over what a producer does in their personal life assuming there is no criminal behavior. On the other, if this kind of case were to ever rise to something even approaching blackmail, then you have a really bad criminal case brewing. In this case, the series of managers that were supervising her over the years, opted to do nothing and happily saw their offices quite profitable.
If this were to blow up into a complaint (even from a disgruntled soon to be ex-spouse), the manager probably might go down (like Bertha) for not knowing and/or not disclosing. This is the kind of case where the manager really needs a quality regional who is in the loop. Unfortunately, the shades of grey (50?) that this kind of case represents creates a crap shoot for the manager. Hey, we might be your friend, but that doesn’t mean we have all the answers!
Then there is the case of the producer sleeping with their assistant. There are gobs of these cases. The outcomes of this include:
Two divorces followed by a happy marriage.
Two divorces followed by an unhappy marriage and divorce.
No divorces and a nasty breakup where the office atmosphere is poisoned by folks taking sides.
No divorces and a departure from the firm by one or both parties.
No divorces and no departures and an amicable split.
There is a particularly bad story where a guy running an independent office slept with his single assistant and his wife found out and gave him the ultimatum of her or the assistant. He chose the wife and fired the assistant. After the assistant retained legal counsel, he re-hired her, paid her a settlement, and began sleeping with her again. Of course, the wife discovered this, divorced him this time, cleaned him out financially, at which point the assistant had no use for him either and promptly quit. Sounds like a bad reality show but unfortunately it was real and lives were destroyed.
So what do you do with these messes? How do you prevent them from happening? Damned if we know. But in cases of sex in the office here are the commandments (in this order):
> Get the facts. The rumor mill can give you a lead, but it is not fact. Get doors closed and ask direct questions. Trust your instincts. Document the conversations. Ignorance is not bliss. It is an invitation for you to catch a bullet.
> If the assistant works for the producer, they must be separated. Entire HR books are written on this topic. Do yourself a favor: do it before something bad happens. Like now.
> Protect yourself (see “Bad Guy” case study for some tips.)
> Protect yourself.
> Protect yourself.
> When in doubt, see the three previous commandments.
Are there more examples of the volatile mix of sex and money that you have personally seen? Tell us about it. Sex stories always are popular! All names are changed to protect everyone. Email manageia2@gmail.com
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