
Why Work Marriages Make Sense - joelx
http://www.blog.joelx.com/why-work-marriages-make-sense/9511/
======
nostrademons
The view of romantic relationships underlying this piece is not one shared by
most of my friends who are in stable relationships, and is IMHO rather
unhealthy.

People do not stay in romantic relationships to avoid "the trauma of getting
dumped". They stay because their partner is who they are looking for, someone
who enriches their life. Healthy people sting for a bit when dumped, but they
get over it and find someone new.

Also, the boyfriend/girlfriend stage doesn't match up with what I've seen:
people who dump their boyfriend/girlfriend "because someone better comes
along" usually find that the new person isn't better at all, and in the
meantime they've labeled themselves as fickle and capricious in the minds of
friends and prospective dates. Rather, it's time to end a relationship when
your continued partnership is making you unhappy, regardless of whether there
is someone better out there. And as long as you are happy, you are unlikely to
be _more_ happy with someone else.

I'd argue that even with these corrections, viewing work like a romantic
relationship still makes no sense. The cornerstone of romantic relationships
is equal emotional investment, and the idea that beneath all the trappings,
we're fundamentally all just people. Business is different because:

1\. There is an inherent power imbalance between employer and employee. A
company is never going to love you back, nor will you ever fulfill as
important a role for it as it does for you.

2\. Companies will and should respond to changing market conditions. Those
changes sometimes mean that whole roles disappear, and employees who want to
perform those roles can and should go elsewhere. A romantic relationship is
hopefully based on qualities more fundamental than "what professional role do
I want to occupy?"

3\. If a company refuses to make hard choices about employment and market
positioning, the market makes it for them, with the result that _everybody_ is
hunting for a new job.

~~~
tjradcliffe
Company/employee relations are well-modeled by marriage between a mortal human
and an immortal sociopath.

The Ancient Greeks had a fairly extensive literature on such relationships,
which tended not to end well for the human, even when the human is
exceptional. The gods... err... corporations can always behave irrationally,
so even "irreplaceable" people can get dumped.

------
patio11
This model of employment exists. In Japan we call them "salarymen", in America
"tenured professors" or "civil servants" or (in much of the country) "tenured
schoolteachers." The model heavily distorts expectations about work (for those
in the model and out of it), life, culture, etc. It _is not an accident_ that
your workplace will frequently be involved in the decision of who you
_actually_ , not metaphorically, marry.

If your life experience does not include enough warning flags for the
potential negative consequences of this model on the firm, on its
non-"married" workers, on its "married" workers, on its workers' families, on
its customers, and on the wider society, flag me down two weeks from now and I
will go into them at substantial length.

------
jasode
This article is terrible.

>Some companies today and many companies of yesteryear had a different
relationship with their team members: that of the husband / wife level of
commitment.

The relationship was more like _parent & child_ than that of husband & wife.
That's what it was with the 1950s automotive companies and Japanese
corporations decades ago. The common adjective when discussing those companies
was "paternalistic" and not "spousal".

The author should research the rigid labor situation in France and see how
it's handicapping their economic growth. They don't have the political will to
push through labor reforms and their young workers face 25% unemployment
rates.

A husband+wife employment model in America would weaken instead of strengthen
its economic power.

~~~
joelx
Very good point about the parent-child relationship vs the spousal
relationship... I thought of the husband-wife metaphor today and liked it so I
wrote an article on it. I will consider your idea further to see if my idea
needs updating.

------
dnissley
This is the "Loser" deal according to the Gervais Principle[1]:

"[The Losers have] given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as
capitalists) for short-term economic stability."

It makes a certain amount of sense, but so do the other positions of the
"Clueless" or "Sociopaths". If you are ambitious, then the "Loser" deal is
clearly a bad one.

[1] - [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/)

~~~
nostrademons
I'd argue this is the "Clueless" deal in the Gervais model. Losers are fully
aware that they have struck a bad and unequal economic bargain with their
employer, they just don't care. They will happily go elsewhere if a better
bargain comes along.

It's the Clueless who believe that their loyalty to their employer is matched
by their employer's loyalty to them (hence, "clueless"). They're the ones who
stick with the firm, rise into middle management, diligently play the company
line, and then get abruptly disillusioned when the firm institutes mass
layoffs.

~~~
fleitz
Yeah no shit, if you get fired and get to keep 50% of the stock, it might be a
marriage.

Otherwise it's just delusional. My labour goes to the highest bidder.

------
nilkn
I'll admit I haven't read the full article. However, this did stand out to me:

> So why would they want to be exclusive? Mostly because they want their
> significant other to be committed and not leave them whenever the
> significant other has a better option.

Realistically, I think it probably is true, sadly, that many people might see
committed relationships this way. And if it is true, I would take that as at
least a partial explanation for why the divorce rate is so high.

This is totally anecdotal, but from my observations, the marriages I've seen
and known that have succeeded the best were not based on a trading of
commitments, at least not in this very game theoretic sense. They were based
on actual, legitimate love, and that's all there is to it. Love doesn't mean
you can't be attracted (even very attracted) to someone else, but it means
that any such attraction pales in comparison to the companionship you share
with the one you love.

------
Mz
_So why would they want to be exclusive? Mostly because they want their
significant other to be committed and not leave them whenever the significant
other has a better option._

Uh, no. Monogamy is rooted in, basically, the following issues:

1) Germ control. You can get deadly diseases by sleeping around casually.

2) Sex leads to babies and human babies do best with two parents. It is a big
burden and our species is designed to do the two parent thing.

3) It takes 15-20 hours a week to build and maintain real intimacy. There
simply isn't enough time in the week to have lots of different genuinely
intimate lovers. The math suggests that most people can sustain no more than
two genuinely intimate sexual relationships.

~~~
fleitz
You're trying to justify the dominant social mode rather than trying to
discover arrangements that make people fulfilled.

Marriage stats suggest that humans aren't at all monogamous, most marriages
end in divorce, and most people cheat.

------
opendais
This article is terrible. Companies are not loyal to their employees and
pretending otherwise is truly deluding yourselves.

People in a marriage, in theory, should remain loyal for life.

~~~
joelx
I agree most companies are not loyal. It would need to be a 2 way relationship
led by ownership (not really possible for publicly held companies, but can
work for small wholly owned companies like mine). Perhaps it should even
include some sort of legal contract...

Good point though for most large companies.

~~~
opendais
Joel,

I think that sort of relationship should really only existing for a few types
of government jobs to block regulatory capture [if you have a job for life
with good pay and retirement...the only way to lose it is to be caught being
bribed] and teaching [which politics might meddle with].

Please don't take my comment personally. I watched people who were loyal for
10+ years get laid off recently and it kind of has made me angry about the
idea of that kind of loyalty to a legal fiction.

------
GeneralMayhem
Even if it were better for the employee to be married to their job (which is
doubtful - see: the many articles telling us that the best way to get a raise
is to negotiate your new starting salary), I worry that this post could be
taken to mean that you should be loyal to your company in the current real
world. Your employer does not want to marry you, and will in fact drop you as
soon as something better comes along. If you're the only one acting as if it's
a long-term thing, you're the sucker.

~~~
joelx
Agreed... you would need to strike some sort of a deal directly with
ownership, which is impossible for most public companies. Good point!

------
sebastianconcpt
That's really a confusing thing in many ways.

"The company can be sure that that person will show up each day and do their
best to do good work." <\- no, the company managers can feel they're getting
the best they can get. Not the same thing at all (it's all about perception).

Sorry I'm too tired to refute the rest of the confusion but to leave something
of value to think about: the way our brains operate have optimised us to think
about people. Disney make some objects like creatures because is easy for kids
to pick up on anthropomorphised objects.

There might be something of value to research in the antropomorphisation of
the company-employee relationship but my radar says it's easily going to end
up hacking unaware or unpowered humans into company drones.

Watch this: [http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-
corporation/](http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-corporation/)

~~~
joelx
I agree; this concept if applied to a company that did not (or legally could
not) operate this way would lead to the detriment of the employee. By the same
token, the concept if misapplied by a company to employees would lead the
company to fail. It needs a bit of an enlightened team to work properly.

------
carsongross
_Basically it’s a trading of commitments: Each person says to the other, “I
want to avoid the awful risk of being painfully dumped for someone else, so I
will make a commitment to you to not leave as long as you do your part even if
someone else that might be better comes along.”_

From Dante to this.

"Progress"

------
kkartik
This makes no sense to me. A marriage is premised on a lifetime commitment.
Even with a 50% divorce rate, you are talking about 2 marriages in a lifetime,
outliers are 3.

Most people stay in jobs for an average of a few years. It is dating as best.

Seems like a very contrived argument with no particular value derived from
this analogy, apart from in fact, not making sense.

------
lauradhamilton
Almost all the comments here are saying that this article is terrible, yet
it's at the top of the front page. Huh.

~~~
Kluny
It got under people's skin - good troll! Bad argument though.

------
piyushpr134
One of the most stupid things I have ever read on this side of the screen

~~~
tjradcliffe
While I don't disagree, I'm deeply interested in knowing how often you read
things from the _other_ side of the screen...

------
mmcconnell1618
So vesting periods for options are a prenuptial agreement? Stay for a few
years if you want to leave with anything.

~~~
joelx
Haha... and golden parachutes are alimony!

