An Office Romance

You, John French, are the deputy director of a state Department of Housing and Community Development. Donald Chicago is one of the division heads who reports to you. Donald has never been your favorite division lead; he does his job well enough, but nobody has ever seen him stay after five. Donald has been a quiet employee and does not socialize much. In fact, only a few of his colleagues have more than a passing acquaintance with him.

Things changed sharply for the worse about a year ago when Ginny Holden came on board after making a big splash in her first job out of graduate school. Ginny and Donald soon became a "hot item," so much so that you asked Donald to meet with you during December of last year. You told him of the rumors that you had heard. "Look Don," you told him then, "I believe that your personal life is your personal life. I try to stay out of these matters unless they affect the office. But you and Ginny Holden are sure making things hard for me."

In prepping for that meeting, you consulted Chicago's file, and it provided many details that you augment with Discreet inquiries here and there. Donald Chicago had been with Housing and Community Development for eight years-with housing assistance all that time, beginning as a branch chief in construction assistance and moving up deliberately. Now he has over 75 people reporting to him in several sections—construction assistance, rent supplements, rent subsidies, technical assistance in housing management, and the like. As far as anyone knows, Donald has a happy family life. He had pictures on his desk, showed up dutifully at office parties with his wife, and talked about her with affection. He lives in a nice neighborhood in the city rather than in the suburbs and sends his three children to public schools. He is 41 years old, holds an honorable discharge from the Air Force, attended the state university after military service, and has 16 years of progressively responsible community development experience-eight years in the department and, before that, eight years in two city governments.

Nobody had spoken ill of Donald until very recently. In fact, nobody had spoken much about him at all. The fact that he had no friends or enemies may have contributed to his steady rise in the agency. His is a department occasionally plagued by interpersonal rivalries among people on the way up.

Getting information about Ginny Holden was no problem. She is among everyone's favorite topics. She had been abroad for only a year, and already controversy had engulfed her. She is bright, no denying that. She had come to the technical-assistance program from the state's second largest city, which was in the western part of the state. There she had apparently energized a languishing housing-for-the-elderly program. The community-development director, the area's senior citizens, and the mayor had all written of her in glowing terms. She had made quite a splash for someone right out of graduate school. Her work in your agency reveals no shortcomings either. The first reports on her were very positive. Only after Ginny and Don got involved did any complaints surface. At first, you attributed the complaints to jealousy and rivalry. Capable, ambitious people usually occasion some hostility, especially if they are women. Even with all the gossip, no one dares assert that Ginny's work is other than the best in the division. The local officials love her too. It is Don who has the problem. And you, the deputy director.

Of course, Ginny might have been more discreet about it. When the affair began, about six months ago, Ginny would tell her co-workers: "Don't tell anybody else, but Don and I are, well, you know. I just never thought anything like this would happen to me!" At last that's what you learned through the grapevine. Having held Don's job yourself once, you have more than enough friends in the right places.

You told Donald during your December meeting last year what you heard. Donald said that he could not stop her talking, if she wanted to talk. Besides, he did not mind some attention for once in his life. You' tried to warn Donald that he has a lot to lose, far more that Ginny, who is more than 15 years his junior.

Gossip is not the problem for John French. The department has its share of "closed minds" or "good family people"—take your pick—particularly among the office staff. And they often get quietly offended. As long as the matter stays in house, that resentment is not a major factor.

But you begin to get an inquiry or two from the capitol building about Don's "fun and games." You guess that the office network has begun to latch on to this story.

The developing grapevine causes you concern. There could be some bad press for the department if the papers want to make something of this. Since the local communities compete vigorously for the department's attention, you want to be on top of anything that might inspire charges of favoritism. Could Donald be blackmailed? The department has its enemies too. Some politicians and some newspapers have never accepted the government's role in housing. Given the clientele and the nature of the programs, occasional scandal seems practically inevitable, but you see no sense in courting it! Donald has no constituency to defend himself, either. He is just a guy doing a job-no politics, no ethnic loyalty, and no programmatic cause. Your 41-year-old division chief, having one hell of an affair, has a clean if not distinguished record up to now.

The first specific item that worries you is a complaint that Ginny Holden is getting the best fieldwork assignments. She seems to get out into the state capital often. Ginny has even traveled to Washington twice, once with Don, as well as to the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regional office several times. Don says she is the most capable person to do the work he needed done. Others feel he could spread the travel around in the interest of office morale, with no loss to divisional effectiveness. There is a lot of grumbling when Ginny gets a small promotion and reclassification after only five months on the job. True, she was not working directly for Don, and you are not sure that Bill Hayes— her immediate supervisor—even knew about their affair. Hayes is not the most observant soul and is not cognizant about the situation.

Thus, the grapevine continues. Your agency is full of reasonably cosmopolitan people on the professional staff. There is a women's caucus, which grumbles about bad Ginny "sleeping her way to the top" while they also grumble about poor Ginny's exploitation. Similar sentiments can be heard among the men though the language has a gamier quality. The small gay caucus has even approached you quietly about Ginny and her friend.

Now in February you grow increasingly convinced that another meeting with Don is necessary and you have to take a far harder line. Things have become much worse since you last discussed Donald's personal life with him. What especially provokes this meeting is Don's work itself. You did not mind when he grew a moustache or took an occasional afternoon off. But now you hear that he does not return phone calls. A couple of quarterly reports have come in several days late. Semi-annual personnel evaluations from the division seem behind schedule. You have received two calls in the past two weeks from local community-development directors you know, each inquiring about the delays in Don's division.

You begin to wish that Don would simply walk in and say that he has decided to take a year off to study planning in southern France. You are not that lucky. Instead, Donald Chicago will walk into your office in five minutes with his usual blank smile and ask sincerely what he can do for you today.

INSTRUCTIONS AND QUESTIONS

1. What are the options facing you at this point? Presume that you must contend with a normal civil-service system.

2. Research the case law in this matter. Can Donald Chicago be fired if he "offends" agency or community standards?

3. This kind of meeting will not be enjoyable for any of the participants. Can present some psychological or group-dynamics theories that illuminate some of the reasons for discomfort in ways that will help you, as deputy director, keep attention on resolving this matter with the least harm to Donald and the department.

4. Is there something more general at issue here?