That, that was too much for me. I've worked at places with bad culture (nothing even close to the article) and I can attest to how bad it can spillover and ruin the rest of your life.
This is yet another example of why you should never mix business and pleasure. Starting a business with your significant other, from a risk perspective, is simply a bad idea. While she was dating him, Ms. Wolfe probably thought Mr. Mateen was the greatest guy ever. She probably saw the opportunity to start a company with him as life-changing.
There is no way to predict how your significant other will handle a breakup. Any breakup is emotionally wrecking, and seeing each other every day only makes it worse for everybody. I do not envy either of them.
Mr. Mateen's behavior is deplorable, but not exactly surprising. There are only a few ways to handle a breakup. Some are positive, some are negative, but this behavior is definitely on the list of possibilities. Ms. Wolfe should have recognized that risk when she went into business with her boyfriend.
In normal circumstances, she could just ignore him and he would (hopefully) cool off. But obviously she can't do that when she works closely with him.
When she began dating Mr. Mateen, there was a risk she would break up with him, and a subsequent risk he would act insane because of it. When she went into business with Mr. Mateen, she lost her options of mitigating that risk sacrificing her ability to ignore him in the event of emotional catastrophe.
This sucks for everybody involved, but especially for her.
This smacks of blaming Ms. Wolfe for starting a company with her significant other. Mr. Mateen also started a company with his significant other.
As shown by the first Ms. Wolfe was able to handle separating her breakup from her duties at work. She went into starting the company knowing she would be able to handle remaining professional at work if the relationship ended.
Mr. Mateen went into founding a company with his significant other and was clearly unable to handle separating the company from his relationship. This falls squarely on his shoulders.
Plenty of successful companies are built up around relationships. Plenty of companies survive their founders ending their relationship. While it is painful, they most frequently are able to work things out by being civil and being able to separate their relationship from their business. This all falls on Mr. Mateen's shoulders for not being able to separate the two.
If he's the one who can't handle the breakup then shouldn't he be the one to leave? The knee-jerk assumption that _she_ should leave is an example of the implicit sexism that sucks about our industry.
[+] [-] x86_64Ubuntu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarioSpeedwagon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] platelets|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chatmasta|11 years ago|reply
There is no way to predict how your significant other will handle a breakup. Any breakup is emotionally wrecking, and seeing each other every day only makes it worse for everybody. I do not envy either of them.
Mr. Mateen's behavior is deplorable, but not exactly surprising. There are only a few ways to handle a breakup. Some are positive, some are negative, but this behavior is definitely on the list of possibilities. Ms. Wolfe should have recognized that risk when she went into business with her boyfriend.
In normal circumstances, she could just ignore him and he would (hopefully) cool off. But obviously she can't do that when she works closely with him.
When she began dating Mr. Mateen, there was a risk she would break up with him, and a subsequent risk he would act insane because of it. When she went into business with Mr. Mateen, she lost her options of mitigating that risk sacrificing her ability to ignore him in the event of emotional catastrophe.
This sucks for everybody involved, but especially for her.
This guy seems like a real piece of shit.
[+] [-] cowsandmilk|11 years ago|reply
As shown by the first Ms. Wolfe was able to handle separating her breakup from her duties at work. She went into starting the company knowing she would be able to handle remaining professional at work if the relationship ended.
Mr. Mateen went into founding a company with his significant other and was clearly unable to handle separating the company from his relationship. This falls squarely on his shoulders.
Plenty of successful companies are built up around relationships. Plenty of companies survive their founders ending their relationship. While it is painful, they most frequently are able to work things out by being civil and being able to separate their relationship from their business. This all falls on Mr. Mateen's shoulders for not being able to separate the two.
[+] [-] drags|11 years ago|reply