I hate Valentine’s Day. Not only is it one of those fake, orchestrated annual “holidays” that are based on relentless marketing pressure designed to make you feel that you just have to spend money, but it is also fodder for PR people to tout mindless news “trends” that seem to be fabricated out of thin air.

All of us here at the Workforce Management world headquarters get inundated with press releases hyping faux problems surrounding love and relationships in the workplace, and they magically seem to become a big deal around February 14.

What I hate most about all of this, as I have noted here in the past, is that if you were to just focus on the Valentine’s Day hype, you would think this is a new, huge workplace problem.

It’s not, of course. Office romances have always been part of the equation in any workplace since the dawn of time, and there’s no evidence that the problem has gotten appreciably better or appreciably worse. Yes, sometimes office romances go bad, and dating your co-workers is still a bad idea, but really, has any of that changed appreciably this year?

You know the answer to that question. And this is the crux of why I hate Valentine’s Day—it’s all made up, from the holiday itself, to the marketing, to the over-the-top PR hype over fake workplace problems.

This is a year in which workers are losing their jobs in record numbers, the economy is in the toilet and furloughs and salary freezes are the order of the day. If there was ever a year that cried out for toning down the Valentine’s Day hype, this is it.

Will it happen? Of course not. Just like the Grinch eventually figured out that Christmas was going to come along despite his best efforts to stop it, I know that the silliness over fake Valentine’s Day workforce issues will continue to flow despite my Scrooge-like bitching about it.

So just as there is the annual Valentine’s Day hype, here is my annual Valentine’s Day rant. It may be a time for hearts and chocolates, but not for any special workforce-related romance problems. Never has been and never will.
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