Out at Work as Poly [Me]

I have taken a semi-irrevocable step. My company has a Holiday Party coming up soon, and we were requested to RSVP along with the name of our significant other if they will be joining us at the party. I requested that I be allowed to RSVP for three, and included the names of both of my partners, Boss and my metamour both. That was several days ago.

Today I got called into the HR manager's office. The RSVP was forwarded to him to deal with. Now, his great concern was that, should I bring two significant others to a party, I would certainly be outed to everyone at work. And people will talk, as they do. I reassured him that I had spoken openly about being poly with several people that work with me already, as it had come up in conversation. And that I am comfortable being openly who and what I am. So now he gets to discuss with the executive team what the company policy might be for attendance at company events. Is it 'employee and significant other(s)', or 'employee and one guest'? He'll get back with me.

The largest concern we, as a family, have with this is not that I am being open about being polyamorous at work. I have few concerns there. The bigger concern is that Boss has applied for a couple of jobs there, and this could color their decision on whether or not to hire him. I've spoken with Boss about it before, though, knowing that it would mean he would be openly poly if he got hired there. Though of course there is concern around the uncertainty of how that might affect his work life, should he get hired, I think we found some comfort in the fact that it doesn't seem to have affected my treatment here at work at all.

The other issue with this is that the company has never had both parts of a couple working for the company before, either. The jobs he is applying for would not put us in the same chain of command, so I don't really see that being an issue. But either way, HR has to talk to the execs about me and decide what company policies are before they deal with his application to work here. So the Holiday Party thing might be jump-starting that a little bit.