Work romance: Man comes up with his love story after McDonald's fired it's CEO for falling in love with a staff

Australian businessman Gary Lyon still thinks it was "bizarre" that he lost his senior management job for dating a junior colleague.

But it all turned out for the best in the end - he has been married to Tamra for 12 years and they have an 11-year-old daughter, Charlotte.

Now Mr Lyon and his wife have their own company in Brisbane and he says he would be perfectly happy if two of his employees fell in love.

"It wouldn't bother me in the slightest," he says, "as long as it didn't affect their work."


Mr Lyon contacted the BBC after reading that McDonald's had fired its chief executive Steve Easterbrook after he had a relationship with an employee.

The US fast food giant said the relationship was consensual, but Mr Easterbrook had "violated company policy" and shown "poor judgement".

The issue has shed light on the difficulties that staff can face if they find romance at work, especially if one is more senior than the other.

In Mr Lyon's case, he was an operations manager at a firm making doors and windows. He met the future Mrs Lyon when she joined his team as a project co-ordinator. After three or four months, they got together at an office function.

"I always liked her and she made it known that she liked me as well," he said. "It went from there."

At the time, he was 41 and she was 14 years younger. They initially kept the relationship secret, but eventually made it known that they were an item.

"You don't believe it's an issue for other people, but it transpires that it is, and you don't see why, because it doesn't impact your work," he says.

"You spend a lot of time with people at work, so you get to know them quite well."

After the couple had been seeing each other for about three months, he was called in and, as he puts it: "Then the hammer dropped."

He lost his job, but she kept hers. "She was pretty upset, but there's not much you can do. You've just got to keep going."

Mr Lyon says there was no clear workplace code in place about dating colleagues. He describes the decision as "very arbitrary" and says it represents "a very archaic view of the world".

"Should managers be banned from dating subordinates? Not if it is consensual," he says.

"You can't choose where you find love, so why penalise both parties by firing one of them?"