“my screen share showed an inappropriate tab during a meeting, my boss’s son is a reckless driver, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

my screen share showed an inappropriate tab during a meeting, my boss’s son is a reckless driver, and more
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my screen share showed an inappropriate tab during a meeting, my boss’s son is a reckless driver, and more

Posted: 15 Aug 2018 09:03 PM PDT

It's five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My screen share showed an inappropriate browser tab during a meeting

In my role as project manager for my company, I frequently lead status or check-in meetings. We do these over video conference, and lately I’ve been sharing my screen to review the to-do list and ensure the notes that I capture are accurate. I have dual monitors so I normally pull whatever I need to share over to one side and show just that monitor.

Today I was sharing my screen during a weekly meeting with a large group (nine people). I’m working remotely so I just shared my whole screen (with the focus on a Confluence page in my browser). I realized about 20 minutes into the meeting that I had a few other tabs in the given window, one of which had the headline “What to do with nudes…” (the other tab open was AAM, lol). The site was actually an advice column, but obviously my coworkers have no idea of knowing that. As soon as I realized, I seamlessly moved the tab I needed to share into a new window (at least I think I was pretty smooth).

How bad is this? I feel like the best route may have been to make a quick comment/joke as I noticed it, but the moment has passed. My coworkers are not great about actually looking at my screen share, and often when they ask questions I have to ask them to look at what I’m sharing. Should I mention it in my follow-up email with meeting notes? Should I say something to my manager in case someone says something to her? I have pretty good relationships with most of the people on the call and I’d like to think one of them would have pointed it out to me if they noticed before I did. But I’m feeling pretty embarrassed right now so not sure the right way to handle this.

Oh noooooo. I would be mortified by this too. Personally, when I'm embarrassed by something like this, I find I feel much better if I just plunge in and address whatever the awkward thing was, even if doing that means a second potentially awkward moment. So in your shoes, when I sent out those notes, I'd just include a jokey mention of it at the start of the email — like "I realized after our call that one of the tabs on my screen during my screen-sharing seemed potentially risque; let me assure you it was just an advice column!" (Was it by chance last week's Dear Prudence, which would fit your description? In that case, I might even just call it "an article in Slate," thus emphasizing its mainstreaminess even more.) Nine people isn't a huge group to say that to, and I think you can get away with it in a way that would be harder if the group was hundreds.

There are a lot of people, though, who would say to just ignore the whole thing, arguing that addressing it this way would make too big a deal of it. And they may well be right — but personally I'd still rather address it so I didn't have it sitting around in my head embarrassing me.

2. How can I tell my team that now that we're fully staffed, I’m not going to be as relaxed about errors?

My team has been understaffed for quite some time (six months-ish), and everyone has been carrying more than their fair share of the burden during that time. I am extremely appreciative of my team and regularly tell them how grateful I am that they’ve all stepped up to help out.

During this time of overburden, there have been errors and things have slipped through the cracks. I’ve been extremely lenient because of the volume of work the team is handling, and figured errors are to be expected. However, workload aside, I also know that some of these errors could have been avoided with more careful attention to detail and better organization/planning on their part. I have addressed these issues as they have come up, but no more than bringing to their attention and then essentially letting it slide because of their stress levels; I have felt that it’s not reasonable to expect near-perfection when they’re overall being so helpful. I’m still debating with myself about whether or not this was the right approach.

Regardless, we are now FINALLY fully staffed which is absolutely glorious, and within a couple of weeks the orientation of new staff members will be complete and we’ll be able to move forward with reasonable workloads. I want to make my team aware that I’ve been understanding about errors in the past and still very much appreciate the work they put in to tide us over when we were down headcount, but now that we’re fully staffed, we need to make improvements going forward and I won’t be as lenient with the same types of errors. In the future, when issues do come up, I’ll also need to be more firm with them than I have been to ensure corrections are put into place.

Do you have any recommendations on how to communicate this without making them feel underappreciated or seeming like chill manager turned Jekyll and Hyde?

Be straightforward about it, but also don't expect them to be able to flip the switch into this new mode overnight. Stress is cumulative, and there probably needs to be a buffer period where they can decompress from the past six months of stress. In fact, I'd explicitly say that so they know you get it and also, if you can, encourage them to take some vacation time soon to assist that decompression.

You could thank people for going above and beyond for the past six months and then say something like, "In recognition of how much everyone was shouldering in the last few months, I relaxed our standards a bit on things like X and Y. Now that we're fully staffed, I want us to return to our previous standards — meaning (insert details here). But before that happens, I think we all need a period to decompress! So let's take the next few weeks to try to do that first. If your plate still seems very full, come talk to me and we'll figure out how to redistribute things. And I hope you'll consider talking some vacation days soon, even if it's just a few long weekends. If there's something else you need to help you move out of stressed, overworked mode, let's talk about it!”

That's enough to start. And then, after this period of a few weeks, if you do still see someone making too many errors, you can address that with them one-on-one.

3. My boss's son is a reckless driver and I don't want to hear about it anymore

My boss’s adult son has wrecked his car three times in the last year. His first accident, he hit a public bus that contained a lady on the way to the hospital! He just recently had his third accident (backed out really fast in a suburban neighborhood without looking and totalled his car). My boss whined about the expense of fixing the car but is giving it back to his adult son anyway.

I just started this job, but I am losing my composure over this situation. It’s only a matter of time before his adult son kills someone and I’m pretty sure my boss will just blame them for dying.

My boss already knows how I feel about his adult son’s driving. At this point, I just don’t want to hear about it anymore. Is there a way I can get my boss to stop telling me about his horrible, no-good, legally-culpable brat? You know, tactfully?

"Can I ask you a favor? It stresses me out to hear about Fergus's driving — it really sounds like something serious could happen. There's obviously nothing I can do about it, but would you mind not telling me about it? It really upsets me to hear."

4. I had to cancel an interview because of illness–will they ask me back?

Early this morning I had to cancel an interview for a job I really want because (please excuse the TMI) overnight the excessive uterine bleeding that began last week and I am trying to control with medication reasserted itself vigorously at 3 a.m. Not only was I unable to sleep the rest of the night, but I became afraid for my immediate health and knew that there was no way I could show up for an interview where I would be meeting with six different people and be at my best mentally or physically. Just to get to the interview would have entailed a long commute by train.

I sent an early morning email to the contact person and said I needed to postpone due to a medical issue that cropped up overnight, could I please reschedule, and to please give my apologies to the people I was to meet. I received a reply thanking me for letting her know and that she would check with the search committee and their schedules.

Should I follow up in a day or so to ask if there is another interview time available? Have I seriously damaged my chances at an interview even though the circumstances were not under my control? How might I repair the situation? I also want to add that the night before the interview I sent another, prior email regarding clarification about the commute time and where I was to meet the contact person, so they would know I had every intent to keep the appointment.

Yes, follow up in a day or so to make sure this stays on their radar and see if you can get a new time nailed down.

As for how it might affect your chances … People get sick and have medical emergencies! Interviewers know that. If these are people you want to work for, they're not going to decide you're a flake and thus not interview you. But it is possible that this could mess with their interviewing timeline enough that it's legitimately hard to reschedule. Ideally that wouldn't happen, but if, for example, some of their interviewers are in from out of town for this or otherwise have difficult schedules, and if they have other strong candidates, it's possible that they might end up concluding it can't easily work out this time. That obviously sucks because this is in no way your fault, but sometimes the timing just ends up not working. Hopefully that won't be how it plays out though! It's more likely that they'll be able to get you rescheduled.

5. Should I tell my manager about my bulimia?

I’m currently a manager with about 20 people as reports across two different teams. I’ve had a quick rise through my organization and am in line to take on another eight reports on yet another team.

I’m also bulimic. I have been for a very long time, and I have gone through periods of recovery and relapse. I have been having a hard time for a few years now. Not only is it a terrible strain mentally, physically I am suffering terribly and am in almost constant pain. Last year I took medical leave to attend treatment. I also have had to spend a week in a hospital two years ago. Now it looks like I will have to take medical leave again.

I am contemplating talking to my boss, and telling her what the problem is. One of the reasons is that I really don’t know how long I will be out of the office, and that’s hard for someone who doesn’t know the details to understand. I guess a part of me too would just be relieved to have the truth out so that things (appointments, the day I passed out in my office) make more sense. I am very sick, but I rarely miss work, get everything done, and have great performance reviews. I seem happy, relate well to my team and others and am well respected for my skills. I actually could be doing a MUCH better job without this problem, but because I’m above average, I don’t think it’s noticeable. My fear though is that any issues I have will be attributed to my bulimia, and it will hurt me professionally. It might put doubts into my boss’s head that I can’t handle my position. Or, she will just think I am a disgusting person. I have a good relationship with her, but sometimes she is really hard to read and a bit unpredictable, and I have no idea how she feels about mental illness. I’m certain that she would keep this a secret, but I am just torn. I dread telling her I have to be out again on leave. I really want to clear the air with her, but I have so many fears about the consequences. Any thoughts on how I should approach this?

I've love to live in a society where you could be completely open about this without worrying about repercussions, but the reality is that we don't — and that you're right that she may begin seeing everything you do through that lens or holding you back in ways that she wouldn't otherwise. (Also, even if your boss is great and this doesn't happen, there's a risk that she'll share the info with someone else who will handle it in ways you don't want — not because she'd deliberately seek to violate your privacy, but because she could think it's relevant info to, say, HR or another manager.)

But it's also true that feeling like you have to keep quiet about what's going on can contribute to feelings of shame or stigma that you shouldn't have to struggle with. So I'd try reframing it in your mind to this: Ultimately no one at your company needs the details of any medical conditions, and there are lots that people prefer to keep private. You're keeping this private not out of shame, but because medical details in general are private, and you're sharing what they need to know, which is what kind of leave or other accommodations you need from them. Good luck!

She has one tiny thing that I think holds her back: she talks about her children A LOT. Like, when she had to be out of the office, she sent an email to the whole group saying "I have to attend my child's Playcenter today. It's not like other child care. Parents have to be involved and commit to the Playcenter Way. We explore children's abilities through play and teach how to uphold core values. I'll be back in the office on Monday.” This got my eyebrows raised. I heard someone in another team joking about Lizzie's email – about how earnest and self-important it sounded and how she might have been better to simply say "I'm out of the office and will be back on Monday.”

Another example: all three of her children are "gifted." She manages to work it into conversation often enough that our team has a good-natured bingo about it. Like rather than saying "I need to leave by 2:30 to get the kids from school," she will say "I need to leave by 2:30 to get the kids from Mind Plus. They love the extra extension it gives them beyond the normal curriculum.” BINGO!. She's also a very doctrinaire parent — no screens ever, no sugar, only wooden toys, and her children have a full-time nanny. In Lizzie's view, childcare centers are a distant second-best. But she and her husband are both on hefty salaries. Most of us can't afford a nanny even if we preferred it.

At least one of our team is dealing with infertility. Those of us who have kids are a bit weary of having our parenting choices disapproved of.

About two months ago, her performance review came due. Her manager, Beatrice, asked our team for confidential feedback about Lizzie.

After talking with my colleague (the other second-in-command), I had a quick chat with Beatrice. I stressed how great Lizzie is as a manager and all her good points. I said there was one tiny thing she could change, and that I wouldn't bother raising it with any other manager, but since I know Lizzie genuinely wants to improve her soft skills and really welcomes insights, I thought it is worth it. I said that we all love our own kids and think they are beautiful and talented — and that Lizzie mentioning her children so much can be a bit tough on staff managing infertility. I said that I'd love Lizzie to be aware that people choose different kinds of care for different reasons and it's good to respect those choices. Beatrice "got” it. She said it's no different than if you're a senior manager with a car package, you don't go complaining to junior staff about the size of your private carpark. Beatrice said she agreed this was worth mentioning at performance review. She said "I agree, Lizzie would want to know this.”

Fast forward to now, it's been a month, and Lizzie is still bringing her children into every conversation. We had a team training and Lizzie talked about her kids' growth as her “fun fact about me.” Then she jumped up to show the presenter photos of the children on her phone. It honestly felt quite awkward.

Given what I know about Lizzie (very diligent about self-improvement), I think if it had been mentioned, she would have made an effort to change. I know that Beatrice has a history of being rather shy, and shy of conflict. She's extremely self-effacing. So I suspect that she chickened out of saying anything.

What do I do? Do I ask Beatrice if she managed to raise that issue? Do I approach Lizzie myself as though I never spoke to Beatrice, and raise it proactively (we have a high level of trust and a lot of respect for each other)? Do I walk away on the grounds that I tried my best through the proper channels?

This sounds … really off-putting. On top of the fact that it would be tiresome if she were talking about any topic this much, it also sounds like she's coming across as sanctimonious even if she doesn't mean to.

It would have been great if Beatrice had passed along the feedback, but since it sounds like she didn't — and, importantly, like she's so conflict-averse that she might water it down even if she did deliver the message — you might be better off raising it on your own.

To be clear, if you didn't have a strong relationship with Lizzie, I wouldn't suggest this.

You also have additional standing to mention it because you're her second-in-command and are aware that this is frustrating your team and (based on the bingo thing) harming her credibility and the amount of respect she commands. Part of being second-in-command is that you have a higher level of obligation to flag things that are impacting your team in ways your boss might not spot on her own.

You could say something like this: "Can I talk to you about something interpersonal that I've been noticing on the team that I think you might not be aware of? I'll warn you from the start, it's a little awkward, but I know you well enough to know you'd want to hear it. I've been hearing lately that there’s some frustration about how often you bring up your kids and your parenting choices. The way it's landing with people is making them feel like you're implicitly criticizing their own parenting choices, some of which are dictated by what they can afford on their salaries. And this much kid talk can be especially tough for people who are dealing with infertility. I don't think anyone wants you to stop mentioning your kids altogether — obviously they're a big part of any parent's life. I think people would just prefer you tone it down. I know you're someone who tries to be really aware of how you're affecting people and that you'd want to take this into consideration if you knew — and I figured it's something other people might never feel comfortable bringing to you."

Also — speaking of being second-in-command, you probably shouldn't be part of that bingo joke, no matter how tempting the provocation. That's the kind of thing that would sound tremendously undermining if Lizzie ever heard you were participating in it, and you're in a position where it's extra important to keep her trust.

That's not to say that this behavior doesn't warrant a bingo game. It's obnoxious and tone-deaf and it's inviting mockery —but given your position and your relationship with her, you’re better off speaking with her directly rather than privately mocking her.

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