to want to take further action?

[jimper]

Our email system at work has an instant chat function. I work in an office with 3 other women, I am the line manager. Today, two of the other girls and I were in there, I had arrived late due to a docs appointment and was really busy with a surprise deadline when I got an instant chat message from one of the girls saying basically along the lines of 'you were right jimper is being mean to me, she is obviously just really hormonal and only ever thinks of herself'...(maybe the hormonal thing is because I am pregnant). THe other girl left the room at that time and I confronted my colleague about the message, but didn't really have time to talk it out and just left it kind of hanging.

I really want to pursue this, maybe even with the other girl (who must have been involved in the conversation at some point) but DH says I am being hormonal (!) and should just leave it as they are entitled to their chat....?

Eh? Sorry I have no idea what that means:

'you were right jimper is being mean to me, she is obviously just really hormonal and only ever thinks of herself'..

Are you the "you/jimper" or the "she"? And what's a jimper?

If you are the manager, you have to accept that a certain amount of talking about you will go on behind your back. Your dh is right, they are entitlied to their chat. They are probably mortified.

My boss has actually mentioned that she knows the rest of her staff need time to talk about her, there are only 6 of us, and I thought that was very perceptive and understanding of her.

If you do anything you should talk to them and explain why you are being a bit 'mean' in their eyes, and try to be more approachable.

Oops I just realised jimper is your MN name.. I read it as "you were a right jimper".

Was the IM sent to you by mistake then?

tbh take it as a hint - perhaps you are being a nightmare!

YABU - sorry to say. They would say this sort of thing round the water cooler and you would be none the wiser. I do sympathise though. Just revel in the fact that they are cringing with embarrassment - in fact it will probably bother them that they were caught red handed for a long time after you have forgottten about it. Chin up...

Pursue it but subtly... You could have some fun making her squirm!

I have to disagree. Staff can talk about a manager's actions and decisions etc but no-one in a workplace can call someone else names or describe them as mean/hormonal/whatever without justifying those comments.

Could you speak to the person who wrote the message or all the team, maybe at a team meeting if you have those, asking if anyone has any concerns and saying that you're available for private chats if there's anything they are concerned about. Be the professional one and set a good example. It sounds like the team need it

I would also suggest that they shouldn't be using the firm's IM system to gossip. I know you're not going to be able to stop that completely but I wonder what your IT code says about it?

As someone who has on occasion been known to talk behind someones back, then I wouldn't pursue it any further.

Completely pointless anyway, they wouldn't stop, just be more careful about it.

I would however take the utmost pleasure in their discomfort :o that was an epic fail on their part

Did the "surprise deadline" involve delegating some tasks to them ?

Have a chat. She must have provided some explanation of why she thought you were mean.

I really do know that I should let it go and that I am not perfect (far from it!). The explanation she gave was that I hadn't really chatted to them that day and hadn't answered her when she asked about my docs appointment.

Our office is really informal, I guess I am a little sad because I did alot to secure this girl a promotion and have spoken up for her many times.

I am pretty sure that tomorrow morning I will take the moral high ground - but it is a blow to the pride tough to take!

Thanks for the feedback :)