In trouble at work

[Dottiemay]

There's been Teams interviews for a junior role at work. The interviews include an on the day task for the first half an hour of the interview. I'm not on the panel but my manager asked me to join the call at the start of the interview alone to introduce the task and say the panel will join the call in half an hour and will ask you to introduce the task. All fine. I did six interviews this week and I was on the call for max two minutes to introduce the task then left. The last interviewee had been scheduled at school pick up time. I'd asked around to see if someone could pick up my kid from school but couldn't. So I asked the school - where I've been a governor for many years - if I could come early to use the meeting room to jump on this call for a couple of minutes. That way I'd be at the school for pick up. The head said yes, no issues. When I got to the school, the head was away at a meeting and hadn't told the deputy, and the meeting room was being used for a safeguarding meeting. They offered me the school reception area but it was full of parents wanting to speak to staff. As I didnt have time to drive back home, I jumped in the car and blurred the background. Introduced the task and then left - took a minute or two. The candidate then sent my manager a screenshot of me on the call clearly in the car. My manager has now raised it with me and said we'll have to chat on Monday about it. I'm shitting myself. They know I'm a single parent. I start work at 7.00 and work through my lunch break to get an earlier finish so I don't think I've done anything wrong and who cares if the background was a car. But I feel like I'm in a lot of trouble. Do you think I've done something terrible?

And people wonder why there a call to go back to the office.

Ideal opportunity for the manager to tell the candidate about your company's family friendly flexible working policies. And then say what a shame the candidate clearly doesn't share that ethos and won't be getting a job offer...

The fact he took a screenshot speaks volumes. I have to ask for consent before taking any screenshots at interviews. It really isn’t a normal thing to do.

I attended an interview once (which I had to travel across the country for). They had forgotten I was coming, I had to sit in a waiting area for an hour where there was building work going on, they then had to scrabble an interview panel together and after the interview, told me there was a second interview the following day. I had not been advised of this so queried it with them. They made various calls to HR, realised there had been a cock up, and then scrabbled a second interview panel together so it could go ahead that day. The whole process was a bit of a disaster and they seemed incredibly disorganised but I didn’t complain. I was a bit perplexed by it all but the interviews (eventually) went ahead so there was nothing to complain about! For all I knew it might have been a way to assess how I responded to chaos!

You did nothing wrong OP. The interviewee is a dick and I would say that whether they were male or female.

What do you think his motivation might have been if not to complain?

Are there data protection issues in taking screenshots of interviewers?

I think the point is we don't know the candidate is the one to have sent it. The OP is assuming this.

If the candidate was supposedly doing the task, I wonder if it was someone else from the work place also in the call who noticed this. Surely the task wouldn't leave the candidate on the call alone for 30 mins, I imagine the task is recorded and watched.

As someone else pointed out, if OP knew they weren't doing anything wrong (school run) why didn't they just say to their employer that the timing wasn't ok for them? They were ok to supposedly ask the school to use a meeting room, so why couldn't they actually talk to their own manager about the unsuitable time of the interview. To me it sounds strange them going to school and asking to use an office.

But that does not explain why the candidate took a screenshot in the first place (half an hour before he met the interview panel).

He wouldn't have known at the time of his two minute call with OP that the panel were going to ask for a screenshot.

If he thought, "how wonderfully flexible this company is" usual practice in an interview is to use his words; he didn't need a screenshot to make that point.

My thoughts are that some people (overwhelmingly male) want to be able to track down the people (overwhelmingly female) they see as responsible in the event that they do not get what they want - such as a job - so they take screenshots to then search for them online/find where they live and their families.

It's very concerning this candidate has done this.

I don’t know that platform but can it be set to record a whole session? Then they may have been doing to review their performance.

As far as I know though usually host has that permission. If it was available to the candidate then maybe it was sent if he thought he did badly.
(of course that has data protection implications)

You can record a whole meeting with Teams, and you don't have to be the host but it does notify everyone that it's being recorded so OP would have known. I think it's more likely he took a screenshot.

It may not so much be doing it in the car but clearly doing it out and about.

Dh's company is pretty relaxed in a lot of ways but if he's doing an interview he makes sure we know so we don't walk past (the study has the side door which we use most of the time as it's onto the driveway).
I think it's more about keeping the candidate at ease and not having unnecessary distractions, because he has a background on (his current one looks like he's in the hallway of a stately house 🤣. Nothing like ours!)

But also when he's doing an interview, even when he's just setting a task, then there's always at least another person watching with him in case the candidate raises concerns afterwards, and they normally review interviews afterwards, especially if they've gone particularly well or badly.
So I'd suspect the OP probably was marked by the other person rather than the candidate.

I can't imagine interviewing for a job and my first thought being I must complain about one of the panel, who was online for 1 minute, as soon as panel member left.
Maybe post interview feedback after I'd heard back from them if I thought it was really unprofessional and even then only if I could be bothered (which I wouldn't)..
What a dick 😅

I hope that candidate doesn't get the position, what are they going to be like once they're working there?! I would point that out to the manager. You did what you had to do to get the job done and showed willing and creativity. This person wants to waste the manager's time causing problems between staff? Red flag.

I had a colleague who was slightly senior but not my manager, who threw me under a bus for something really innocent, and I got in a lot of trouble [yes it really, really was innocent and my own manager had OK'd it]. The colleague was trying to score points. It was awful and I cried my eyes out. These people are nasty. It didn't help me but both of them were sacked for other things before the year was out.

“The WiFi in my house went down, and I needed to go and find a hot spot”

I had to work from Tesco once, during a power-cut at home.

@MargaretThursday raises an interesting point, OP. I think someone earlier in the thread may have suggested this, also.

How did they know it was in a car? That sort of petty behaviour would reflect badly on them, can't understand why they would do this, unless didn't get the job and retaliation?

You tried your best, not ideal to do it in a school or car really but as a one off what's the problem? Your manager knows you aren't available for work at these times of the day so may have just forgotten.

Oh and DH often has meetings from his car while in the road, a part of the job.

Explain everything to your manager, just as you did on here. Point out you thought ahead to use a meeting room and the fact it was in use was out of your control. You made the decision to take the call in your car as ultimately that was more private than a school reception area. You were not late to the meeting and introduced the task to the candidate as requested.

If i was your manager, I'd be very understanding. The candidate however... I'd move them down the list 🤭

I’d agree with this advice. If I was your manager, I’d be understanding of what you did in order to complete your commitment. I would feel concerned that you felt you couldn’t let me know in advance that it would be difficult for you. Maybe it’s an opportunity to be open with your manager about your worries about how you’re perceived too.
Some of my best team members have been single parents, who can manage their time super well! Good luck.

What a snitch - definitely not going to be a team player 😉

OP would also have known who else was on the call. I conduct my hearings in teams and it tells you who is on the call and if someone else joins so assuming that it was just the two of them, it was definitely him.

The candidate did what?

No you didn’t do nothing wrong, just explained what you told us. It will be fine.

Good luck 🌺

Hopefully it's helped the hiring managers to narrow down the candidates a bit - ie not the busy body snitch, thanks 😂

You did nothing wrong, OP.

I sincerely hope, with some of your comments, that you don't actually manage anyone and are just a bit of "one of those types".

No wonder people have so many mental health problems with this sort of judgement around!

The more I read comments and everyone saying you nothing wrong to the OP, I am still wondering why they are so worried.

I still don't get why they had time to speak to school and the headteacher (who in many schools are usually busy people to get hold of plus it's rather odd anyway to ask to use a room at school for work purposes) to supposedly arrange a room to do the intro in rather than speak to their own manager to explain they couldn't get the school run covered and would be unavailable at the set time of the interview. Their manager supposedly knows they do the school run on certain days, so not entirely sure why the OP didn't raise that when asked to do this interview.
This is what sounds dodgy to me. I think the OP may have been caught out on the school run when they shouldn't have been and I am still doubtful it's the candidate, though everyone has typically jumped on them being at fault.