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?

I'd be raising the fact that a stranger had taken a screenshot of me on the call at all. Wtf.

Do you think this is better than telling the truth?

Maybe they took it to question why the setting? Maybe they didn't think the company would believe such a thing without proof?

Think of it the other way, you are waiting for an interview. The person to introduce it pops up and appears to be from their car. You find this kind of strange (maybe the job they are going for is office based) so they take a screen shot as they simply cannot believe what they are seeing and want to discuss their options for this flexibility.

There is also the possibility someone else was on the call who took the screenshot - the interview panel signed in early and saw?

Don’t lie. Always tell the truth. Lying might come back to bite you and it’ll make it even worse.

Candidate is awful. How dare they presume to know what arrangements you have in place with your employer. How do they know your employer wasn’t fine with this?

1. explain situation but not in a “making excuses” way. Explain did best you could given circumstances
2. suggest you manager that you would like to apologise to candidate and if you can have a second chance to get it right with candidate

AND 2.Ask manger for advice how you might have handled it better given the unexpected situation.

I don’t think you should be in trouble - if anything it makes th candidate look like an undermining prat who’s into powerplay. I’d just explain what you’d done to make things work okay. It sounds as if your life is too stressful - if you can find a way to take breaks then I think you should do. A 7:00 start is very early - you need lunch.

I think you showed great initiative actually.

Candidate is a moron. I’d go in and explain to your manager the entirely reasonable decisions you made in an uncertain situation. I certainly wouldn’t be apologising for my own existence and begging for forgiveness like some have suggested.

I’d tell the truth, what you did wasn’t bad - you tried to solve a problem. Lying though always gets found out in the end and marks you as untrustworthy which is a much bigger deal.

Attack is sometime the best form of defence - is it worth going in saying how upset you are that the candidate took a screenshot without your permission and distributed it further? Only you know if this would fly with your manager, but worth considering.

I'm sorry you experienced this. I can imagine the exact type of 25-year old male who would do this. I really hope this has put him out of contention for the job.

I honestly don't see the issue if you can normally work from home and they know you do the school run. You had a plan to make it work ok and it fell through. Like Wi-Fi goes down and we have to adapt etc. I would just explain exactly what happened.

The candidate is a cunt and definitely should not get the job.

Is there any chance the signal was bad and the candidate couldn't hear you properly so didn't complete the task properly and only way to not look bad was to say he couldn't hear the instructions clearly because you were sat in the car?

100% agree with both of you.

It's no different then men getting standing ovations for 'helping' with the children or doing a household chore 'for' his wife while women just get on with it all.

I'd climb right onto your high horse for this meeting, OP, and tell them how horrified you are that somebody saw fit to take a screenshot of you without your permission and send it to your boss in an attempt to get you into trouble. Your boss being aware that you leave work for the school run every week, and you facilitating this extra, unplanned interview-related task at short notice. You don't want to take things further at this time, but obviously if the candidate is hired - about which you would have great reservations - there will have to be a serious conversation about appropriate behaviour and boundaries. Etc.

How ridiculous and what an invasion of privacy that he took a picture of you without your permission. I think be honest with your manager that you knew you would be away from your desk, made alternative arrangements, they fell through so rather than delay or cancel the task set up you did the next best thing and did your bit from an alternative location.

Why apologise to the candidate?
Candidate should be apologising to OP for taking an unsolicited screenshot of her.

It's not a good look for the candidate. I'd be turning the conversation around to that.

My partner who is senior in a large pharmaceutical company said that he has been interviewed by people who have had to sit in their car due to meeting rooms being busy. He wasn’t phased at all by it.

He has also just talked to me about recent training he has undergone to do with sexual discrimination and sexual harassment legislation that covers discriminating against woman for caring duties. It might be worth having a good read on employment laws, ACAS maybe before someone tries to read you the riot act.

This would be perfectly normal in my company where we are all multi-site and travelling. Candidate clearly doesn't get out much.

And the candidate just happened to have a screenshot?

No way was it in response to feedback, but good that the manager now knows who not to hire

You are fine. What a shitty thing for the interviewee to do. They better not be offered the job. It is nasty behaviour. Who cares if you were perched on top of a pyramid. You flagged the timing was difficult for you, you problem solved, there were further obstacles, you problem solved again and did what you needed to do - a short teams briefing.

I know it is easier said than done, but please don't let it ruin your weekend. Calmly give them the facts and advocate for yourself too, not in a defensive way but let them know the timings were very difficult for you and you did the best you could in a difficult situation. I think your team were shitty too for not covering this small task for you.

xxx

The candidate does sound like a jobs' worth but I'm not impressed by the manager either. She/he has left you hanging over the weekend, instead of having the conversation with you on the phone, or waiting for a work day to ask to talk to you 👎
I hope when you do have the conversation, the manager approaches it as a mediator and asks you to tell them what you did in a factual way. If I were your manager, I'd be thinking 'Juggling work and childcare isn't easy. What a conscientious person this is.'

Certainly don’t lie. Just explain it like you have to us and hopefully it will be fine. If there are problems or have been problems in the past involve the union if you’re a member. If you’re not and your manager is annoyed make sure you give your side in writing.
You say the screenshot was taken/sent just after your introduction - did the candidate waste time doing this while they were supposed to be doing their timed task??!!
My take on this is that the manager doesn’t want the candidate to get the job but is worried that he’s a troublemaker and will formally complain when he doesn’t get it so wants to be able to say he’s spoken to you about the situation.
How you dealt with it showed initiative to me. Good luck and let us know what happened. To be honest the school was at fault here, even if the headteacher was helping you out as a favour.

This! Who on earth does that when applying for a job?

I’ll tell you who. An arsehole.

@IdaGlossop agree the manager's behaviour is shit. Who leaves someone to sweat all weekend? Let them know that you've been anxious about it all weekend. Very unprofessional.