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 wild about this.

You can say what you feel fits best, such as your internet signal was poor, the person that was supposed to do the school run couldn't make it etc.

You got nothing to feel bad about, I hope you don't end up working with this asshole.

What an arsehole.

Nope, no job.

This!
It’s really not cricket to take a screenshot without your permission and send it to someone else.

Candidate clearly didn't want the job.

Maybe the company should make OP do EVERY candidate intro video from her car, just to screen out screenshot-grabbing, petty, carping wee clypes.

What did the candidate hope to achieve?

Even if they thought it was rude/unprofessional (it wasn’t) - what are they hoping to gain?

If they get the job - they have created a negative impression as not a team played before they have even begun? I’d be telling all and sundry they did that - see how that like being ‘snitched on’

This is the crux of it, having a blurred background isn't an issue but why did the candidate think it was, what have they said?

Also this !!

Just be honest. If they normally let you nip.out during the day, it should not be a problem.

The HT, on the other hand, should not be allowing a parent make a work (video) call in a school unsupervised!

Was there a concern that you were driving at the time, or was it clear you were stationary?

If you were not driving then I don’t think you have any concern. In the same situation, I would do the same. Your intention was coming from the right place; you didn’t want to let work or the candidate down. The alternative would have been unprofessional and unfair on the interviewee. It certainly wouldn’t have been your first choice, and you had a very sensible back up. I think you can agree that it wasn’t ideal but you did the best in the given situation. I think it reflects worse on the candidate.

If I were your manager I would have laughed it off and advised you to just not switch your camera if you happen to be in a car or similar. And I would have discarded the candidate irrespective of how the interview went.

It's a shame you didn't have a 'background' rather than blurring.

My horrible manager complained when DH went out the patio doors behind me. He'd literally just walked quickly through the room, as the back door was out of service.

It's probably not ideal and all you were doing was passing on information, and the information got passed on!

Did you see the weirdo take the screenshot?

It's a shame you didn't have a 'background' rather than blurring.

Just imagine the candidate's complaint if OP had done that.

"She was filming from a fucking BEACH with fucking COCONUTS and fucking PALM TREES in the background. I think I even saw a fucking PARROT."

You did your job. You thought on your feet and where you took the call shouldn't have an impact on anything. You proved yourself to be a problem solver and committed to your role.

I'm guessing your boss will completely understand the situation and if they don't they don't deserve you.

What time do you contractually finish work and what time was the interview task intro in the car?
Why did you not raise this earlier or just as a relied on colleague to do it?

Were you late introducing the task so the candidate lost precious minutes preparing the presentation? (This happened to me and it was off-putting, but I got the job.) It seems odd to me that you say your employers knows you start and finish early yet allocate work to you when you have finished and are doing the school run and you didn’t ask a colleague to cover. I think jumping on a call with a colleague from the car park is different from potentially impacting a candidate’s chance of succeeding at interview.

Hope to fuck they don't get appointed

The only reason it could be acceptable to take a screenshot and mention is if they genuinely thought you were driving. That doesn’t sound like the case here.

We have no core hours at work

Crikey, the candidate sounds a pain!

My colleagues and I regularly need to join TEAMS meetings from our cars when we’re out and about. As long as you were somewhere with privacy and were able to focus then it shouldn’t be a problem.

The candidate has showed themselves to be trouble already. I don't he/she will get the job.

Why on earth would a candidate do that? Bloody tell tale. You did all you could and it says more negative about them than any about you. Crap about your boss to say you'll speak on Monday as well, leaving you to stress all weekend.

Did your manager specifically state the candidate had screenshotted and sent the photo? Or are you filling in the blanks?

I don’t think this is a big deal, but depends on what transpires from the call with your manager. For a two minute formulaic call, I wouldn’t have tried to arrange a room in school, I would just be open that I couldn’t intro the last candidate and could someone else deal with that one. As a manager I’d feel I hadn’t done my job properly if someone didn’t feel able to say that and tied themself up in knots thinking it would reflect badly on them instead of being a very minor administrative detail to sort.

My point is that this candidate couldn't know that, yet decided to turn it into an issue.

It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare for an interview and it's a massive deal to whoever is applying for the job. I think it's a bit insulting to then be greeted by someone sat in a car as your first introduction to the company.

Hopefully just a warning and it all blows over.

Jesus Christ they better not hire this awful person!! Who does that ? If your manager knows about the school run you did nothing wrong.