Work relationship outed by junior - WWYD?

[seethingoverstagiare]

Name changed!

Not in the UK.

I'm mid thirties. Officially Single.

I started a new job in January as finance/legal lead.
Company has gone for 12 employees when I arrived to 45ish people now. General decent atmosphere. Serious domaine - lots of work - exciting times. Solid team. Not long after I joined I got very close to the lead scientist - also mid thirties also single. We waited a few months, but eventually spent an evening together after working late. Things moved on. We thought a few colleagues had maybe figured us out so told our CEO that we were seeing each other. He was non-plussed. We coordinate together but don't work together on projects per see. All is well. A couple of other senior colleagues clocked us leaving work or afterwork drinks together, there have been a few smiles but nothing said other than an occasional "you guys heading back together".

On Monday the team tend to swap photos on slack if they've done anything at the weekend or on holiday.

This Monday a new junior (he joined 2 weeks ago) uploaded a photo to the general chat of me half asleep on colleagues shoulder obviously taken at about midnight on Saturday in the metro with the #spotted.

We had no idea he'd seen us. We live in a massive city. He didn't warn us before posting the photo.

General reaction at the office today was kind + respectful with a lot of photos posted to "drown" out the private picture he took and comments about us working too hard at weekends.

But I am furious with this new guy, it is such an invasion of our privacy.

Saw CEO and CTO this afternoon who have said we can decide how we want to deal with newbie.

I don't want to go over the top - and also think that the newbie maybe thought this was a good way of showing he was cool/part of the team whatever.

I don't think he was malintentionné but I am upset.

A part from the obvious dating a colleague I tend to maintain strong boundaries at work.

I have no idea how to deal with this.

We also have no social media policy and I'm acting HR until we get an actual HR.

What would I do?

Her relationship isn’t irrelevant. That is the core of her discomfort. Even though she’s now trying to pretend everyone knows and irs not. Her thread title, her op question, it’s all about the fact she’s been outed.

What if he had taken a picture of someone at the end of a sweaty run and posted it. Or a colleague sunbathing in a bikini and in an unflattering pose. None of these are things people should post if other people.
It's jokey pictures of YOUR weekend, surely it's very obvious not to post pictures of others as part of that.

@burnoutbabe

What if he had taken a picture of someone at the end of a sweaty run and posted it. Or a colleague sunbathing in a bikini and in an unflattering pose. None of these are things people should post if other people. It's jokey pictures of YOUR weekend, surely it's very obvious not to post pictures of others as part of that.

But he didn’t, he took a photo of two colleagues at the train station saying he had seen them,

The problem is the OP is pissed off about it personally, but has the cover/seniority to tell him off professionally.

That’s really open to abuse by the OP. Therefore, in the absence of an objective policy, she could get this very wrong.

It's all in the OP.
There is no social media policy.
Company encourages people to post pictures of their weekend.
OP doesn't think that the picture poster has malicious intentions.

Someone needs to have a gentle word with the guy about boundaries and ask him to remove the photos, but really what on earth did you/the company expect would happen with this huge blurring of home and work boundaries.

You're sensitive because of the relationship, but the guy has no way of knowing this is the case.

If you're HR - and really it seems as if the company needs a proper HR professional- then get some social media policies in place quickly.

I’m sorry this happened to you. What a stupid, entitled twat this new colleague is to think that this is okay. Such an indictment on SM generation and their need for the instant gratification that feedback from crap like this brings them.

I would have thought it was more of an indictment of work trying to be "oh so cool" and encouraging people to share their weekends on slack.
If the vehicle to post the picture hadn't existed and/or there were clear boundaries about what to post, then he wouldn't have posted it.

I think it's madness to have some sort of 'policy' (I know it's not a policy, but you know what I mean) where staff members are encouraged to share photos of what they have been up to at the weekend. I get why you are concerned and annoyed OP, but the whole thing seems set up to blur the boundaries of professional and domestic life and it's not a great idea, or a surprise, that someone has done something like this.

Yes the new employee needs a chat about boundaries but this kind of casual encouragement to overshare was always going to cause a problem, so it's not completely his fault if the boundaries weren't clearly set out.

As to your relationship, I met my DH at work and we didn't make any kind of announcement about it beyond letting HR know. The information just filtered out naturally through gossip and via people seeing us together etc, that was fine and less awkward than making it public ourselves. In my experience the more of a big deal you make it, the more other people make it a big deal.

Maybe you could also bring in some diversity training because this colleague either didn’t understand the implications of potentially ‘outing’ a same sex couple in their time off work to their colleagues, or he did understand but didn’t care, or thought it was funny to do it, and/or is making a homophobic or ageist or sexist point.
There’s so much wrong here in his judgement or personal attitudes and professionalism that it’s definitely worthy of a warning to him.

@seethingoverstagiare you say “junior” but since your username is “stagiaire” I am wondering if this colleague is an intern rather than a junior employee?
If so that does make a difference in my mind. It’s inappropriate and he needs to know that - but I do think stagiaires often have zero experience of office culture. I know I made some clangers aged 21 as I just was totally clueless. I think it needs to be explained to him that even in a friendly office, this crosses a line but I don’t think it’s worth going nuclear.

[quote Doomscrolling]@ShroomShroom - the way Literally can now mean Figuratively?

God, I’m old. I hate sloppy language where words mean what people guess they mean. Such a death of nuance and language. See also Disinterested and Uninterested.

In which case, OP, easily dealt with. No photos shared without the subject’s permission. Papping colleagues is intrusive.

[/quote]
Same here. It seems ‘nonplussed’ now has two exactly opposite meanings and the reader has to guess which. It wasn’t clear in OP’s post.

So you all post personal jokey photos on slack but then when the new guy tries to join in it’s suddenly not okay because it touches a nerve

You can’t possibly be so stupid that you don’t see the difference between someone posting a personal photo of themselves and a personal photo of someone else who hasn’t consented to that happening?! JFC

@queenmeadhbh pas tout a fait stagiaire - he's on a doctoral PhD contract - he's 25-26 ish and will be with us for 3 years at least..

To everyone else for clarification - I never meant to launch anything formal in anyway - was just looking for suggestions of how to raise the issue in an appropriate way

Concerning the slack - the channel name is a loose translation of "outside life" and was started when curfew and confinement lifted where I am - I did scroll through months of pictures - there are 2 other pictures with people in them - it was started by a team member when bars and cafés opened here and the first picture is one of a coffee cup on a terrasse table, other photos are things like train tickets out of the region, cinema tickets, supermarket reciepts with a time after 6pm highlighted - a gym pass etc. There are some more "personal" photos of groups doing things like picnicking etc. The only other other photo that is in anyway similar is a team member with their partner both wearing our company shirts at the end of a sponsored race. I guess more that "personal" it was started as a celebration of outside life after the strict lockdowns and curfews we had. I don't actually think that up until now the channel was inappropriate.

Anyhow, the employee in question came without prompting to my office this morning and apologized incase it had bothered us.

I have asked the company who do our payroll to provide a blueprint of a social media policy whilst waiting for our HR to arrive.

My boss has promised to give a brief speech at our next full staff and will ask that all non work related communication moves off work channels.

For me the subject with this young person is closed.

Concerning my relationship with my colleague I'm not going to justify why as two senior women in a male dominated industry/area of expertise we prefer to be as private as possible other than to say I do not want the determinating identifier about me/her at work to be that we are gay.

To the person who suggested I was drunk and alseep on the train - as a gay woman I don't have the privilege to feel safe enough to get drunk in public with my partner and then fall asleep on public transport. I wish I did because it costs me a shitton in taxi fairs. A bon entendeur.

I think it's a bit hazy really, you don't have a social media policy so he didn't breach that, and you're going to be talking to him in the position of acting hr when he's posted a photo of you? You can't do that you need to hand this off to someone else

Sounds like a good resolution - thanks for updating us.

OP you’re an absolute better person than I am because if someone who had behaved so appallingly unprofessionally came to my office to apologise incase their behaviour “bothered us” I would have struggled to remain civil.

@PegasusReturns

It was a massive exercise in self-control. That said, given that he came to apologize before being asked/told anything by boss - I've come to the conclusion that one of his peers probably told him it was off the mark yesterday and that he had been squirming since - he looked very meek and uncomfortable. I also think that when we now introduce social media "rules" that everyone will have to sign and apply, most people (him included) will figure out why and that will also be an uncomfortable quarter hour for him.

Time will tell if he's an arse or just blissfully unaware of personal privacy / so woke he thinks there is no potential issue plastering a private non-heterosexual relationship in a public space....

Op. I’d suspect he either just thought you were two colleagues out for the evening and now been told you’re in a relationship or he thought that you your relationship was public knowledge Ie someone had already told him you were a couple. And he’s now been told it was a secret/not secret.

Being gay is nothing to hide any more than being straight is. If you work for the sort of company where that’s scandalous then you both need to leave.

The fact is everyone knows now. I know my 24 year old daughter wouldn’t think any more of someone being in a gay relationship than a straight one and would not behave or think any differently and neither would I. It didn’t even occur to me that was the root cause of your issue.

So there is a high chance he simply didn’t realise the sensitivity here as in it simoly wouldn’t occur to him.

You can get template or example social media policies off the internet, a quick google search will bring them up. I doubt a payroll agency has any expertise in drawing up HR policies!

Some things just aren't obvious to new people. After working closely with my new boss for several months, I sent her and her family a Christmas card and included names of her family as she talks about them/to them constantly. Turns out she was separated from her husband but I had no idea because no one had told me and the conversations she had about him didn't bring this up (it was about their schedules and stuff going on over the weekend involving the kids). I was also quite young at the time, not yet married myself. Maybe it would have been more obvious now.

@Rainbowshine
Thank you !
We’re not in the UK and payroll/work law etc is slightly more complicated here - most payroll companies also have social rights departments. They’ve sent over a generic template that will do for now. Image rights etc here are very different to in the UK too. The rules of how to communicate information to employees is also pretty procedural. We have what’s called an employee social and economical committee and everything legally has to be discussed by them prior to signature etc. It’s more about the process than the actual content.

@Bluntness100
I think from lived experience being «out» or not is a complicated and very personal choice. It’s not black and white and it can be exhausting to try and juge where you stand during social interactions. You don’t just come out once - you come out again and again with every person you meet - it is never ending. I’d love to live in a world where no one thinks someone else’s sexuality is relevant to how well they do their job/how they got their job/ their suitability to raise children/their moral standing - but that is simply untrue. Homophobia is not just shouting «dirty dyke» at someone. It’s shows it’s face in so many different ways, some that from the outside may seem minute or minor inconveniences agressions to someone who doesn’t go through it every day, but it is still exhausting.
And being out in a friendly tolerant office can also be painful if for example it just highlights how tolerant some parts of society can now be if you have to compare that another less tolerant areas of your life.

It’s really cool that your daughter doesn’t think that being gay is anything to write home about - doesn’t mean it’s okay to out gay people. Doesn’t mean that homophobia no longer exists or affects people.