Disclosed something too personal at work

[Yogablockz]

I am a senior manager in the charity sector. Last week I disclosed some personal information over email to other members of the SMT. The information is about the health of a close family member, and I disclosed it because I need to step away from some of my responsibilities to deal with this personal situation.

no-one has responded to the email. I realise now I over shared and I am ashamed. I don’t use an email programme that allows you to recall emails, and the disclosure is part of a chain of emails with other information in it.

i am ashamed, embarrassed and also if im honest upset that not a single one of my colleagues wanted to offer a word of support. I am quitting this job but i don’t know how to get through the notice period.

any advice? Please be kind

Nah don’t do that. I’m sorry u work with such insensitive people. It doesn’t take a minute to hit reply and say something like “I’m really sorry to hear about your situation and I hope that it improves for you all” even if you don’t really know what to say or do. No one is that busy they can’t reply. Honestly OP, hold your head up, do what you need to do and just walk away when you’re done. It will no longer be your circus so to speak. I fairly recently left a job that I had been at for some time for a company I had done a lot for and didn’t so much as get a card when I left - it says more about them than me and I’m ok with that. Don’t let other ppl make you feel ashamed. What you did was human and you shouldn’t apologise for that. I hope you feel better and best of luck with whatever you do next. And well wishes to your family member.

No need to be ashamed or embarrassed. You've done nothing wrong. Your colleagues however er should be ashamed of themselves for not having the manners to at least send a quick reply to you.

I'm in a similar situation, my manager didn't acknowledge me having a terminally ill parent once in the past 6 months yet spoke at length about her own personal life and mental health numerous times per day and outside of work hours I.e. evenings, weekends etc

A comment of "At least you've only got one mum to look after I've got 2 kids" was the final straw that pushed me to leave that job

In my recent experience people often find these situations awkward and don't know what the right thing to say is

You are not stupid, nor should you be ashamed or embarrassed. Your colleagues are 100% in the wrong here not you

I’m so sorry for you. I have a feeling though, that this is more to do with the fact that no one wants to put their head above the parapet and take responsibility for taking on whichever task it is you need help with rather than the fact that they don’t have any empathy or sympathy for you and your situation. Don’t be too hard on yourself

i was expecting the information you disclosed to be really super embarrassing or really overly personal - - about your sex life, an embarrassing drunk story , etc. - this isn’t in the sense of being too much information. Not at all!
sorry no one responded - that’s on them - not you x

They probably don’t know how to respond but honestly what’s wrong with people? I don’t think you overshared OP, it’s perfectly reasonable to share personal information that has a bearing on your working life.

I suppose it’s possible your email felt like a call for volunteers to take on work and no-one wants to stick their head above the parapet. Still, a kind word wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Don’t take it to heart, I doubt very much it’s about you.

Regarding how to get through the notice period and the workload. You said this task was shared responsibility by you all, but you're the one who usually takes the lead on it. Fairly safe to say then that none of the others really want to do it at all, much less do the bulk of it. You've told them you're stepping back and why, so you've covered yourself.

If it's a shared task and they're your equals then it's not your task to delegate. They should be automatically picking it up because it's a shared task, not waiting until you hassle them into helping with it or until you've done the bulk/worst bits of it. You're taking too much responsibility for something that isn't solely your responsibility. So sit back and do nothing. Your email absolved you from any responsibility for this task. If it doesn't get done or only gets done at the last minute, that's on the rest of them.

Go to work, do the bare minimum and take it easy for your last few weeks. Nobody is going to be giving you a medal for busting a gut, so why bother? In a few weeks time this shared task will be nothing to do with you and you've the email to prove you told everyone in good time that you were stepping back. If anyone asks you about the task and it's progress, just say X, Y and Z (the ones you emailed) are dealing with it this month because you had to scale back responsibilities for personal reasons.