Forums

- - - - -

itilimp's picture
Licensee Badge

I say that you should speak to him directly about it. If these are personal issues then the union and his boss have no place in it right now.

Have you considered that it could simply be that he does not even realise that these comments are viewed as inappropriate in the workplace by yourself and that they bother you? Raising his attention to the fact that it does and that you would appreciate it if personal stuff was kept personal is a perfectly valid and professional thing to do.

In terms of him talking to his family about you I view that as separate. It's his family, he can say what he likes to them about whatever and whoever he likes. Whether the information is true or not - I wouldn't like to say how much control you have over the impact of that. Different countries have different laws regarding such things.

It's probably not the most appropriate thing to say but I can't help being reminded of the children's rhyme: 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.' Are these sticks or names?

Hope that helps a little - I'm sure others will have more advice / viewpoints for you to consider.

Gareth's picture

[quote="itilimp"]
In terms of him talking to his family about you I view that as separate. It's his family, he can say what he likes to them about whatever and whoever he likes. Whether the information is true or not - I wouldn't like to say how much control you have over the impact of that. Different countries have different laws regarding such things.[/quote]

Even with information I told him in confidence which related to my working life?

stephenbooth_uk's picture

In the first instance I think you need to speak with him, just an initial informal chat, and explain that you feel that he's acted inappropriately. If you haven't already listen to the casts on the DISC system to get some ideas on how to best phrase it. Be clear and polite, just because he has been unprofessional doesn't mean that you should be, but get the point across and make it clear what the impact on you has been.

It might be worth talking to your union but only to get advice and guidance at this stage. They'll probably be able to help you to frame your thoughts and it's often useful to have someone who isn't emotionally involved but knows enough about the situation to make suggestions. Plus they can advise you if anything you plan to say might leave you open to disciplinary censure. If you later need to have a formal meeting with your boss or even go into a formal grievance procedure having already talked with the union should make things go a lot smoother. Certainly if you have a formal meeting bring along a union rep as a witness.

Despite what ITILIMP said about him talking to his family, If you have told him anything in confidence, in particular anything like medical details, and he should not share that information with anyone (other than HR) without your express permission or an overriding duty (e.g. the information would lead a reasonable person to believe that you were a danger to yourself or others) but even in those situations he has a legal duty to limit who he tells to only those who need to know, which probably does not include his family. There are things that we have to tell our line managers as part of the manager-direct relationship, sometimes failure to tell them would be a gross misconduct and dismissal offense, we do however have a reasonable expectation that such information will be kept confidential.

I can think of 4 broadly similar cases (none involved people where there was an outside of work connection that I was aware of) I've had to deal with in my union rep role. Two were resolved at the informal chat stage, the manager didn't realise what effect their actions were having but once they were made aware they apologised and stopped, one required a formal meeting with myself and the bosses boss present to resolve it (the manager didn't see her behaviour as a problem but her manager did and gave some adjusting feedback). The other, unfortunately, was much more serious and involved several people's confidential information being revealed in a way that was clearly malicious. The police had to be brought in and the manager ended up not just being sacked but also serving some jail time. Hopefully that was an extreme case.

Stephen

Mark's picture
Admin Role Badge

Dust off your resume, interview, get another job, and quit.

Mark

itilimp's picture
Licensee Badge

[quote="Gareth"]
Even with information I told him in confidence which related to my working life?[/quote]

Hi Gareth,

It wasn't clear to me from your original post that what this man said to his family was something that you had told him 'in confidence' which related to your working life. If this is the case then Stephen is correct. My interpretation was that it wasn't in confidence and it was information regarding your personal life. Didn't mean to give you the wrong idea there!

Kind regards,

Itil Imp

gnattey's picture

Hi Gareth,

Just wondering how you are going. These issues are very testing. Having a really good family life is essential to getting through it. Everyone will be picking up on your unhappiness... In no way should you allow this person to influence your future.

People like this can behave this way because no-one superior to them corrects their behaviour (perhaps they should all get iPODS and listen for a change :P ). By doing this, they privately endorse it, while publicly condoning it.

[quote="mahorstman"]Dust off your resume, interview, get another job, and quit.
[/quote]
^^^^^^^^ do this ^^^^^^^^
Taking from the feedback model - as a subordinate, you can't ask the "How might you do that differently" question. My guess is that he is threatened by the potential that your relationship has, and as such is trying to influence the outcome.

This is something very close and has affected me greatly in recent months(years). I made a mistake.
[list]
[*]I spoke to the manager directly
[*]I thought results would change peoples opinion
[*]I was wrong[/list:u]
This is all what the literature said and my ER/HR area said to do.
Results were:
[list][*]manager increased abuse and escalated (note to self: stop confronting [i]her[/i])
[*]reduced staff turnover from 40% to 20% in 10 months - even had people asking to come back to a contact centre :shock:
[*]reduced inbound call volumes 40% in peak load
[*]increased trafic to self service area by 400%
[*]saved ~30% of budget ($$m) in out years[/list:u]
My experience says why waste your time trying to fix up something that might not be appreciated. Work on going to a new place where you will be. I did and so far so good.

Oh.. Karma does come around and yes, is is best served cold :mrgreen:

In saying this, [i][u]I'm no expert[/u][/i], however this the lesson so far.

US41's picture

Leave.