A reader writes:
Bizarre factor simply got here up at my work that I’d be curious to listen to you weigh in on. I work at a college that’s 100% in-person, on-the-ground. My colleague Fergus has an workplace in an obscure little nook of the constructing. We hardly ever see him come out and in, and he tends to be round for odd hours.
Lately, a grad pupil who works at our entrance desk talked about that she sees Fergus’ spouse Jane coming to work with him very often. This was information to me — Fergus’ spouse has a 100% distant job that we thought she was doing from house. What I’ve gathered is that Jane appears to be coming to work with Fergus to do her work in his workplace, and it’s common sufficient that our grad college students know who she is.
What are your ideas on this? Our faculty requires us to be 100% in-person as a result of we work with confidential pupil data and in order that college students can cease by to see us at any time, and Jane does work associated to confidential medical information, so it looks as if it’s inherently an issue in the event that they’re working in the identical room. On the identical time, that’s a fairly widespread setup for {couples} the place each companions work remotely. But it surely additionally appears … simply type of odd, particularly as a result of he hasn’t talked about this to anybody and nearly appears to be sneaking her in. Like, it might make sense in the event that they solely had one automotive they usually had been coming into the town collectively as a result of she had an in-town appointment, however they each have their very own separate automobiles.
What do you assume?
Sure, that is bizarre and it’s nearly actually an issue.
In many roles, it wouldn’t be a giant deal if it occurred sometimes — like for a day a pair instances a 12 months when she wanted to do one thing close by, or for sooner or later as a result of, I don’t know, there was building taking place of their home. But it surely shouldn’t be taking place recurrently, for a similar causes that every other random individual shouldn’t be recurrently working out of your workplace.
Your employer hasn’t agreed to offer workplace house and different assets to Jane, there are confidentiality points, it’s more likely to pose at the least some distraction to Fergus, individuals stopping by to speak to him could also be deterred by her presence, there’s potential authorized legal responsibility to your employer if one thing occurs to Jane whereas she’s there … the checklist of issues goes on and on.
Personally, I’d point out it casually to your boss and see in the event that they learn about it.