Moral Dilemma: Your Thoughts

ucsd_ucla_dad
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:49:23 +0000

I think you should stand your ground on the point but that it doesn’t necessarily need to include how this person conducts her business or her statements of ‘outta here’. You should stand your ground stating that you’re doing what’s expected in the office and that due to the office environment people will be able to hear other people on the phone. You can state that you speak on the phone normally and not overly loudly (I was once seated near a ‘loud talker’ so those do exist and are annoying).

If the manager makes any intimation that you move you can state that you don’t think you should need to move and can suggest to the manager that he spend some time in your office area when both you and your office-mate are there so the manager can determine for himself if you’re unusually noisy on the phone. I’ll bet that would put a hitch in the office-mate’s personal business being conducted at the office!

If the end result is that by getting you out of there she ends up with the office completely to herself you could suggest to the manager that her motivation might just be to have a ‘private office area’ by getting rid of you which is contrary to the philosophy of that office. Again, you don’t really need to raise the points about her personal business being conducted which will certainly at least open a can of worms.

Separating it from the office space issue (which is indeed a separate issue), if you feel strongly that she’s costing the company and being unethical and you feel you should inform management of it then go ahead but that shouldn’t be dependent on whether you get moved out of the space or not. Treat them as two different things.