A reader writes:
Final week I needed to journey for work. My boss lives in a single state, I stay in one other, and we met in a serious metropolitan space in a 3rd state for 3 days of conferences. On the third day, Thursday, we carpooled from the resort to the airport. We arrived about an hour earlier than my bosses flight however 10 hours earlier than mine.
About two hours into my wait, I used to be on Instagram and a tattoo artist I’ve beloved for years and occurs to be within the metropolis I used to be in for my journey posted that they’d a gap in an hour. I checked and I might Uber there in 20 minutes. The artwork I needed was a small floral piece so I’d be again on the airport about three hours earlier than my flight. I went forward and did it.
A related element: due to the delicate information my firm handles, we’ve got very strict necessities on the forms of work that may be achieved in public and the web connections we use. Aside from answering a couple of straightforward emails by way of my cellphone, there wasn’t any work I used to be going to do anyway and my boss was okay with me studying, scrolling the web, or in any other case doing nothing to kill the time within the airport. I additionally didn’t expense my Uber prices to my firm.
The following day on a convention name, my boss seen a contemporary tattoo on my forearm and requested about it as a result of it clearly wasn’t there when he noticed me simply 24 hours prior. At this level, his tone was fairly pleasant and extra like “there’s no approach I missed that, proper?” I advised him the chain of occasions that led to me getting the tattoo the day prior. He seemed mad advised me it was unprofessional. I apologized, largely out of shock as a result of I didn’t know the way else to reply, after which he advised me I must be glad I didn’t get written up.
It’s been every week and he’s nonetheless pissed (truthfully it’s one of the best phrase to explain it) at my “flagrant unprofessionalism” (his phrasing).
It’s not that dramatic, proper? I get that it’s a bit odd and I’ve no plans of constructing “I received a tattoo on a piece journey” my go-to dialog starter, however his response appears excessive.
One coworker who witnessed it thought it is likely to be a case of him ensuring a youthful newer worker wasn’t ignoring skilled norms however I’m undecided what norms I ignored and whereas I’m newer to the corporate (nearly one 12 months in) I’m not new to the workforce. I’m in my mid-30s and the boss in query is just a few years older than me. A good friend thought perhaps it had much less to do with “tattoo on a piece journey” and extra to do with “tattoo on a girl” which might be on-brand for this individual and his extra … conventional … views.
I’ll say he hasn’t introduced it up since and our interactions have been fully advantageous so perhaps he had a nasty day?
Yeah, that is ridiculous!
Your boss’s response is solely out-of-line.
What you do in your individual time whilst you’re touring for work is none of your employer’s enterprise so long as it’s not going to have an effect on them not directly (like when you received so hungover you couldn’t give attention to work the following day, or instigated a combat with a neighborhood competitor). Getting a tattoo by yourself time shouldn’t even register.
Your boss won’t like tattoos, however that’s not in any approach related to what he does and doesn’t have standing to intervene on as your supervisor. There are all kinds of belongings you would possibly do by yourself time whereas touring that he won’t approve of however which aren’t any of his enterprise: playing, sleeping with a stranger, consuming a sandwich that was left in your automobile all day, watching hours of trashy TV in your resort room at night time, and on and on. None of these give him any standing to threaten you with skilled self-discipline.
If he brings it up once more … nicely, in principle, you must be capable to say, “Are you able to clarify how me getting a tattoo at a time once I wasn’t anticipated to be working has something to do with my professionalism?” … however whether or not or not it is smart to trouble stepping into it with him will depend on (a) the remainder of your relationship with him and what you recognize about how he responds when challenged, (b) what different battles you would possibly want to avoid wasting capital for, and (c) your sense of how a lot it’ll actually matter a month from now. If it’s going to have actual penalties for you (like if he truly tried to write down you up for it, which might be absurd), you’d want to handle it extra head-on (which might embrace looping in HR, who presumably/hopefully would shut him down, particularly when you can argue it’s gender-based), however in any other case you is likely to be higher off simply internally rolling your eyes and letting it go.
