Dear John: Never Leave Your Computer Unattended
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Special Note from John: The upcoming holidays offer countless opportunities for stressful situations, unpleasant interactions, and possibly-alcohol-fueled lapses in judgment. Do you have a holiday-related problem or question? If so, please write in for a special column I’ll be putting together over the course of the next few weeks. Thanks!
Dear John,
Last week I went to work very early. The office was empty except for another man who was in early to work on the same project. I had to bring him something and I saw his office was empty, so I went in and dropped it on his desk. When I did, I couldn’t help but notice that a shocking pornographic photograph was open on his computer. (Not shocking because it was illegal or anything, just shocking because it was the last thing I expected to see at the time.) I hurried out of his office as quickly as I could. Apparently he had just stepped away to get a coffee.
I have not been able to think of him the same way since then. We work together on different projects, but he is much older and at a much different point in his career. We’re quite friendly and I often seek him out for career advice. He is like a father figure (or even grandfather) and he has always been kind, thoughtful, and willing to help. But now I can’t reconcile that man with the early morning porn viewer. I have avoided him for the most part since then, but I feel like this will fester until I can talk to him about it, tell him what I saw, and find out what the heck he was thinking. I would love to know there’s something he could tell me to help me understand why he would do that. I am disappointed in him and wish I could regain the respect I had for him. Is it worth bringing up to hear what he has to say, or should I just accept that he’s not the man I thought he was?
Signed,
Disgusted
Dear Disgusted,
He is the man you thought he was. But in addition to that, he’s probably a lot of other men your work relationship hasn’t given you a chance to meet.
I don’t think you should bring it up to him (although he may bring it up if he realizes you dropped something off while that image was on his computer). There’s really no big mystery here. Why was he looking at that picture? Because it was readily available and he thought he was alone. That doesn’t make him any different than the vast majority of men with Internet access, and it doesn’t make him the deviant it sounds like you think he is. Attempting to discuss it with him will, I suspect, only make the awkwardness you feel more acute.
My advice to him would be to stop looking at porn at work because that’s only cool if you work in the porn industry. And my advice to you is to stay out of people’s offices when they’re not in, and try to understand that this man, like you and everyone else, has many, many facets that you’d never know about if all you do is work together.
Dear John,
My husband and I have a four-year-old son. Recently, he was visiting his grandmother, my husband’s mother, for the day. When we were back home after picking him up from his visit, he mentioned in the course of telling us something unrelated that happened while he was visiting Grandma that she spanked him when she found him looking in a cabinet where she keeps household cleaners and things like that. Not quite believing what I was hearing, I made him repeat what he said to make sure I understood correctly. I did. I was and am so angry about this. We don’t spank our son or use any physical discipline with him, and my MIL knows it. I am insisting that he not be allowed to visit her without one of us present unless she promises this won’t happen again. But my husband refuses to talk to her about it. He says he doesn’t think it’s that big a deal, he was spanked when he misbehaved as a child, and it’s not like she’s a danger to him. But I think he’s just unwilling to confront her. She is very domineering and stubborn. Do you think this is as big a deal as I do?
Sincerely,
Ready to Spank Her
Dear Ready to Spank Her,
Hmm…your husband was spanked by his mother and now he fears her. Wonder if there’s a connection there. This is simple: you’re absolutely right. Neither your mother-in-law nor anyone else should be hitting your kids. Even parents who believe in corporal punishment should be the only people to administer it to their own children. Unsupervised visits should be contingent on your mother-in-law understanding that she must never, ever do that again. If your husband is too frightened to call her out on it, that’s unfortunate, and you’ll have to.
Dear John,
I work in an office with a lot of young women. It’s not uncommon for one of them to announce that she’s pregnant. A few months ago, one that works in close proximity to me made such an announcement, and she is the kind of person who keeps us frequently updated as to what happened at her various appointments, the accessories she does or doesn’t have, ideas for names, you name it. I understand she’s very happy, but she talks about almost nothing else. The problem is, I have had to accept the fact that I can’t have children, and although I’ve known this for some time, it still makes me very sad. I usually don’t think about it, but now I am reminded multiple times a day. It has started to affect my mood and my attitude towards my job. I have thought about explaining how I feel and asking her to tone it down, but how do I do that? What do I say?
Sincerely,
Not Joyful
Dear Not Joyful,
It must be very hard for you to be saddened by news everyone around you is celebrating, and your letter makes me wonder how many women (and men) have similar feelings they don’t let show.
Sure, you could ask your co-worker to forego the stream of updates. But she’s still going to be pregnant and it’s going to be increasingly hard to ignore in the months to come. And there will be other such announcements in the future. You can’t control any of that. But what you can control is how you respond to them. Have you had any professional help in dealing with the fact that you can’t have children? Have you attended any support groups or spoken to other women or couples who have received such heartbreaking news? That’s what I think would be a better course of action for you. I would start by calling a fertility clinic in your area to find out what resources are available to help people come to terms with the diagnosis you’ve received. And thanks for sharing a point of view that doesn’t get a lot of attention.GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST
Special Note from John: The upcoming holidays offer countless opportunities for stressful situations, unpleasant interactions, and possibly-alcohol-fueled lapses in judgment. Do you have a holiday-related problem or question? If so, please write in for a special column I’ll be putting together over the course of the next few weeks. Thanks!
John is a middle-aged family man from Providence, Rhode Island. If you learn from your mistakes, he’s brilliant. Write to him at [email protected].
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