A reader writes: I’m in a very upsetting and bewildering situation at work. I was called into a meeting with HR today because I allegedly said something snide this morning that made someone uncomfortable. However, I did not say anything of the sort — I made an innocent comment about conference rooms, but apparently two different people misheard me. It’s not even something work-inappropriate like a slur that I allegedly said, just a sarcastic comment.
The full context is a little convoluted. My team was looking for a conference room for a standing meeting as our usual one had been double booked. Someone suggested we use the boardroom, as it’s usually empty, but when we went to look, it was booked all day in the CEO’s name. As we went back towards the bank of conference rooms, we met some other members of the team and I said, “We can’t use the boardroom, it’s booked all day by the CEO.” A moment later I suggested, “We could cram into Matthew’s office?” naming a spare office that’s no longer in use.
Apparently, two different people misheard me as saying snidely, “Doesn’t he [the CEO] have an office?” So now I’m being written up for being rude and unprofessional, even though that’s not what I said at all.
I suspect what really happened is that one person misheard me — it was a busy area full of people shuffling between meetings — and turned to their friend next to them and said, “Wow, did you hear what she just said? Isn’t that awful?” and then they both reported it to HR.
(Side note: even if I had said that, I don’t see why it would be such a huge deal to express frustration, especially since it’s well known that we don’t have enough conference rooms to go around. What kind of person contacts HR about a stray sarcastic remark? But in order to appease HR, I’m of course going to say, “Yes, of course I see how if I had said that it would be a problem.”)
A complicating factor is that I have been given previous warnings about “professionalism” and making comments in public that probably should have been private. It’s always been from a well-meaning place — for example, sharing a concern about something that was said in an all-hands meeting in a public Slack channel, which was interpreted as openly criticizing leadership’s decisions when all I wanted to do was start a discussion. With these past examples, if I squinted, I could see how my comments could be considered unprofessional when viewed in the worst possible light. But now I feel like I am being given zero benefit of the doubt and HR is predisposed to think badly of me.
Is this as bananapants ridiculous as it sounds? I’m contesting my write-up and will be meeting with the HR person’s boss, but the whole thing has me very upset and demoralized.
Even if you had said “Doesn’t he have an office?” (which you didn’t), that wouldn’t be HR-worthy — either for people (two of them!) to report or for HR to talk with you about. People make the occasional lightly snide comment at work sometimes. If it’s a pattern, that can be a problem. If it’s a minor one-off, it’s generally not.
I do wonder, though, if what happened here is that there is a pattern and, while this time wasn’t part of it, there’s been enough of a history that people are primed to hear snideness or unprofessionalism in things you say. If it’s really all just been stuff like raising a concern about something leadership said — and if you didn’t raise those concerns in an excessively negative way — then that’s probably off-base. But the fact that two coworkers thought such a mild remark was worth reporting, and that HR thought it worth addressing, makes me really curious about what the rest of the pattern has looked like. That’s probably worth reflecting on.
Alternately, what do you know about these two coworkers? Are they pot-stirrers? Do they have tension with you already? Are they looking to move critical attention off themselves and on to someone else? Or are they generally collegial people who you’re surprised escalated this? There might be some clues in the answer to that as well.
What to Do Now
Lean heavily into this framing: “I’m mortified that they thought I said something snide, but I want to be really clear that they misheard me and that’s not at all what I said. I understand the importance of professionalism and I’m committed to being a professional and collegial team member. This was a case of being misheard.”
In an ideal world you’d be able to raise the fact that the alleged remark (which you didn’t make) isn’t particularly terrible and this whole thing is a weird overreaction. But in this case, you’re better served by not arguing that point and sticking with the framing above instead.
