Why are boundaries so hard for some people!? I am doing well at work, may be promoted soon. I work from home so all communications with my boss and team is done through meeting rooms and phone conferences. We have a room for just our team and a private messaging system. I communicate with 3 female coworkers regularly and with my female boss regularly. She is training me to do what she does so I hold some of the meetings and reach out to team members when training needs to be done. We have a few male team members. One is 24 and he just crossed a firm boundary I have had since DDay, oversharing. I have read and reread this convo with him and do not see anywhere I asked for the kind of info he gave. He said he was stressed and needed to do a jump off for some hours, I said enjoy time with family and notify our TL. Then he says he is just so tired because: my wife and I have been rocky lately. I'm scared for 2014.
My response: just communicate and you'll be fine.
Him: I try its hard because she has Aspergers.
Me: marriage is hard. Talk to her and you'll be fine.
Him: I will.
Then nothing from me. I was sitting there like WTH!? Dude do you think your wife would be okay with you telling a virtual stranger these things. I tried to disengae as quickly as possible but would love some opinions here. Another communication, we were in a team meeting room and my boss asked him for his song choice as it was a wind down meeting. He didn't answer, I typed his name in chat with a question mark. No response we moved on to someone else's song. In that song I recognized the chorus to another song called juicy. I typed in chat juicy with a question mamark asking if anyone else recognized it. He comes back:
Him: why are you calling me juicy.
Me: I'm not I'm asking if the hook from that song is from juicy.
Him: never heard of it
Me: from notorious big juicy
Him: his name is big juicy!?
Me: no his name is notorious big and the song is called juicy.
End convo
Later that day is when the first convo I relayed happened. I don't feel I acted untowards. I didn't flirt, I didn't invite personal convo so wth? I communicate with everyone the same way except the 3 women I mentioned earlier as we are becoming friends. I don't know why he felt it was okay to cross any boundaries. Maybe I'm overthinking, I'm so hyper vigilant all the time.
[This message edited by Unagie at 6:21 PM, December 15th (Sunday)]