Hi everyone. I am in a very curious position and would like some very much needed advise on what to do.<P>I have been friends with a couple for the past 11 years. They have 2 kids both in high school. This friendship is more of a friendship between the men (mine is now "ex-h") I have remained friends with both of them and the husband of this couple is my son's godparent.<P>Last year I referred the wife of this couple to my employer for a position within my department. She got the job. This position is an admin. assist. to 4 managers which includes myself.<P>Okay, there's the short background, now here is the dilema. Several of the employees (all but 2 are men) have been commenting on our secretary having an "affair" with a manager from another department. It's become the daily topic of discussion during the noon hour when they get together and have lunch. When I first heard this I ignored this as just typical rumor. I didn't really notice anything unsusal, nor did I have the time to do any sort of "snooping". But one of the managers that I work with decided to do investigating. And now I do notice these things too. She finds "reasons" to leave the department to "xerox" blueprints or to go to another building. She'll be gone for 20 - 30 minutes for a job that typically you drop off and pick up later. She has lunch with him on a daily basis. Lunch hours have now become 1 1/2 hour lunches. The last couple of weeks, her car is still here in the parking lot long after her "out" time. This other managers car is also here. Last Friday, she left early as to get a jump start on her vacation. She asked to leave early to do packing. I personally saw her leave the dept. and walk to this other managers building and go inside it. When I left work (3 hours later) her car was still here.<P>Lastly, her vacation of last week was at a beach house rental. Her husband did not go at all. Last week, this other manager was also "absent" on two days. And finally, here is the worst part...Today, she returned to work and was on the phone to this other man. We all know it's him on the phone as our phones "display" peoples names and extensions. She said in her phone conversation that she had a "wonderful and exciting couple of days and that she hadn't felt that way for a long time....".<P>So, with this information, what, if anything do you do? I am in a somewhat awkward position as I am not only her boss, but also a "friend". <P>Any suggestions for all you insightful people would be really appreciated. Thanks.

Hi skipper, Well, it's obvious what's going on. You didn't say, so we should assume your friend's H is in the dark?<P>I'll bet there won't be consensus here on what you should do, if anything.<P>Can you let your role as boss take precedence over your friendship? It seems you have a supervisory obligation to have her straighten her act out at work and not waste company time. This may not alter the affair. Similarly, do you have any company obligation to confront the Manager if he's doing something against policy? Is he married?<P>If you were my friend and I was the H in the dark, I would want you to tell me. I would also want to know who the other man is. If I was in your shoes, I would spill the beans. The only tough decision is whether you tell the guilty parties or not first.<P>Your concern is well placed and I don't envy you, but having been betrayed, I urge you to do the right thing and squeal.<P>WAT

I have to disagree with the advice on telling the H, at least for now. The reasons are twofold. One, being an informant is inherently morally ambiguous, and almost always makes a person feel badly, even if they think it's the 'right thing'. An exception is a whistleblower when public health or other public goods are at stake. But here, you have a friendship with both parties, you are a boss to one: this can only turn on you, and you will probably feel badly about yourself. Instead, I would sit down with the wife and tell her very openly that everyone knows what's going on (doesn't sound like she wants to hide it anyway), and that you in particular are now in an awful position. Ask her if she will not confess to her husband. If not, ask her what she thinks you should do. Tell her that doing nothing is unacceptable, and being a tattle also doesn't sit right with you. Let her struggle with your dilemma. She may well decide to tell the H herself. If not, then I would consider either having her transferred or fired on the basis of poor work performance. In any event, I would remove myself from the A by removing her. The H is going to find out in no time anyway, it's not your business to tell him.

Hi Skipper,<P>You are in a no win situation. I had two employees in my department who had an affair. We had no company policy on inter department dating so I could do nothing about that. but the going out for lunch longer than the alloted time and catching them kissing at work plus not getting work done I did call them on. I told them point blank I was not paying them to date durring company time if they could not get their job done than they could leave. Ultimatly I got rid of both of them. And changed the policy that no one could date within the company. It is just a bad idea. I delt with so much stuff from these two people. I could not get my job done because I was always having to police them.<P>Since the four of you manage her and are her boss start feeling them out on how they feel about it. I would call her on not getting her job done and talking long lunch breaks. Because the longer you let that aspect of her job slide the harder it will be to get her back on track. If you have to bring HR in on this. What she does on her own time is nothing you can control but work you can. Plus you might want to mention that she said she was leaving early to pack but never did leave the company since her car was still in the parking lot. Mention that in the future that if she has to go someplace she should go and not waste time of other employees. <P>I am not trying to be super hard but at some point they need to know they are there to work not flirt. OK I am so against work romances. It is just bad news.

Thanks for the replies. Yep, I am in a no-win situation. Here we are on Monday and already it's started. Leaving to go to the commissary to get something to eat and gee, lo and behold, other manager is there too. Conincidence?? I think not. Its lunchtime here and guess who she's out with? <BR>This other manager is married and has 4 children also. His kids range in age from Jr high down to a kindergartener. UGHH - and im pretty sure neither spouse even suspects anything.<P>I'm not sure if I am courageous enough to tell her H. I'm not even sure if I feel that I can confront her without feeling weird about it myself. Consider that I am divorced from a man who is still her husband's best friend. I'm so confused and torn. And by the way, the reason for my divorce was that my own husband had an affair with a woman whom he met during a job at work and he is still with her. So this is much deeper than what I write on the surface. <P>I hope some more of you wise folks give me more food to think about....<P>Thanks again,<P>Skipper

Hi Skipper! My advice would be to turn it over to HR immediately. That way, you are out of it, and the people who have the most knowledge on company policies can do the documenting and handle the dirty work. I'm sure they will understand your predicament as her manager, but also as her friend. JMHO.....

Skipper - would you have liked to have known about your former H's affair?<P>I can understand your feeling weird about it and feeling trapped. Post some e-mail addresses and I bet someone on this board will do the dirty work.<P>WAT

Again, I have to take a somewhat different view. Most action you take will very likely have a negative effect on you. Posting emails on this board and having other people do dirty work is dishonest and cowardly, and cannot be good for you. You have a contractual obligation to your company to make sure that people working for you do their jobs, so this you must pursue from a disinterested point of view, as a boss, that is. Otherwise, I believe strongly that you if you cannot discuss this matter with her, then you should follow the principle of wo-wei, Chinese for something like 'non-action'. Do not act, knowing that the nothing can be gained from action that non-action cannot also accomplish without harm to you. The spouses will find out. This is almost certain. They may already suspect. You may hear from the H at some point, and THEN your obligation is to tell no lies. Let the lovers dig their own graves, do nothing to abet their sin, and enforce company policy. <P>One knows when an action would harm oneself because one has an intuitiong warning one against it. You have already expressed sufficient awareness of your intuition against informing. You are merely torn because you see something immoral plus you have a previous hurt in a similar situation. You can neither become a crusader against every immorality (you'd be swamped by your co-workers alone) nor engage the world through your own pain, or you would become an intollerable person out of alignment with yourself. If you aim to maintain your dignity and pride first and foremost, you will know exactly what to do and what not to do.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by worthatry:<BR><B>Skipper - would you have liked to have known about your former H's affair?<P>I can understand your feeling weird about it and feeling trapped. Post some e-mail addresses and I bet someone on this board will do the dirty work.<P>WAT</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Thank you. My thoughts exactly. You can tell the H anonymously -- just tell him. (I am a BS by the way, and yes, I wish somebody had told me)<P>You mentioned that your ex-H is good friends with him. Do you have a good relationship with your ex? If so, it's certainly something he would want to tell his friend.<P>If you're worried about it coming back on you, an anonymous e-mail with some cited incidents (include dates and times) will at least get him on the road to discovery. Really though, would you want to know? I know I would...<P>

Skipper,<P>Let's get down to the bottom line here. You cannot win on this one. If you let this affair continue you should be fired as a manager because you allowing two people to cheat the company.<P>If you talk with her, and offer her the choice of fixing it or leaving, you will be the bad guy.<P>If you talk with the other manager which I believe is the first person you should talk with, then you have an enemy and should he lose his job, it will not make you very popular with him.<P>Finally, if you tell the H, he may be thankful, but she will probably not speak to you again. If you don't tell her H or force her to tell, then you are condoning the affair. You will lose one or both of them as friends if you do this as well.<P>So here's the deal. You are a manager for your company, you have obligations. Further, you may be her friend and her H's friend, but a friend would never put you in this position to start with. So if you lose her as a friend, you haven't lost much in my book.<P>Unfortunately, by possibly helping your friend and her H by bringing the affair to light, you will likely lose one or both, but my feeling is that you MUST act.<P>I would call her in and tell her you now know, if she won't tell her H and stop the affair, she will be fired. I would then call other manager, and tell him what you know. Tell him point blank, you will go to his boss if this continues. You are aware of time lost and lies being told, you are also aware of who the affair is with. His options are getting just as small as hers. Stop the affair and certainly on company time or be gone.<P>Do it professionally, do it right, and realize why they pay you the BIG BUCKs. Incidently, I would go to HR to make sure of all company policies and how they are handled. You want to make sure you do things correctly, but you must deal with this.<P>Good luck and God Bless,<P>JL

Wow...lots of things to ponder. Yes, I have an obligation to this company. And far from opinion, I wish I made the BIG BUCKS!! But seriously, here's some answers to the questions you all ask:<P>My husband is still very close friends with this gal's hubby. And we don't exactly have a great relationship unless it's for our son. I can safely say that if I were to even mention this, he would think I was being jealous of her and fabricating the whole thing. The wife of his best friend is someone whom my ex-h always wished I was more like. (another sore subject)<P>Yes, I would have loved to know that my ex was involved in an affair, but I was intuitive enough to suspect something was wrong and I did my own snooping and found out myself.<P>My company doesn't have any sort of policy about co-workers dating (even married ones) although once you are married and working in the same company, you cannot work in the same department for the same boss. And just so that we all are on the same page, she has been an excellent employee and her extended lunches have only been obvious to me for the past few weeks.<P>Even if I were inclined to send her H an email, I have no clue if he even has an email account. So, that is not an option. Besides, it would be pretty obvious who this "anonymous mail" came from wouldn't it?'<P>I know I need to do something. I just am not convinced "telling" is the right thing to do.<P>

Skipper,<P>I would talk with her or her new BF. If it is obvious to many of the managers then perhaps one of them should speak with her. After all they are the ones that noticed this first. In any event, she should be spoken to as should the other manager.<P>Frankly, you and even your company can be open to sexual harrassment suits, especially if she is looking for a way to wiggle out of being caught.<P>Think carefully, but you do need to act.<P>God Bless,<P>JL

Over the 14 years of my previous marriage, my ex had numerous affairs. I only got small pieces of information. Once I did find a letter he threw away from a lover. Other then that I had nothing concrete. He was very good at hiding things. That particular letter and all his mail went to his mother's house. He had an office I had no access too. Yet I received phone calls at midnight from women asking for him - they woul grill me about "who are you". When I told them I was his wife their said "oh is he married?". The affairs were not figmints of my imagination, but I never had anything really concrete. Yet over all those years no one ever told me anything. I used to pray that the information would fall in my lap so that I'd know I was not crazy and jealous as he used to tell me. <P>It was not until a year after our divorce that a few people told me that "oh yea, his car was always parked down the street at OWs house." and other pieces of information that I wish I'd had at the time. Pieces of information that would have let me know that my sanity was intact. Bits of information that would have allowed me to make clearer decisions about moving on with my life.<P>Today I am no longer friends with the people who told me this information after my divorce. I figured that I don't need friends who help my spouse cheat on me. They are not my friends. They knowingly let me suffer for years.<P>In may ways you are in a no win situtation. But I feel that whena person knows that harm is going on, the injured party needs to be told. At this point, I don't see why you could care about harming your friendship with this woman. If I'd hired a friend who embarassed me like this at work I'd have no remorse about losing her/him as a friend. <P>If it were me I'd tell her husband and the wife of the other manager. I might to it anonymously (and include a copy of "Surviving an Affair") but I would do it. In your shoes I'd feel obligated. <P>But that is just me. I abhore deception and secrets - they are a cancer that allow the most hurtful things to go on in our lives. <P>That's just me,<BR>Z

Zorweb:<P>Your point of view has really tugged at my heart. You make some very valid points and if I were a man, (you know the kind with big **lls, I would not think twice about saying something to either this other manager, or the woman in question. Simple fact is that I am a huge chicken. BIG ONE. Sending out those books may get them both thinking that someone knows the cat's out of the bag though. I may just do that and see what happens. From what my fellow co-worker said, he has suspected this has been on-going since last December!!! I've been a little to busy to notice this type of stuff, but now its pretty obvious to me.<P>Thanks again for the insight.

If you send the books with no other information, then I fear the BSs will only feel crazy. If it were me, I'd include some solid information too. I do not think it is important that they know that you are the source of the information. Only that they get the information.<P>Would this approach be cowardly? Perhaps. But consider this. I feel that you would be doing the BSs a service and you would be keeping the fallout from hitting you, keeping yourself safe. And you must do that if at all possible. We are talking about your career here.<P>The only danger I see with the anonimous approach is whether or not you could keep the secret of who sent the info.<P>I do not envy you. But I would do it in a heart beat.<P>Z<P><BR>

Skipper, See? I told you there wouldn't be consensus. <P>I admire your sense of right and wrong for posing the question.<P>Wat

WAT,<P>Some sense of right and wrong huh? Yeah being able to say I have some moral sense of duty is one thing, but following through with what I would think would be the "right" thing to do is entirely another.<P>Zorweb you are correct in my wanting to protect myself and my career above this nonsense that is happening under our noses. It's just plain tugging at me that there are innocent people that have no clue what is going on. I feel for everyone involved.<P>Any more feedback?<BR>

Hi,<BR>I usually post on In Recovery but i wandered this direction. I have read all the posts on your thread and i agree with the "you have a contractual obligation". Since there is already a bit of contention as far as who she potrays herself to be (hense your husband's 'i wish you were more like her') and who she really is does it really matter if she ends but being upset with you?<P>I liked the idea of letting HR deal with it. Afterall, if she were not your friend more then likely this is your companies policy to let HR take over disciplinary action. If she were not your friend only an employee your would say "ok Ms. so 'n so you are stealing company time" but htis would have to be done in writing as to go in her employee file for future referrance. Again, if she were not a friend and continued stealing company time you would have the first write-up to back you up, see why it'sneccessary to report it to HR. Simply put this is an HR issue. From there you see how it plays out.<BR>Oh yeah, one more thing. I am the betraying spouse and my best friend knew of what I was doing. My husband has asked me not to be firends with her any longer. I have honored that as if she was willing to allow me to continue in such destructive behavior I am not sure i really need her friendship.<P>Best of Luck.

Skipper,<P>My H had an affair with a coworker (his admin girl). I am sure a couple of people in the office knew because of the small company and close working quarters. Nobody said a thing. I got very strange looks from one girl everytime i came around (thought i was paranoid for awhile). A man in the office always had lengthy conversations with me. He would ask how I was doing (more than nonchalantly), offered to help out when H wasn't around, etc.. He seemed way to concerned about me. My H was not real happy about the questions he was asking me. 2 or 3 of his friends knew. These were supposedly two of "our" friends. NOBODY said a single thing to me. Never. <BR>After everything was out in the open I found out that these, so called, friends told him he couldn't sit on the fence and to make up his mind. Nobody said, "hey you have a wife and kids at home. what the hell are you thinking?" <BR>I sure would have appreciated knowing way before I found out. It is better to have someone tell you, anonymously or to your face. I found out in a very public place and I can't even tell you how that felt. Even though we still socialize with my H's friends, I will never look at them the same again knowing that they withheld something that critical to my life so that they wouldn't have to be bothered by it.<P>You don't know how they will react to you. If you are their friend and mother of their godchild, it is possible that you may still have a friendship with them. If not, it will be because of guilt on the wife's part.<P>I would have wanted someone to do it for me and I can tell you that I would do it for my friend no matter what.<P>It's like in a small town. You are more cautious of your behavior because it becomes public knowledge very easily. Ridicule is a deterrant. Today, nobody wants to be bothered with the next persons problems. We all live in relative anonymity. That's why affairs are so easy to pull off.<P>While I say all of this, I do understand exactly where you are coming from. I was in a similar position and I did tell - anonymously. They don't know it was me. Several others knew about it also so it could have been any number of people.<P><BR>sorry for the VERY long response. this struck a nerve for me.<p>[This message has been edited by cleopatra (edited May 21, 2001).]

Thanks H.C. and Cleo for your insight. I believe that where I am headed with this is to my direct boss. As he is also knowledgable about what the other managers in his group know, I think it's in my best interest to have him deal with this problem and not me. My boss also has a working relationship with the other dept. manager involved here so it may be better recieved by him as he is older and wiser than all of us and his opinion will be more respected.<P>I will let you all know what happens tomorrow after they talk.<P>Thanks again for your support.<P>Skippy