My son is 7 and on Spring Break while I have a half week this week (so all screen time limits are out the window!) and he’s usually really good about knowing when to come into my office. Today I was in a presentation about DE&I with three directors and a vice President with some of my peers, when my son came in to ask for a juice. He noticed I was in a meeting so he wanted to see who I was talking to, waved on camera, and noticed one of my peers had Lego decor on their desk and was excited. No one said anything. So literally two hours later I follow up with my director about a posting for a new role that a colleague sent to me (my director knows I’m looking at exploring career mobility). I asked for their thoughts. And their response was, “We have talked about kids on camera during work hours before and today you were late and showed to have no childcare – I am beyond disappointed – we will talk later.”
It should be noted we have literally NEVER talked about kids on camera, and I am not the only manager whose children have been on camera. There is also NO business unit policy regarding kids on camera.
This comes after my director has made jokes about my weight to our team (he will say it’s just locker room talk), has made misogynistic comments about my spouse not doing enough to help me with our kids (while implying I’d perform better at work if she did more around the house), and has joked about us having intercourse when knowing we have date nights by saying things like “maybe baby #4 will show up after tonight!”
Before today I let all his stuff slide, but after this I ended up calling Employee Relations and a case manager is going to schedule time with me. We’ll see how it goes.