Etiquette Advise ?

[Leaffan]

So, ummm, out of curiosity, is this conference an annual thing? Where is it held this year?

[Tracijo67]

@DragonAsh

And I’m sure at that meeting you spoke right up and said so, right?

Actually, no. Because I was there, attending the seminars, just as an aspiring “model employee” should. She was not. She was out gallavanting on the lake, on the tax-payer dime, when she should have been sitting in a conference room, battling sleep, and watching the clock.

I don’t care about whether or not she was sleeping with a coworker. I refuse to participate in that kind of gossip, because that goes against my boundaries of what personal integrity is, and how I should model my behavior.

But she would be put in a position with some authority and a lot of autonomy, and she demonstrated to my satisfaction that she does not make good decisions about workplace accountability.

I mentioned that she was a rock star performer to remove doubt that it was about her capability to do the job. But good judgment skills are another critical component of managing the performance of others, and there are questions in my mind about her capabilities in that area.

[Acsenray]

@madmonk28

In general, the SDMB is a good place to get fashion advice on what to wear to a LARP or whether to start reading a particular magna series. On how to navigate relationships between adults? Not so much.

Yep, this is the place where wanting frequent social company is the sign of a pathology, like alcoholism.

@DragonAsh

I guess the only thing that crossed my mind was - why is this guy at happy hour so often with a wife and kid at home? But whatever; to each his own.

This kind of thing is highly culture and class dependent. I know around here working class men and immigrant men tend to spend every weekday evening hanging out with their friends rather than going home after work.

[Ellen_Cherry]

@DragonAsh

I’m sure the OP loves to wrap herself up in this random, completely arbitrary, self-imposed +6 Cloak of Superiority: ‘I can have coffee at Starbucks with you, but an alcoholic beverage at a place that serves other adult beverages? Oh no, that just crosses the line’. :rolleyes:

This is crossing the line into insulting; dial back the vitriol please.

[Voyager]

@Tracijo67

It happens. A lot. Managers and directors are just as human, and as prone to petty gossip and speculation, as the rest of us. I have seen this very thing happen. Not so much with frontline staff but most certainly within the ranks of management. And I was invite into that circle after 8 careful years of managing my own performance — both the work itself, and the image that I present to others. One very recent example: a female worker with an exceptional reputation as a “rock star” was rejected in our pool of candidates because one manager shared her concerns about rumors involving this worker and another (married) male worker while away at a conference. She was careful to say that her “concerns” were that they weren’t where they should have been during a workday at a conference. I was actually at that same conference. People were giddy with breathless gossip that she hadn’t returned to her hotel room one night, that they were seen renting a boat together during th conference, etc.

Every last one of us sitting in that room knew beyond a doubt that it wasn’t about two people out fishing together on the government dime while attending a conference at a resort. Half the people who attended that conference missed more presentations than they attended, and this is routine at every conference, government sponsored or no.

I’d live to have seen her trip report.

This isn’t true at the conferences I attend. True they are engineering, so we’re boring. But I know the attendance figures, and I know the session attendance figures, and they are up over 70%. True senior people spend more time networking than sitting.
However I’ve also gone to a conference most attended by people in the military and defense contractors. Attendance is about 500, and the maximum paper session attendance might have been a dozen, with no more than five sessions at a time. They all came back for social events, though. This was even true in Salt Lake City, that world capital of fun.