The affair? (part 2)

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Breakdown

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Sunita's dilemma

 It’s Monday morning and Sunita is due to have her weekly one-to-one meeting with Joan. Sunita has spent the weekend wondering what to do. How should she tell the Chief Executive Joan about rumours that she and one of the Trustees, Ashok may be having a relationship?  She thought about speaking to the Chair and even writing an anonymous letter to Joan. Her partner said she should speak to Joan directly, get it over with and stop agonising.

The one-to-one meeting runs its normal course: Sunita feeds back on what’s been happening, what’s coming up and anything new that Joan might need to know about.

Sunita is nervous and anxious, dreading having to bring up the issue of the rumours about Joan and Ashok. At the end of the meeting Sunita says “there is something else that I’d like to mention”. Joan looks up with interest: “Yes?” she says.

Rumours

As Sunita tells Joan about the rumours. Joan gets up abruptly and turns away. "Why is this the first time I've heard about this?  Why didn’t you mention this before?" 

Sunita is silent and says quietly that she didn’t feel it was her business and anyway it was only a rumour.  

Joan says "It certainly was your business.  You should have told me that people are gossiping and sniggering about my private life.  This is awful not just for me but for Age Aid!".

Sunita sits in an uncomfortable silence. After a few minutes, Joan says briskly "It’s nothing to do with anyone else, but I'd like you to know that my  relationship with Ashok is strictly professional.  You know he's a property expert and he's been helping me think through an idea I've got about buying some land behind our site that's about to come up for sale in the near future.  We've really got to expand and be able to offer more services and with this piece of land, we could do so much more.  I've been meeting Ashok after Management Committee meetings and he's helping me draft a detailed proposal.  Nothing has been going on!"

Trust

"But what I'm more concerned about is why you didn’t tell me before".  Sunita goes pale. She doesn’t like conflict and her relationship with Joan isn’t close. Their meetings are often quite uncomfortable.    

Joan says "I want this to be the last time that you're not up front with me" and reassures Sunita that she thinks her work has been great.  Joan admits that because she trusts Sunita, she has just let her get on with things.  Joan says, " I think I haven't invested enough time in getting to know you better.  Let's go out for lunch today as a start". Sunita smiles with relief! 

Sunita leaves Joan’s room and immediately goes to Pam to quash the rumours!

Have your say

• Was Sunita right to tell Joan?
• Was it appropriate for Joan to be angry with Sunita?
• Do you believe Joan's explanation? 
• Have you been in a similar situation with your boss or person you line manage? How did you handle it?

Have your say on the Millcaster Tales forum.

Other episodes

Missed the affair (part 1) Read it here.