As I mentioned in a recent post, I take the shuttle back and forth to campus multiple times a day and there are sometimes some very interesting conversations going on. Usually about people’s weekend activities or the buzz around campus, but nothing ever too private. To add a little perspective, the seating in the shuttle is two long rows down each side of the bus, so its not like people sit in their own rows and can control how loudly they talk. Pretty much, if you have a conversation, you should expect that everyone can hear it.

So, on the way back to my office today, a couple people were talking about their grad school classes and other benign topics, but then switched to talking about some interviews the man had recently conducted. The woman obviously knew what the position was and had an option about who should fill that spot. Then, they actually start using FULL NAMES of employees who have interviewed and how they think they would do. Normally I wouldn’t say anything, but after they mentioned a friend of mine’s name, I really couldn’t help myself. After all, we are supposed to uphold a certain “credo” at Vanderbilt and you really just don’t need to be talking like that.

I leaned over and said, in what I thought was a nice, quiet voice, “this probably isn’t a conversation you really want to have on the shuttle”. Well. You’d think I’d asked the woman to take off all her clothes and dance around the parking lot. The look she gave me was a mix of incredulousness and shock. I felt like I had to defend myself immediately and I just said, “you know, about interviews and stuff”. And she goes “Oh, well, we work on the same team so….”. I thought for a moment and then said, “Well, you never know who is listening and all I’m saying is you probably don’t want to mention people’s names in this kind of atmosphere”. She continued to look at me like I was completely out of my mind and “who was I?” to say something to her.

I can understand the defensiveness one instinctively gets when someone you don’t know challenges whatever you’re doing. Even if you’re in the wrong, you feel like somehow the other person as wronged you. That woman is probably telling all her office mates about a nosy goodie-two-shoes who chastised her on the shuttle. And I thought far enough ahead to consider that might actually happen, but ran the risk anyway. This really was inappropriate! If they hadn’t used people’s names, I wouldn’t have said anything, but, come on! Right!?