At work yesterday, I was invited to my manager(J)'s office to attend a conference call regarding a future release. I could have taken the call from my desk, but J wanted to avoid the trouble of too many people joining into the same call from different desks in the same office.The call had just started and we started listening in on the discussion.
When suddenly J's manager, R, walked in and started talking to J, completely ignoring the fact that I was present in the room. At first he spoke casually about how work was going on. Then he started talking about how we were in a bad position in the current release cycle. How J is not able to manage things well and how he is put in a tight situation in front of his boss due to J. In return J was trying to justify his stand.
And me, I was trying to make myself part of the furniture and wall paper. I did not want to be in the room at that time when my manager's manager was appraising his performance. But I could not walk away because J and R were blocking the way to the door. If I had to walk away, I have to disturb them and make them aware of my presence.I wished I could just vanish into thin air for those few minutes. I was trying my best to use all facial muscles to convey the message that all my concentration currently lies on the conference call and not on their discussion.
I felt it was such a tough situation and did not know what to do.I just had to stay there till their discussion ended, which it did thankfully, in a few minutes. But J appeared consious all day yesterday and tried to avoid eye contact.Guess he was embarrassed by what happened and I could not help the situation in any way!!
I wonder what would anyone else in my situation would have done?
