would this annoy you?

[basil]

Friend A, Friend B, Colleague C and I all work in the same department. I'm cordial but not close with Colleague C.

Friend A got married and followed her new husband to a new job in a new state, and Colleague C took on one of her responsibilities.

At the first meeting, Colleague C announced his new responsibilities in a Powerpoint presentation and put up a photo of Friend A, Friend B, and me at Friend A's wedding shower. Colleague C was not at the shower, and neither was anyone else in the department, so he must have gone on Facebook and gotten the picture.

It's not a huge deal but Friend B and I were talking that it's sort of annoying he did that, since we all have professional/official photos that the department takes for us for these types of uses. Plus, I think it makes us look sort of unprofessional to post a party photo when talking about work stuff. Especially without permission.

Or am I overreacting?

[ha98ed14]

It just seems awkward. Perhaps he thought that the other people at the meeting would not know why Friend A left, so he was looking for a wedding-related picture to tell the story of why she moved on and thus how he came to have this new responsibility. That is my guess, but yeah, he could have just said it and not have dedicated a whole slide to it. It think it annoys you because it assumes a level of closeness that is not there at all. It violates the work/friend boundary. Yes, it would annoy me.

[tabegle]

Yeah, it seems a little weird and creepy. It would really bother me.

[MamaMolly]

It crosses the line IMO.

[BunnyBee]

I would ask him to use the professional photos and not pull candids off of Facebook in the future. Then quietly restrict access. I would try to keep the tone of the request neutral.

[TxCat]

Would definitely bother me.

[elektra]

It is common for my colleagues to grab funny FB pictures or other candid pictures taken at work parties and such when doing a sort of ice breaker "intro to the team" type of slide. So it would not bother me in that context. However, if this was a more serious in tone presentation, then I do think it would be awkward. The company professional shots should be used in that case.

[squimp]

Awkward. Not sure what I would do but that seems odd.

[wellyes]

Maybe Friend A provided him with the photo at his request.

[TwinFoxes]

It is common for my colleagues to grab funny FB pictures or other candid pictures taken at work parties and such when doing a sort of ice breaker "intro to the team" type of slide. So it would not bother me in that context. However, if this was a more serious in tone presentation, then I do think it would be awkward. The company professional shots should be used in that case.


At my company it would not seem odd, it would actually be more odd to use the official headshot. In fact, a bunch of people have casual shots as their official photos. But, I think at a lot of companies a random party photo would seem odd. If it's strange for your corporate culture, I would say something in a pleasant way.

[mommylamb]

That was very unprofessional of him. But I think I would just let it go for now rather than bringing more attention to what he did. Very strange.