Workplace Confidentiality Doesn’t Exist
In theory it’s great, in practice it’s near impossible.
Your manager may seem to be understanding, empathetic, and may even be personally genuine (i.e. believe it themselves) when they tell you that your meeting with them is confidential.
Perhaps you have an issue — job isn’t what was promised, promotion didn’t come as expected, no-one was hired for your team, pay has fallen below market rates and you’re thinking of leaving, or any one of a number of personal issues with the workplace.
They may say that nothing will “go any further” and that any concerns you may have will be addressed — but how is that actually possible in reality?
You stop yourself, just before volunteering some personal information that, if it got out, could either severely damage your career prospects, cause you to be alienated in the workplace, or make you so embarrassed that you could never face coming into work again.
The Chains That Bind
Managers have a manager and those, in turn, have managers too.
It’s a bit like a recursive definition of a word, a kind of ‘pass the parcel’ of responsibility that will be laughably familiar to anyone operating within the jurisdiction of the grand game of software engineering.
