Imagine saving a co-worker's life, only to have your heroic act turn into a nuisance. Picture your boss setting Google Alerts for your name, tracking your every move in the public eye. Envision a colleague bouncing away on a treadmill during a Zoom meeting with the company VP.

In this episode, we take you on a rollercoaster ride through three gripping tales from the trenches of the office world. First up, we grapple with the intrusive world of Google Alerts. Is it a well-intentioned move to build rapport, or an unnerving invasion of privacy? Next, we’ll explore the rising trend of Zoom meetings from treadmills. Is it a harmless attempt to stay active, or an unprofessional distraction that's grinding our gears?

The climax of our journey? An extraordinary act of life-saving heroism - CPR in the middle of the office. What happens when the person you save isn’t necessarily someone you like, and their gratitude starts to feel like a noose around your neck?

Join us for episode 42 of The Advisory and let us be your guide to navigating the wild waters of modern work life.

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This week's feature advice seeker asks:

My team manager has set up Google Alerts for every one on her team, so that she receives notifications whenever our names appear in the news. She uses the alerts to then post messages on our team’s internal group chat, things like “Break a leg to Jorge, whose improv team has a show coming up in Milwaukee!” or “Congrats to Linda for being selected as a finalist in this local baking competition.”

There’s a complicating factor in that our team’s work is somewhat in the public eye in our industry, meaning there’s a high likelihood one of us is in the news at any given time for something we’ve worked on, driven by our company’s PR. So to some degree, it makes sense she’d want to keep track of your team’s professional, PR related accomplishments — we have whole channels and boards internally, dedicated to highlighting those kinds of items. That said, our PR team does a roundup of our news items, so she could keep track of those without needing to set up her own alerts. Or she could ask us to share them with her!

The announcement posts she’s doing about our personal lives are relatively benign, and I’m pretty sure she asks the individual if she can share, before posting. I suspect she’s thinking of this as a way of building rapport, and helping us bring our “whole selves” to work. But something about using Google to track our personal accomplishments feels…squicky to me. Artificial? Like its being used as a shortcut to building a warm relationship with us. I know she could just Google any of us at any time but what if I was in the news because I was in a terrible accident? What if I got a divorce, or a relative died, or what if I was, say, arrested for protesting in alignment with my political views? I’m not sure I want her to be notified of incidents that might not be things I’d choose to share.

I guess my question is: is this weird? Or is it something we should all just accept in today’s digital world? And if I wanted to ask her to remove the alert for my name, do you have suggestions for scripting I could use?

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If you have a question, send us an email at [email protected] or shoot us a DM on:

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This episode was streamed live on Twitch and YouTube on 18.05.23.

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00:00 - It begins

00:19 - David accidentally becomes a retail worker

12:00 - Always read the fine print

13:58 - Send us your advice or your solutions

16:45 - Australia’s Favourite Shapes Flavour

20:08 - Question: Is it unprofessional to take a Zoom call from a treadmill?

27:26 - David keeps us after lunch

31:20 - Question: I accidentally saved my colleagues life but I secretly hate them

58:38 - Feature: My manager is stalking us online with Google Alerts

1:20:03 - Another secret voice mail

1:21:50 - Outro