boss told me to bring my sick four-year-old to work, coworkers saw my NSFW phone screen, and more

by Alison Green on February 27, 2025

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My boss told me to bring my sick four-year-old to work with me

I want to start off by saying I am the absolute backbone of our store and everyone, including my boss, knows it. My boss has the flu right now and my four-year-old has been sick. She woke up crying, feverish, snotty, etc. I texted my boss at 4 am (I was scheduled to open at 10:30 am) explaining that my child’s sickness had taken a turn for the worse and asked if there was a possibility that anyone else could cover. She responded that there was no one besides me who could work and I would just have to bring my sick daughter with me. I’d been up all night with my child as well, which I also stated to my boss.

I don’t feel like this is fair. My sales are the highest, I feel I work the hardest, and I’m often told how great I am. Even corporate has reached out to me about my amazing sales. Am I overreacting?

No, you’re not overreacting. It’s not reasonable to expect to you bring a sick child to work (nor would customers be likely to appreciate it).

I think where you erred, though, was in asking if you could take a sick day. If we had a time machine, I’d send you back in it to instead say, “Jane is very sick and I’ve been up all night with her, so I won’t be able to open the store today.” Don’t ask, which implies you’re open to hearing “no” — say you wouldn’t be there and why (just like you’d presumably do if you yourself were throwing up or in the ER or so forth). There are some situations where you simply cannot come to work because of sickness, period. In those cases, it’s better not to cloud the situation by presenting it as optional.

2. My coworkers saw porn on my phone’s lock screen

I graduated from college last May and got my first office job. I have my work iPhone and my personal phone. I only ever use my work phone for work things, of course, but my problem came from my personal phone.

I downloaded something on my personal phone so that every time I turn on the screen, the lock screen background is an AI porn pic. A new pic comes up every time. Aside from obvious benefits, this motivates me to never take out my phone at work. I won’t even check my phone until I get to my car. (The reduced phone use was my New Year’s resolution, and it has made me noticeably mentally sharper.)

But today, my phone was ringing from my backpack while I had three coworkers in my cubicle talking about a project. I usually keep it on silent but forgot this time. It kept ringing, and one of them asked if I needed to get it. I said no, and tried to turn my phone on silent with my hand still in the backpack while I peeked inside it. One asked why I didn’t just take my phone out, and I said it was fine. But I was struggling to hold the backpack and unlock my phone at the same time, and the backpack slid down and fell on the floor with my phone still in my hand.

The porn was only there for a split second, but everyone there saw it. Everyone went dead silent, and they were looking between me and each other. I put the phone away immediately and tried to start up the previous conversation again, but everyone was giving minimal answers. The meeting ended shortly after that. After half an hour of silently panicking in my cubicle, I said I was sick and left to work from home the rest of the day.

I’m working from home the rest of the week. I have no idea what to do. I hate how everyone is judging me for something that is not deontologically bad, but I never would’ve shown it at work. Everyone is looking at me like they think something’s wrong with me, and I’m terrified it will get to my manager. Will I lose my job? Does everyone hate me? What do I do now!?

First and foremost, you should take the porn off your phone’s lock screen. Yes, you didn’t intend to have it out at work but, as this experience showed, there are ways that can still happen and the consequences are too severe if it does. Moreover, even if you never intended to bring your phone out while you were there, you were bringing pornographic material into your workplace! Find another way to reduce your phone use. (That’s before we even get into the reality that as you go about your non-work life and are using your personal phone, you’re probably exposing other people to pornography against their will, which really isn’t okay to do.)

As for work … all you can really do is to make a point of being scrupulously professional from here on out. It’s unlikely that people hate you, although some of them might feel a little icky around you for a while until that impression gets overridden. You’re probably not going to get fired (although you might get spoken to about what is and isn’t appropriate to have at work). But yeah, you made people really uncomfortable because you exposed them to something sexual against their will! Demonstrate through your actions that it was out of character and that you’re professional and respect boundaries, and it shouldn’t be impossible to live down.

3. Can my out-of-office messages say that emails sent while I’m out will be deleted?

I am going on vacation for just over two weeks with my husband — our first decent holiday since before the pandemic. Given the amount of emails I normally receive (about 100 daily), I want to leave an out-of-office that will politely say that I will not be reading my emails and therefore they will effectively be deleted. I will give details of a team member who can handle urgent requests (which she is happy to do) but beyond that I would just want to ask people to resend anything non-urgent on the date after my return. I have seen OOO emails along these lines but sometimes they come across as a bit aggressive. What is your advice on how to word this? This will be the first time in 17 years I haven’t taken work or my laptop away with me and I so need the break. And also not to come back to several hundred emails to wade through!

There are jobs and companies where you could do this and jobs and companies where you couldn’t, so the first thing to figure out is whether this will be okay in your job and in your company. In some jobs, this would be seen as off-putting to clients (since it puts the burden on them to remember to contact you again in X days, which won’t necessarily be seen as reasonable or client-friendly) and/or out of sync with your company’s culture, or it might result in you missing things you really needed to know (if someone doesn’t bother to resend later as instructed, which is highly likely in some cases, especially since a lot of people don’t pay attention to the actual content of OOO messages).

So you really need to know if it’s going to be been seen as reasonable in your office. If you’re not sure, ask your boss.

But if you’re confident it’s fine in your particular context, then I’d word it the message way: “Emails sent to this address March 10-21 will not be read. For anything urgent during that time, please contact X at Y. Otherwise, please resend your message after March 21.”

Related:
my colleague’s auto-reply says she might never answer your email

4. Using an inhaler during a job interview

For reasons I won’t go into, my employer is in the process of downsizing. I am currently a full-time, salaried employee, but within the next month I will either be changed to a part-time hourly employee or let go. I am actively looking for a new full-time role, and my employer is supportive of my job search.

My issue is that recent cold winter weather, work stress, and other stressors have caused my asthma to flare up. Currently, it is difficult for me to speak more than a few words before I start wheezing. My doctor’s advice has been to continue my daily medication and use my rescue inhaler as needed, which I have been doing. This is a flare-up, it will eventually pass.

Do you have any tips on how to navigate job interviews when I will likely start wheezing and need to use my inhaler in the middle of the interview? Is it appropriate to let the hiring manager know ahead of time via email that I’m okay, I’m healthy, I’m just having a temporary flare-up and they shouldn’t be alarmed if I have to use my inhaler during the interview? At the level I’m at in my career, interviews could easily last up to an hour.

You can absolutely let them know that. At the start of the interview, you could say, “I’m having a temporary asthma flare-up from the weather. It’s nothing to worry about, but I might need to use my inhaler at some point while we’re talking and I don’t want you to be alarmed if that happens.” People will generally take their cues from you on this kind of thing, so the more your vibe is “I have this under control,” the more likely they are to take it that way.

5. Should my resume have an objective at the top?

I am applying for an internal department director position at my organization. I’m doing a redesign of my resume since it’s been a while. Is it appropriate to put “Objective” at the top? I’m seeing this in a lot of templates, but it seems like overkill to me – I mean, the objective to get the position, is it not?

Objectives at the top of resumes were outdated 15 years ago, and it’s bizarre that they’re still showing up in resume templates. You do not need one, and should not use one. They’re unnecessary, take up valuable real estate that’s better spent on something more important, and will look dated.

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

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  2. Daria grace*

    #2, i’m sympathetic to needing to take extra steps to minimise your phone usage but what you’re doing is weird and inappropriate.

    If you’re an iPhone user, I highly recommend the free app ScreenZen as a tool for reducing your screen use. You can set it to completely lock you out of apps during certain times, limit how long you spend it apps, only let you open selected apps a certain number of times a day, make chosen apps wait a set period of time before loading and a bunch of other things to break your phone habits.

    1. Joana*

      Yeah, things like that (ScreenZen isn’t the only app that does it, I’ve seen others, so there are a few choices) are definitely better and less intrusive than having porn on your lockscreen. There are plenty of choices people make that aren’t anyone’s business but their own, and in theory no one should be looking at your phone screen without permission, but it’s hard not ot in public and something like this is really hard to justify. Think of all the stories we hear about that creeper who was caught watching p0rn on a public computer in a library or similar place, for instance. It’s not a whole lot better even if the person is just carrying it around and not doing something else inappropriate.

      1. JMC*

        Actually it’s WILDLY different to carry a phone around that happens to have porn on it vs watching it actively on a public computer.

          1. Joana*

            Exactly. It’s one thing to have racy images in your camera roll because that takes effort to get to and unless someone is actively opening it up and showing people without getting their permission to show them something like that, no one’s really going to judge you for it. But having it right on your lockscreen, something people are going to see if you have your phone out at all (which is the supposed point of OP using it) is pretty much in the same ballpark as looking at images or vids of it on a public computer where someone walking by can see it even if they weren’t intentionally looking at the screen.

            1. Zephy*

              Right, and some phones are configured to “wake” the screen in response to just movement nearby – so you have your phone on the table beside you, someone reaches over to get or point to something, your phone detects the movement and then BAM, AI tiddies in everybody’s face. Not a good look.

      2. Spero*

        I also feel that the AI nature of this could make it particularly inappropriate because the user has no idea WHAT the random bystander may be forced to see. What if the AI generates an image that appears to be a child or a WW2 camp kink? While ANY of this material is objectionable there are MANY ways that this could go horrifically much more wrong because the LW has no control over what is being shown.

    2. Dahlia*

      ScreenZen works on android, too, fyi.

      Also there are. A lot of ethical issues around AI porn that we don’t have time to unpack, but YOWZERS I didn’t expect to read that sentence today.

      2. Yikes on Bikes*

        Yep. That and the use of the word “Non-ontologically” do not paint the best picture of the LW.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Apparently the idea is that if judged on rules rather than consequences, showing people porn is okay?

          It is not okay, OP. And people will judge the heck out of you for the consequences of your actions.

          To follow the advice to show you can be normal, you will need to go back into the office and interact with people to demonstrate that. Absolutely do not bring up the word “deontological” while doing that.

          1. HigherEd Escapee*

            Falling Diphthong has the right of it. I am judging OP and am not impressed. Were you my colleague, I’d be filing a complaint. You, OP, are not allowed to involve me or anyone else in sexually explicit materials without my explicit consent, full stop. It is never appropriate at the workplace.
            Remove this from your phone, OP. When the conversation with HR or your supervisor happens at the office, don’t make excuses. This was an entirely preventable situation. You did this to yourself.

            2. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

              Personally I think “caught a glimpse of” does not rise to the level of “involved in” for consent purposes but “put porn on phone so I won’t take it out at work, which I otherwise would feel compelled to do” is such a high-risk low-reward strategy that I question how the LW thought it was going to work.

              1. Quill*

                Yeah, I think the idea may have come before the justification here. But ALL of that aside: OP, you have definitely become someone’s record skeeviest co-worker, and the only thing to do is 1) remove that program immediately 2) be super careful about your interactions at work and remaining absolutely professional 3) really consider what your boundaries are in terms of the risks you want to take in what images you expose random passerby to.

                1. Princess Sparklepony*

                  I’m wondering if we will get a letter from the coworkers about that guy with the porn phone….

                2. LifebeforeCorona*

                  Change the screen to random pictures of baby animals and leave it out so that when people sneak a peek to see if your phone is still NSFW all they see is kittens and puppies.

              2. Princess Sparklepony*

                I’m wondering if we will get a letter from the coworkers about that guy with the porn phone….

                1. Princess Sparklepony*

                  Oops! only meant to post it once. Dumb mouse that double clicks at the wrong time. Sorry all.

          2. Leuchtturm1917*

            Apparently the idea is that if judged on rules rather than consequences, showing people porn is okay?
            But I think even by that logic, the OP failed in this situation?? Do I have that right? If the rules were, “don’t let your phone be a distraction at work,” then they definitely broke that rule.

            I go back and forth between, “is this letter a fake” because: I mean, really now.
            But on the other hand: both the internet and recent disease outbreaks (among other things) have made people even stupider than they already were. And there’s an energy of “edgelord college 4chan bro” (or lady bro, I guess) in here that could absolutely think this was an okay thing to do. When you combine that latter energy with the recent rise in stupidity, you get…this letter. So…yeah. This could unfortunately be written by a real person walking around. Who works and drives and pays taxes and votes. Christ on a cracker, we’re doomed as a species.

        2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          My college philosophy being a metaphorical bucket of rust, I can only say that the idea of porn on one’s phone that can be seen by disinterested, neighboring individuals is assuredly NOT without consequence.

          1. Fledge Mulholland*

            As an ethics teacher who just taught the Categorical Imperative last week, this struck me. One of the tenants of Deontology is that you must treat all people as Ends unto Themselves, which using AI porn which is genrated from real images without the people in those images’ consent seems to violate.

            1. Frosty*

              I don’t agree with LW#2’s interpretation of the impact of people seeing porn but AI porn can actually take a lot of forms. Some of it is “deep fakes” which is what I think you might be thinking of. However, some is just pornography depicting people. In the same way you could ask for a picture of “a man opening a door” or “[insert famous person] opening a door” you could generate AI porn the same way.

              I’m not a fan of AI generated images but thought it was worth pointing out the distinction

              1. Beth*

                I suspect Fledge means that even fully AI-created images aren’t created from nothing–they reflect the images the AI generator was trained on. We usually hear about that because it’s an intellectual property issue for artists. An artist with a very unique style can get rightly upset when an AI generator starts producing images in that style because it was trained on her entire body of work without her permission. That concept applies to other kinds of images too–AI generators can only generate porn because they’ve ingested a lot of images of porn, often without either the photographer’s or the model’s permission.

            2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

              So, philosophically problematic from beginning to end. I am not saying right or wrong. I am understanding the idea of consent at the beginning in addition to my question of consent at the end. thanks

        3. a clockwork lemon*

          Deontology is an academic term for a rules-based (rather than consequence-based) ethics model, so even by his own framework this guy is off base. There are a NUMBER of rules, both in the corporate policy sense and in the squishier social sense, that outright and explicitly prohibit people watching porn in public.

          This is an incorrect understanding of Philosophy 101 concepts being used to rationalize bad behavior

          2. Hmm*

            This comment made me laugh and remember dating a “rationalist” Captain Awkward labelelled Broken Glass Guy.

        4. Jay*

          It was the whole “aside from the obvious benefits” that got me, really. The “obvious benefits” are the problem, op.

      3. JMC*

        There are ethics around AI in general because it’s a form of cheating and theft, and frankly I never even thought there would be AI porn, although I guess I should have it’s invaded everywhere else.

        1. FrivYeti*

          Not only is there AI porn, the “training on data sets without the artist’s permission” problem means that sometimes it just spits out porn that looks suspiciously like a real person, thereby creating a pornographic situation of them without their permission. Even by AI standards, it is an absolutely minefield of poor choices.

          And that’s without all of the godawful programs that promote the ability to *turn normal photos into porn* or to *create porn of real people*, which infest Instagram despite being against the TOS.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Yeah, photoshopping a victim’s face onto someone else’s body in a porn image is a form of “revenge porn”/sexual harassment that used to either look very fake or take a lot of time and effort. *sigh*

            1. LifebeforeCorona*

              In the old days when I had my first job a co-worker had a Playboy calendar in his office which was acceptable back then. He took great delight in showing people Miss August because she had a passing resemblance to me. Today, if he was still working I’m positive there would be AI creations of women colleagues on his wall if he could get away with it.

        2. Lenora Rose*

          Never mind people actively producing AI porn for themselves — which is a massive part of the current image use — a not-insignificant amount of the stuff scraped and thrown into the training data IS porn (along with boudoir shots, art nudes, and other scantily clad mostly-women, on the cleaner better side, and CSAM and war footage on the nightmarish one.)

          Therefore, even though humans are working behind the scenes to clean up sex and gore from AI results (*Another* ethical issue, as they’re often underpaid, and exposed to traumatic imagery without even the kind of minimal support moderation teams get), porn-related results show in a number of more innocent requests; thus everything from the jokes about AI adding visible cleavage to the Mona Lisa to a child in a picture book being shown with their knees weirdly spread under a table (though nothing indecent showed due to the table, it wasn’t a pose a child would be presented by a real artist), to an ostensible AI reporter in a war zone, presented as wearing just a camisole.

        3. Quill*

          … I assumed it would come up before any more corporate uses of AI images, honestly.

          Porn does not tend to battle copyright, being otherwise occupied battling platforms about whether it can exist even behind several layers of consent to see it.

      4. Elitist Semicolon*

        My first and highly unsympathetic reaction to that was “thanks for plundering water so you can embarrass yourself at work,” but I’m a bit less AI-tolerant than most.

      5. br_612*

        SO MANY ethical issues. The environmental impact of generative AI, the fact that it relies on using existing images to “learn” from and you have NO idea if those images were ethical themselves or not (some could be the result of revenge posting of private images), and even if the original images were posted ethically and with consent to the original posting they likely didn’t intend for them to be used to create an AI image. Whatever app this is shouldn’t exist, period.

    3. D*

      I am baffled trying to figure out what the “obvious” benefits here are for something like this. It just seems like a way to get judged by everyone immediately.

      1. Polyhymnia O’Keefe*

        I took that to mean the obvious benefits of porn itself to this individual, and then extrapolating that to the benefit of having porn at one’s fingertips, so to speak, when taking the phone out for that purpose, rather than having to click through to an app or website.

        1. D*

          “The obvious benefit of having randomly generated porn at my fingertips at all times without even needing to have an intent to look at it,” just makes the this all sound creepier, honestly.

          LW, don’t…say that to anyone you want to respect you. Just change the program and try not to be too mortified about this in ten years.

          1. Joana*

            Yeah I’m all for people being less squeemish when talking about sex and sexuality, but this is different. It kind of falls into previous discussions about ‘it’s fine to have your own kink, but don’t make others unwilling participants in it.’ Maybe OP isn’t into having people “accidentally” see porn images, but it might come across that way to others.

            1. Elizabeth West*

              The possibility of this would make me side-eye the OP even more than just having naughty pics on their phone screen (which is bad enough at work).

          2. JustCuz*

            I am seconding the “don’t say that to anyone you want to respect you” because most people would construe that as you’re biggest kick in life is objectifying others – to the point that you need to have immediate access to naked people having sex at all times. That is not a good look, and would also send out alarm bells to a lot other people about what other ways you may be looking at other humans as objects in a professional setting as well.

          3. Judge Judy and Executioner*

            Agree. I see no apparent benefits to having porn at your fingertips all the time.

          4. br_612*

            Personally I think this LW SHOULD continued to be supremely mortified by this in 10 years. The kind of random memory that pops in their head and makes them full body cringe. I have that over MUCH less problematic moments and the dread of making more of those memories makes me think before I speak or act, which in general makes me a better person because more of my inside thoughts stay inside.

        2. Ellie*

          Yes, which sucks – because everyone who sees you take your phone out is going to see it, children included. OP, you cannot do this. It’s selfish and creepy. Keep your porn at home and out of sight, like a considerate person would. I won’t even get into the ethics of AI, but I really hope everyone whose real image might have been used has consented to this.

          Honestly, if this happened to a co-worker of mine I’d try to put it out of my mind, but it would make me question their judgement. It kind of depends on what kind of porn it was though. If it was really bad… well, I’d consider a quick apology to those who saw it. Something along the lines of, “I did a stupid thing while trying to prevent myself from using my mobile phone at work, and I’m terribly embarrassed. I have of course changed my lock screen. You won’t see that again”.

          It also makes me think OP is woefully ignorant. They obviously never expect to be contacted for an actual emergency while they’re at work. I’m guessing they are very young, and very naïve.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            Yeah, the LW said it’s not deontologically bad, by which I guess she meant porn in general or looking at porn, but I would say that having porn where non-consenting people can see it is objectively bad.

            I don’t mean the LW is objectively a bad person. She just sounds young and possibly a bit lacking in social skills, but just that the action was thoughtless and something that would effect others negatively.

            1. WheresMyPen*

              Interesting that you assume OP is female, I had thought male (perhaps stereotypically) but we don’t know so I’d have used ‘they’

              1. Irish Teacher.*

                It’s just a convention a lot of us here follow where we use the female pronouns was a default when the gender isn’t specified. I didn’t necessarily assume the LW is female; they could be either but I didn’t want to use a different default than I would otherwise just because this is more a male stereotype.

              2. Crencestre*

                Given how visually-oriented male sexuality is, I’d definitely have guessed that OP1 is male as well. But of course the OP’s gender is irrelevant. Male or female, they should get that porn off their phone screen NOW!

            2. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out*

              Involuntarily exposing others to porn *is* deontologically bad.

              1. A Cita*

                Yes! I was thinking the same thing. Having porn? No. Involuntarily exposing it to others (and in the workplace!), kind of the definition of deontologically bad.

                1. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out*

                  I only learned about deontology this morning, so I don’t know if it has room for things like differing personal rule sets. But it seems to me that some would consider porn deontologically bad itself. So exposing others to porn, causing them to violate their own rule sets, is logically bad.

                2. Irish Teacher.*

                  Yeah, I get the impression the LW is thinking “my colleagues are judging me for watching porn when doing so isn’t deontologically bad,” but…it’s probably not the idea that the LW watches porn that is shocking their coworkers. It’s probably more the lack of judgement involved in having that as a background and then bringing the phone into the workplace.

                  The LW sounds young and I suspect they are thinking of it as their older colleagues being judgy about porn when…that is really not the issue here. The issue is consent and knowing the right place for this stuff.

          2. Ellis Bell*

            I don’t know if OP would describe themselves as impulsive generally, but the process behind this particular decision seems very impulsive. I disagree with people who are saying OP thinks it’s okay to have porn in public, I think that part of the equation simply wasn’t done in the thrill of conceiving such a nifty solution. OP thought “What benefits do I want out of my phone + what are its drawbacks?” They hit on a two-for-one solution, and the novelty and excitement meant they skipped the absolute most important part of making decisions which is the “what could go wrong?” stage of brainstorming. For those of us who do, (or have learned to) consider what can go wrong, a phone with a porn lock screen would obviously become a radioactive thing which would never leave the house.

            1. bamcheeks*

              If a colleague did explain their reasoning for this, my first thought would be “what weird parts of the internet are you hanging around on that ‘AI porn screen’ seems like a good and practical solution to using your phone too much, and no part of you or your online bubble went, wait no, that’s a terrible idea?” I don’t even know what the equivalent of 4chan is these days, but it has that vibe of something that you’d only know about or think sounds like a good idea if you were hanging out in spaces with some pretty warped norms.

              1. Sportsball*

                If a colleague did explain their reasoning for this, my first thought would be “what weird parts of the internet are you hanging around on that ‘AI porn screen’ seems like a good and practical solution to using your phone too much, and no part of you or your online bubble went, wait no, that’s a terrible idea?”

                That’s a great point too!! When I read the “obviously” part of the letter, I kept getting stuck on that and I realized it’s bc I was having this same reaction.
                Like, the software Freedom has been around for years to block distracting websites on Macs but they also make an iPhone version too. They may also have a non-iOS version. But there are also plenty of other similar types of apps (including for free) that do the same thing—and they’ll block stuff like social media apps.

                And again just speaking for iPhones specifically, the latest iOS updates have built-in features for this type of distraction-blocking, in settings. Mine actually work too well at like 3 AM when I wake up to adjust the volume on my phone’s white noise app and the screen time setting pops up
                (Yes I could tweak that. Do I remember to do this during the day? Of course not).

                1. AnonInCanada*

                  You can also find this on Android phones. In Settings > Digital Wellbeing, you can set timers on apps and screen time goals. There’s more ways to keep yourself away from looking at your phone than plastering porn on the lockscreen!

                2. LifebeforeCorona*

                  Your lock screen shouldn’t require elaborate explanations if someone sees it by accident or design. No one is explaining baby kittens to HR.

              2. AnReAr*

                This really sounds like the type of (mostly) boys who would wear a coat covered in ahegao close-ups to high school, which was a thing a few years ago. For those that don’t know: the word is a term in Japanese porn comics for the face made by a female climaxing as hard as or harder than physically possible. Yes, the coats didn’t show nudity, so some of the kids got away with it even after classmates reported it for making them uncomfortable… But that face is basically only used when the comics center around the degradation of the female character. And even if it weren’t, active sex images (even censored by zoom and crop) just are not appropriate to wear in public, full stop. But some of the kids genuinely thought anyone objecting was a puritan on the same level as clutching pearls over bare shoulders, as well as too many of the adults.

                I go through all this to explain: some late members of Z/early Alphas seem to not grasp the difference between sex positive and sex obsessed, and I think it’s part of the whole growing up in the Internet thing. I sympathize with them as much as I can, being a late millennial but with early tech Internet adopter parents. We always had the Internet at my house, but it was different than today, so I don’t know what it’s like to grow up constantly bombarded by ads with sexual content in my feeds warping my norms. In my day we had to seek out the edgy parts of the Internet to get those ads and now I’m seeing them when I scroll through cute pet shorts.

            2. Smithy*

              Yeah – this reminded of some impulsive choices I made with my phone in an effort to stop being in touch with an ex. I changed his name to something embarrassing and accompanied it with ringtones and notifications that I similarly perceived as embarrassing/irritating.

              The impulsive part kicked in where I then went through my phone and started giving everyone nicknames – and the reality of that is that it was done on a night out with friends and not all of the nicknames were super kind/nicknames I’d call people directly. While typically no one will see how you have them saved in your phone, it’s certainly not never – and so eventually I went through and changed most people except for a few that truly amused me and I knew if they ever found out, it wouldn’t be hurtful.

              In the moment it was an impulsive act that was fun, but really wasn’t super thought out. And I also did just need to do more basic things to stop contacting my ex. My issues were far more about trying to check myself about humor and kindness socially vs professionalism, but I am sympathetic to that impulsivity in the moment and also that you can work your way out of it.

              1. JustCuz*

                Yeah I was setting up my daughter’s new phone after she broke her last one. And when I called it from my phone to see if all was well, I saw my name came of as “birther”. She told me she got the idea from her older brother … LOL

                1. PhyllisB*

                  I used to have a phone I could set special ring tones on (Boy I miss that phone!! I lost it somehow.) The one I used for my mother was some song about its your mother don’t pick up the phone and went into some nonsense about the crazy stuff she’d want to talk about. My mother thought it was hilarious and made me play “her” ring tone for everyone in the family. My son-in-law got miffed with my daughter and as a joke got my phone and set her ring tone to The B….ch is Back by Elton John. He did not tell me this and when she discovered it I had some explaining to do. (I didn’t know you could actually lock your phone down in those days.) I wish I could get customized ring tones the ones on my phone are meh.

                2. Smithy*

                  @PhyllisB – for my ex, I’m pretty sure I picked a Michael Bolton song mostly because I’d just be embarrassed in public to have that go off. Or if not Michael Bolton, something similar.

                  In the scope of friends helping one another out over drinks, it was a bit of fun and had its own internal logic. But had I ever been in a situation where Michael Bolton had ended up playing at work on accident – it really wouldn’t have been what I wanted. Even if the overall stakes are far far more mild.

                3. Joana*

                  Kids have funny ‘nicknames’ for their parents in their phones a lot, from my observation. I’ve seen a post where their mom’s contact name in their phone was ‘spawn point.’

              2. MigraineMonth*

                @Joanna – Because I’m That Person, I feel that “spawn point” should be one’s hometown, and mom should be… spawner? Mob egg? (I dunno, I’m so incredibly old I played Minecraft before Creative Mode was a thing.)

              3. Emily Byrd Starr*

                It would have been easier just to delete and block your ex’s number (unless you needed to still be in touch for professional reasons, or you were co-parenting, or any other reason you couldn’t completely cut ties with him).

            3. Dust Bunny*

              You can also just power the phone down to make it inconvenient to look at, and just check it at lunch/on break.

            4. Hyaline*

              Yeah…I sensed a serious lack of maturity in decision making in that whole chain of thought. In fact, THAT would be my primary reaction as a coworker or manager–not “ew porn” (though yeah, that, too), but “wow, having a porn lock screen is a terribly immature and inconsiderate choice, I’m really reconsidering how much I can trust Sam’s decision making…” And explaining their reasoning would not help! There are literally so many other options that I’d be right back to “yes, still, wow, having a porn lock screen is a terribly immature and inconsiderate choice *especially* given all the free apps to do exactly what you’re saying you want to do with a much lower risk of virusing up your phone.”

              1. Insulindian Phasmid*

                Even without an app solution, get a weird photo of Nicholas Cage or a Teletubbies screenshot or something. There are tons of things you’d be embarrassed for your coworkers to see that aren’t porn

                1. Observer*

                  And you don’t even need to resort to that.

                  As others noted, you CAN actually just turn the stupid thing off!

            5. Observer*

              they skipped the absolute most important part of making decisions which is the “what could go wrong?” stage of brainstorming

              Yes. And that’s one of the reasons why the LW might be in serious trouble. The fact that they apparently did not think through the obvious possible problem here is a bit hair raising for anyone in any sort of position that requires any sort of judgement.

              a phone with a porn lock screen would obviously become a radioactive thing which would never leave the house

              That’s a perfect description of this.

            6. New Jack Karyn*

              “the absolute most important part of making decisions which is the “what could go wrong?” stage of brainstorming.”

              I like to say that the definition of maturity is the ability to say, “Wow, that would be a bad idea,” as opposed to “Wow, that WAS a bad idea.”

          3. Knope Knope Knope*

            If it happened to a coworker of mine I’d tell everyone who would listen. I’d love to lie and say I’m more mature than that but it’s a wild story. So much so I wonder if this post was made up? But since we take LWs on their word — OP, this is very bad judgement. Delete this app and click through to your porn at appropriate times like everyone else.

          4. M*

            > If it was really bad… well, I’d consider a quick apology to those who saw it. Something along the lines of, “I did a stupid thing while trying to prevent myself from using my mobile phone at work, and I’m terribly embarrassed. I have of course changed my lock screen. You won’t see that again”.

            TBH, OP probably should use a white lie. “I’m incredibly sorry about yesterday. I realised when I was leaving the house that morning that my friend had gotten at my phone the night before and changed the lock screen, but I didn’t have time to work out how to fix it, so left it in my bag to sort out after work. You should never have been exposed to that at work, and I’m mortified it happened.”

            And then, yeah. At a minimum, some basic growing up to do.

            1. Olive*

              “My friend changed my screen” (or any variety of “I was hacked”) is the most obvious lie ever. I would lose so much more respect for someone who said this than if they just admitted they were stupid and apologized.

              1. Ellis Bell*

                It’s usually such a transparent lie, but on this case I’d actually say it’s more believable than “I did this to myself!”

                1. Xantar*

                  Yeah, I actually would believe this lie much more readily than, “I installed this on my phone in order to get myself to look at my phone less at work.” That is just so…out there that I would lose a lot of respect someone who told me that even if it’s the truth.

              2. Ray B Purchase*

                It’s obvious but if I were LW’s coworker, the amount of disbelief I’d be willing to suspend to accept that their friend played a prank on them and they’re not a lock screen masturbator is limitless.

          5. Annie*

            Yes, I know we’re not supposed to criticize LWs, but this is a thin line from the guy masturbating in the bathroom at work complaining that someone heard him despite him trying to be quiet and having headphones on.
            This raises so much judgment questions I would have on the person, I’m not sure I could look at LW the same way if I saw that. And I understand that it’s not okay to judge on sex and sexuality, but having that at work is just poor judgement no matter what.

          6. Jules the 3rd*

            In anyone’s first job out of college (like LW), their judgement is already in question. This would just confirm that concern.

            I guarantee his co-workers are somewhere between ‘smh’, trying to figure out how to explain the problem to him, and going to HR. To head them off, yes, a real apology might help, just quick and breezy, “yeah, that phone lock screen was a real mistake, I’m not letting that happen again” would help a lot, I think. No details needed on what LW is doing to not let it happen, just, “oops, fixing it!”

            LW: I don’t have concerns with ethical porn (and yes, I do think it exists, and no, this is not the place to debate it with people, I’m just putting this out there for LW to know background), but the key is that a phone lock screen is public. Even if you try to not see / show it, it’s public. Consuming porn at work is not professional, and consuming porn in public is not ethical.

            And really, you know this deep down, that there is an ethical reason for the social rule of consuming porn in private (ie, non-consensual porn exposure). That’s why you are trying to justify it. Take this as a learning moment for all your edgelord impulses and think about the ones to break more carefully, with a ‘what reason might there be beyond people being old and puritan’ mindset.

            – signed, someone who breaks lots of social rules, but thoughtfully.

          7. boof*

            I think maybe the best “apology” might be to revert their personal phone to an unobtrusive or G rated lock screen; maybe flash it at work relatively soon too. Actions might speak louder and not over or under do anything.

          8. Observer*

            if this happened to a co-worker of mine I’d try to put it out of my mind, but it would make me question their judgement.

            I don’t know if I would make that effort because I would TOTALLY question their judgement. And, depending on the details (primarily their position and who they work with) I would be concerned about how they might behave with others.

      4. Sportsball*

        Petty jerk that I am, I interpreted it as “so I obviously risked bricking my phone with viruses and malware by downloading porn!” (AI-generated porn no less).

        So the best case scenario of LW not being judged by the morality police for porn use is still going to involve people judging them for plain old “wait you willingly put a vehicle known for harboring malware and viruses on your tiny computer???? And you thought that was a SMART thing to do??? Sure Jan.”

        1. Anon for this*

          I’m not judging him because I’m trying to be the morality police. I’m judging him because to me the OBVIOUS conclusion which can be drawn from seeing that he has that as his phone screen is that he’s watching it instead of doing his part of our shared work, which means my workload is higher while he plays around.

          Even if the coworker in question was the most productive person in the office (which wouldn’t be the case in my workplace because that’s me, but I’m assuming his coworkers share my viewpoint) the thought would always be “what would you be able to get done in a day if you weren’t wasting time with that”

        2. Joana*

          “Petty jerk that I am, I interpreted it as “so I obviously risked bricking my phone with viruses and malware by downloading porn!” (AI-generated porn no less).”

          For some reason my brain interpreted the sentence in the letter that their personal phone is an iPhone as well, but you made me look back and see they only specify their work one is. Now it makes a lot more sense because unless they jailbroke it, I could not for the life of me imagine Apple letting through an app that lets you change your lockscreen to actual porn, AI-generated or otherwise. So yeah, if it’s an Android phone there’s a non-zero chance that app is full of (non sexually-transmitted) viruses.

      5. Dog momma*

        The obvious benefit is that he’s got a fairly constant h@rd0n & gets off on having this” accidentally” happen. ..ie not at work but in public. and it is creepy. Also sounds like an addiction.. can’t be without it so its on his lock screen where its readily available.

        1. Jellyfish Catcher*

          Once knowing this, as a female coworker, I would not agree to be alone in an office with him – ever. Maybe it’s just a weird addiction, but it also indicates certain views of women.

          1. Hmm*

            I mean, it could have been gay porn? Or octopus porn, or whatever. We have no idea of gender or sexuality here. It’s disrespectful for sure, but to people, not just women. If the unwillingness to be alone comes from having to deal with crap like this, sure. But on the facts, I don’t think we know this is misogynistic.

      6. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        Oh wow, this thread is pretty much why this site exists. I thought that OP meant the benefit was “by knowing that an X rated image/video will appear I will not be tempted to use my phone.” This is the opposite of “finding X rated material with ease.”
        OP, which one do you mean?

        1. Joana*

          I mean, OP does say “besides the obvious benefits” and then refers to not wanting people to see it so being less tempted to check it, so whatever the “obvious” benefits are is besides the point stated in the letter.

          1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

            I went back to read again. I see your point. The clause while ambiguous, has no bearing on the issue. (I’m still curious, but agree, not in the scope of the issue. Rats. So curious!)

            1. Joana*

              Who knows, we might find out! People have come back for updates on things we didn’t expect (see, for instance, the letter about OP calling her boss’s daughter a whore for participating in age-appropriate dating).

        2. Emily Byrd Starr*

          Instead, they could use a picture of, say, Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog ballroom dancing, or something else that they would be embarrassing if their co-workers knew it was their home screen, but nothing pornographic. Or- to take an idea from another post today- put up a picture of themselves or their partner in a bathing suit.

          1. New Jack Karyn*

            Ooh, Miss Piggy and Kermit ballroom dancing is awesome and not the slightest bit embarrassing!

      7. The Kulprit*

        I think it means, “the benefit of having an accessible pornographic image immediately available to use for the commonly understood use of pornographic materials”, which undoes the “I’m not some creepo looking at porn at work!” flailing that follows.

      8. Hroethvitnir*

        Heh, I actually find saying or implying “I find looking at porn pleasant” a pretty neutral statement. (AI notwithstanding, because I have a big problem with that from a consent perspective.)

        In the context of the whole letter it doesn’t create a pretty picture of how the LW comports themselves, however.

        1. BattleCat*

          “I like looking at porn” may be neutral, but “I like looking at porn *every single time I pick up my personal phone* ” is decidedly less so!

      1. Katrina*

        Seconding Forest! I’ve used it for years, and it’s still one of my favorite productivity apps.

        For anyone unfamiliar, it’s an app that grows a virtual tree when you set it to focus mode. You select the tree and how long you want to focus for, and if you navigate away from the app, the tree dies (and you lose some of your in-game currency to remove it from your virtual forest, which you could’ve otherwise used to buy different plants.) So it doesn’t block other apps, but it introduces consequences for using them, which I like a lot better.

        You can also add quotes you want it to show and select white noise/nature sounds you want it to play while you’re focusing. (I leave mine silent, but that’s a personal preference thing.)

    5. wormentude*

      I like the Minimalist Phone Launcher on android. Takes the visually stimulating icons out, can block apps at certain times and makes you wait before some apps will open.

      1. Sportsball*

        I read about someone just turning on the black and white setting on their iPhone (I think it’s in the Accessibility settings, under color filters) and how much of a difference that made in not being distracted by their phone. I’ve tried it every so often and yep—it is a lot easier to NOT randomly pick up your phone and doom scroll during the day when the Home Screen and icons are black and white.

        1. Caller 2*

          I tried the black and white thing but unfortunately it made some things really hard to use, like Google Maps. Maybe I just need to play around with it more, or get used to it. I do like the idea of my phone just being a lot less appealing

      2. mango chiffon*

        On an iphone there’s an Assistive Access setting that you can set up to simplify the home screen to limited applications. It’s intended as an accessibility feature, but it can be essentially used as a simplified phone with basic features (call, text, etc) if you want to limit application use

    6. Wayward Sun*

      Apple’s built-in Screen Time settings can also do some of this, including blocking access at certain times of day and limiting the amount of time you spend in certain apps, and even on particular websites if you use Safari as your browser.

      1. WheresMyPen*

        I find Screen Time too easy to bypass. I’m so used to tapping ’15 more minutes’ I hardly even register it anymore. I need something with a lock that’s harder to bypass!

        1. Daria grace*

          Same. That’s why I moved onto ScreenZen. You can set it so it’s much more difficult to bypass

        2. Helpless doomscroller*

          Yep, this is me. While the warning that I’m about at my limit is fine and I’m able to put the app away then when I’m at a “normal” level of strength…

          It’s completely useless when I’m already vulnerable—i.e. falling into doomscrolling in bed, when I’m very much not “supposed” to. I’ll hit that “one more minute”… then the “15 more..” “15 more…” “15 more…”

          Looking into ScreenZen! lol

    7. londonedit*

      Yes – I’m all for taking steps to limit screen time (goodness knows I could do with that myself) but this is just weird. I can’t imagine the thought process that would lead to ‘I know, I’ll have porn on my lock screen, that way I won’t look at my phone in public’. Surely there are a million other possible options before you get to that!

      1. Rose*

        Also if you don’t want to use your phone the easiest was to accomplish that is not having it on you. Leave it at home, leave it in your car. Life used to go on quite well without being able to be contacted instantly 24/7. I frequently will be out an about without my phone and when I mention this to people they are aghast. It’s kind of bizarre that so quickly we feel that phone use is mandatory 24/7.

        1. Lynn Whitehat*

          At the risk of a “not everyone can have sandwiches” take, some people use their phone for 2-factor authentication. It’s been asked about here, and IT departments usually don’t have a good solution if you can’t or won’t do it.

          To say nothing of the people who do have to be reachable during the day because of caregiver duties. If someone’s child is sick, is the daycare going to call the front desk and explain the emergency to the admin like it’s the 50s? Nowadays that’s not part of the admin’s role, and they’re not going to appreciate dealing with it on a routine basis. Assuming you’re at an office and they have an admin, which isn’t the case for everyone.

          We did all used to live without smartphones, because they didn’t exist. But nowadays you’re outside the mainstream in a way that makes people do extra work if you say you won’t have one or won’t bring it to work.

          1. lunchtime caller*

            Sure sure sure but we’re not talking about everyone here—LW is at a place where they essentially said “if I pull my phone out at work, a professional nuke will go off to punish me.” That’s a person who probably should have just left the phone at home.

              2. AnotherOne*

                Even with 2FA, there is typically a non-phone option. Something like printing out passwords. (Ignoring they have a work phone.)

                and I admit- I’m a little if this person is so the only way I can limit my phone usage is to put something on the screen that I’m so embarrassed by that I won’t pull it out in public (cuz I assume that’s the logic here)- they need to either be turning off the personal phone or be considering a dumb phone for when they leave the house.

          2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            Obviously, but LW has taken specific (and very poorly thought out) steps already to avoid using their phone at work, so they’re not someone with caregiver responsibilities. They also have a work phone that can be used for any 2FA needs.

          3. Evelyn*

            the 2FA point is valid, but in this instance the OP has a work phone that they can presumably use for that purpose (this is one of the reasons I have two phones, so that I don’t have to install work 2FA apps on my personal device).
            This also solves the “what if it’s an emergency?” question – give the work cell number (or desk/softphone number) to the few people who might need to contact you in an emergency and leave the personal phone turned off.

            1. Hannah Lee*

              Same, as far as the 2 phones. As my job required more and more 2FA apps for access to things I need for job responsibilities, I arranged to get a work phone just for that. My internal thought process is that my phone is MY phone, I don’t need to allow it to be used for work purposes* My external explanation for anyone who objects as me being too precious/antiquated/etc is that if I’m out of the office, on vacation, etc I can leave my phone with the business owner so he can access the payroll app or whatever else he needs to for business purposes.

              * More important to me, I don’t want myriad random sites, apps, 2FA platforms, Meta/Google/Microsoft, databrokers linking my person phone number to my current employer in their databases, and then proliferating that information off into the interwebs. I’ve had enough annoyance in my life with credit reports and other data aggregators smashing my data together with that of people who lived in different units of the same apartment building or my siblings’, their spouses, in-laws, etc without adding to the misinformation.

              (aside from just the principal of the the thing, and annoyance at the sloppiness, lack of care in the data aggregation, there’s the real hassle of being faced with one of those prove it’s really you 20-questions gauntlets that asks you to pick out which of a list of phone numbers, cars, addresses was ever yours that you fail because you didn’t didn’t recognize your sister’s husband’s ex-wife’s old car as “yours” and get locked out of whatever you were trying to do and have to resort to the super inconvenient, could take weeks option to do something simple.

          4. Emily Byrd Starr*

            Exactly. The reason why we were able to manage without smartphones back in the day is because we had other technology then, which smartphones have since made obsolete.

          5. Dana*

            i’m hours late to this, but as a stay at home parent who doesn’t want to look at my phone around my toddler, i got an apple watch. this way i can safely leave my phone in the diaper bag, stroller, or car and still be reachable in case of emergency. i can make calls on it, too, if i really needed to. it works for 2FA as well! just another idea :)

          6. Observer*

            some people use their phone for 2-factor authentication. It’s been asked about here, and IT departments usually don’t have a good solution if you can’t or won’t do it.

            On a separate note, it’s just not true that smartphones are the only option for 2FA. Hardware keys are absolutely an option, and in many cases they are a *more secure* option than phone apps.

            1. Nightengale*

              try telling that to my giant health system
              I have major difficulty using smartphone touchscreens and keep begging for a hardware key instead but they don’t offer that as an option

        2. PhyllisB*

          I used to do the same until I got stuck in a ditch and had no way to call home.
          I am by no means attached to my phone and at home I very seldom look at it and if it does ring I have to hunt for it, but I realize I really need to take it with me when I leave home.

          1. Some Words*

            That’s what made me finally accept that I had to have a cell phone. Also, we’re pretty forced into it since public phones don’t seem to exist anymore.

            1. Resentful Oreos*

              Agreed – since pay phones don’t exist any more, we’re pretty much forced to have our own. Although it’s fine to have a “dumb phone” that can just call and text; if the idea is you need it for emergencies and to get in touch with people, that does the job fine.

      2. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

        Also, seeing as the coworkers inquired about the phone because it was ringing, I’m not sure “won’t ever use my phone in public” and “will leave my personal phone on audible ring mode” are logically consistent. Never heard of silent mode?

          2. Smithy*

            I go to enough theater performances, where despite all the reminders in the world – it’s almost inevitable that someone will have their phone or watch make noise.

            I do think there’s just a solid enough size of the population where it’s just not a 100% reliable behavior that can be expected.

            1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

              I tell my clients before going into the courtroom your phone needs to be off off, not just silent. They all solemnly assure me it is off. The number of times a client’s phone has gone off in court is a non zero number.

            2. AnotherOne*

              but for work, there are apps that you can schedule your phone being on silent if you have a schedule. if you don’t have a schedule, there are other options.

              leave the phone in a secure location- for example.

              1. Smithy*

                Putting aside more important situations, most of us work at places where if we accidentally don’t have our phone on mute and a text/call comes in that we apologize, then silence the phone – it’s not seen as a huge deal. It’s only a problem if taking out your phone ends up being unprofessional (i.e. the phone case, lock screen, or perhaps how names are saved is NSFW).

                I’m sure there are certain retail jobs or other situations where there are formal penalties for your phone going off – and in that case those additional measures make sense.

                1. Observer*

                  It’s only a problem if taking out your phone ends up being unprofessional

                  True. But if someone is stupid enough to make their phone toxic in the workplace then they need to take some measures to keep it from showing up. And automation is hugely helpful in that context. Considering that the LW was all over automating their access to porn, it’s extra weird that they didn’t automate their avoidance of their phone in the workplace.

      3. Insert Clever Name Here*

        I interpreted the lockscreen image as a separate thing from the desire to be on the phone less. As in, they want their lockscreen to be porn regardless of if they’re trying to limit their phone use.

        1. londonedit*

          No, I think the idea is that by having a pornographic image on their lock screen, they know they shouldn’t be getting their phone out in public, which in turn means they’ll stop taking it out of their pocket and idly looking at it. I can sort of grasp the concept. But it’s so far out of the realms of anything sensible or normal.

      4. Impending Heat Dome*

        Right? Like…just turn the phone off?

        Instead OP turned all his coworkers off.

    8. WellRed*

      “aside from the obvious benefit” of having a porn pic on my phone… ew ew ew. I didn’t need to hear this.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yeah that sentence is creepy enough on its own that, while I want to be generous to every LW, I’m having a really hard time coming up with advice besides “think about your life and how you’re interacting with the world”

        1. JustCuz*

          I am still completely confused by this statement in this letter. I feel like no matter how you feel about porn itself, I think we all know there is a time and a place for it that doesn’t include *every time you open your phone*.

          1. ecnaseener*

            I’m guessing LW is desensitized enough to it that if they pull their phone out for non-porn reasons, they just ignore the porn.

            1. Eldritch Office Worker*

              I find that incredibly concerning. I don’t have an issue with porn (AI porn – that’s a whole other conversation, but putting that aside for a moment), but if you’re so unaware of it that you don’t notice it, are you really paying attention to whether there are kids around you? Or anyone around you who may not want to be exposed? It’s encouraging that LW had the self awareness to be embarrassed in a work scenario but are they *only* using their personal phone in the privacy of their own home otherwise? I doubt it, and I really hope it’s not desensitization for those reasons, but I fear you may be correct.

              1. JustCuz*

                I think the most generous read here is that LW just doesn’t think of the consequences their actions could have on other people. I think there is enough (deontologically lmfao) evidence to suggest that.

                1. Eldritch Office Worker*

                  Hopefully experiencing some personal consequences will help shift that moving forward. Hopefully.

        2. Successful Birthday Rememberer*

          Like, all of your life. This is not a one-off issue. OP needs to evaluate what else they might be doing that is inappropriate, weird, or creepy. I am guessing there has been feedback over the years. Might be a good place to start.

      2. Hannah Lee*

        I feel like a Venn Diagram of people who think like OP RE “the obvious benefit” when discussing a workplace situation and people who think like work bathroom stall guy would have considerable overlap.

        (and both circles would be contained in a larger one labeled “co-workers I would avoid working closely with whenever possible, particularly if it involved 1 on 1 / isolated / off-hours / sanitary work environment required situations )

        Hopefully, this OP is young, inexperienced and will recognize this incident as the wake up call they needed.

    9. bettyboop*

      Theres a really good one called Forest that is cuter , The more you focus you grow a forest. If you mess about a tree dies. It’s really good

        1. Lenora Rose*

          Since the times are purely self-selected it’s not that bad. At the time I used it at least, phone calls *to* me could get through without hurting the trees so I could be reached in an emergency. (It also let me play music, which I find a concentration aid, and then lock it down, as long as I didn’t fiddle with anything but the volume control.)

      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        I can’t decide if my therapist would love that for my focus or hate that for my anxiety lol

      3. Lenora Rose*

        I liked it — but am absolutely committed not to use it again. I had a really nice set of trees going… then they changed it so certain features were behind in-app purchases and didn’t either warn users or grandfather in those of us who had already earned those features.

    10. JustCuz*

      All I was thinking the entire time reading this question was “RECALIBRATE! RECALIBRATE” because there are 1000+ other ways to avoid using a personal phone at work that do not involve potentially exposing coworkers to porn, no matter your personal feelings on what is “deontologically” wrong.

    11. HB*

      SUPER weird and inappropriate. OP, you really need to think more about the fact that you are a person who exists in the world with other people and recalibrate your understanding of public versus private settings.

      This isn’t the same thing, but it reminds me of the recent post where someone can clearly hear a coworker masturbating in the restroom. I can’t quite think of the logical construction or venn diagram, but basically if you’re in a private space within a public setting, you can’t act like you’re *just* in a private space. Similarly, just because your phone was temporarily in your backpack doesn’t really change the fact that it’s an object that will be used in public. If you want to treat it like a sex toy, leave it in your dresser at home.

    12. megaboo*

      Or simply turn the phone off and check at scheduled times. I have never heard of such an illogical plan.

    13. AnonInCanada*

      I won’t even check my phone until I get to my car.

      Also, if OP #2 doesn’t want to be looking at their personal phone while at work, why not just leave it in the car? Lock it in the glove box with the phone turned off. This way, they’ll never have to worry about people accidentally getting a glimpse of something inappropriate.

      Though I agree with everyone else: It’s never appropriate to have porn on a device which could be seen by other people, regardless of where it is. Want to watch that stuff? Watch it in your own home, on a device that never leaves your house, preferably in incognito mode so that browser history doesn’t find its way to your phone.

    14. Alice in Spreadsheetland*

      “Aside from the obvious benefits [of porn]” and “something that’s not deontologically bad” conflict. The obvious benefit of porn is sexual stimulation, and getting your rocks off at work, in public, all the places you could potentially be seeing your lock screen or other people could see it- that’s not okay. Pornography isn’t automatically morally wrong, but having it on the second most public facing part of your phone is morally questionable at best (what are the intentions here if we’re going by deontological ethics? The “obvious benefits” means the intention is to be sexually aroused first and possibly motivation to not use your phone at work second). And clearly LW knows this or they wouldn’t have been so worried about having the phone out or so ashamed of the consequences, but they did it anyway.

      1. AnotherOne*

        I quickly shared this story with a coworker and his response was very much- this feels like LW was testing out a reasoning for why he’d have this on his phone.

        2. KJC*

          That’s a good read. Like literally made up a justification after the fact and wants to gauge the reaction before using it? Could be.

    15. JayStee*

      I can’t imagine why LR#2 thought that was a good idea. If you want to make sure your personal phone isn’t a distraction then just turn it off. You can always turn it back on at lunch etc. Also, “A new pic comes up every time. Aside from obvious benefits…”

      What exactly are the obvious benefits here?

    16. Troubadour*

      Also OP#2 says they don’t normally ever look at the phone until they get to their car, so how about simply leaving it in the car?

    17. App privacy lover*

      You don’t need a 3rd party app in the iPhone, which is likely tracking you anyway. Just use the built in features like Screen Time or Focus Modes.

      I agree the solution the writer chose is baffling. That’s like saying you want to stop drinking coffee at work so you’ll put razor blades on the handle of your mug in the company kitchen.

      There are simply far better solutions.

      1. Carly*

        The built in features suck, though. You’re able to ignore them and get indefinite extra screen time on any app. LW1, I recommend the physical object “Brick” which allows you to lock specific apps by tapping your phone to a fridge magnet. That way, once you leave the house, you literally can’t get back in. It’s stupidly expensive (like $50) but it’s one of the only things that works for me.

    18. Tiger Snake*

      Unfortunately, it’s also weird and inappropriate in a way that sounds like an excuse rather than the real reason.

      As in – sure, LW2 can be fully telling the truth about why their lock screen has porn on it. But if someone told me that in real life, I’d be going “Uh-huh, suuuuuuure” while being fully convinced they were just scrambling to make up an excuse because they know that everyone’s about to judge them.

    19. Carly*

      Yeah, as a woman, if I saw a male coworker’s phone with an AI generated porn background, I would develop an all-time ick, unless he turned out to be like, the coolest and kindest guy.

  3. Viki*

    3. The amount of emails I get per day and how fast things change, means if I’m out for a week, it’s usually irrelevant when I get back.

    I personally have a rule where all emails that aren’t from my boss, or my team are directed to a folder and I will peruse at my leisure (aka mostly likely mass delete unless the subject line catches my attention.)

    Check if your work place is one of those, and then maybe not put delete in the auto reply, but only those pertinent when you return on x date will be addressed. Or something like that

    1. Ellie*

      Bah, I just go through the potentially thousands of emails once I get back. Does it really matter if it takes a few days, when you’ve been out for more than a few weeks anyway? Most of them you can just skim, but occasionally, they’ll be something you need to know about (e.g. someone’s resigned, or a project’s been cancelled).

      1. Mutually Supportive*

        I go through them all too, but I’ll also start with having a quick catch up on the first day back with key colleagues so if there’s anything as important as “the project is cancelled” I’d expect someone to tell me before I’ve spent 3 days wading through emails!

        1. JustaTech*

          Yes, when my coworker was out for a month I made sure to schedule a meeting when she got back of “important things that happened while you were out” so she would know what to look for in her email.

      2. Sloanicota*

        Ha I do this too and somehow always manage to screw it up. I try to block off the first morning I’m back to catch up, but then if I go from oldest to newest, it’s really hard not to find myself responding to things that are no longer timely or got addressed later, and if I go from newest to oldest I’m really confused haha. I think the answer is to start from oldest and then just save your responses and don’t send them, but I find that stressful too haha.

        1. Workplace Sherlock*

          I start with the oldest and I open a word doc to take notes while I’m going through. If I find one I want to reply to, I’ll write down the date of the email and the person’s name, and a quick bit of what I’d want to say in response, and then I’ll keep reviewing the emails. If I come across one that addresses the thing I wanted to address, I’ll delete that note from by word doc. Whatever notes are left when I’m done reviewing are the emails I need to respond to.

        2. bamcheeks*

          Try conversation view, or order by sender! I usually switch to ordered-by-sender, and just go through and delete all the newsletters, IT alerts like “so and so will be out of service on Friday night”, “there’s cake in the kitchen” and so on. Then I flick through and see if there are any names I’m really NOT expecting, and check those in conversation view, and then work through my boss, reports and close contacts.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Yes, that’s pretty much what I recommended too. View them by theme or sender so that you don’t have to keep switching gears with every email. Delete the obvious newsletter types, etc. Don’t tell your coworkers you’re deleting their emails, that’s a bit like telling them that you don’t care what their problems are. Not great in a work environment.

      3. Alan*

        This is the way to do it I think. Like you said, a lot of e-mails (to me at least) are things that I need to know but where the sender isn’t realistically going to resend the e-mail to me when I return because I’m just one of many recipients. And I look forward to my first day back being a leisurely read through 1000 e-mails. Sometimes it extends to the second day. It’s an easy way to get back into things. People have been without me for a couple weeks at least. Another day while I catch up on e-mails isn’t a problem.

    2. Earlk*

      When I come back from a couple of weeks leave I’ll make sure I get the headlines from my boss on emails about what/from who I possibly need to prioritise then work through the rest over a couple of days.

      Also, while I regularly get enough emails that I’d probably build up 1000 over 2 weeks like the lw, that’s not usually the amount you get when you come back, it’s a combination of people knowing you’re not around and the fact you’re not replying and generating more emails.

      I’ve only heard of people deleting them all if they’re on maternity leave- and that’s because almost all year old emails are definitely irrelevant.

    3. Funko Pops Day*

      I have used the gentler “if your message is urgent, please feel free to resend after I return on the 10th” as a way to signal “if you send this while I’m gone I may not see it in a timely way/at all”

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, I feel like this would be a better way to solve the problem. “I’m away for two weeks and if you haven’t heard a response to your email by [x date a week after OP returns], feel free to ping me again.” It sounds like a coworker is taking care of the urgent requests so OP won’t have to take care of those, but I do think it’s somewhat unprofessional to flat-out admit that you won’t read your work emails at all.

        OP, it does of course, as AAM suggested, depend on your workplace, but I think that wading through two weeks’ worth of emails when you return from your vacation is a very normal work responsibility. Sure, it’s a pain, but many of them you can probably skim quickly and lots of them you can delete without reading them (as is the case for many “daily update” emails I get that I have sent to automatically go into folders in case I need them later but never actually read). A time-saver, perhaps: do a search of your inbox when you return for any generic or sales emails and delete them or move them to a different folder. Then do a search for, say, all emails with the subject for non-urgent requests you often get (“TPS reports” or whatever), and take care of those right away. That way you’re not reading every single email individually as it came in but are instead reading them in a thematic manner.

        Serious question: what’s the benefit, really, in asking someone to send you a second email after you return to the office? It just means more email to read, right? How is this saving you time? Again, I get that wading through your inbox after your vacation will be a pain, but I think you just need to do it. Maybe ask your boss if it’s okay to just spend, say, an hour a day reading your past emails until you’ve caught up, if you think that’ll be easier for you to stomach.

      2. Cmdrshprd*

        I don’t really get what the difference u der OPs plan.

        OP can come back to 300 emails sent over the course of 2 weeks, or per their instructions come back to 300 new emails sent on the same/next day they are back.

        So either way OP has a lot of emails to review, but OPs plan puts it on other people to manage to schedule the email and or remember to resend or send later.

        IMO one of the benefits of email is people can send when they are able and other respond when they can.

        1. HalesBopp*

          This was my though, as well. I honestly think I would be annoyed if a colleague directed me to email them again, at their convenience. That puts the mental load on LW’s colleagues to remember to email at another time as opposed to the communication simply being there at LW’s earliest convenience. I do not expect replies from folks when they are off. If I see someone’s OOO, I assume I will not have a response until a few days after they return.

          When I am out, my OOO reads, “I am currently out of office until -return date- and will not have access to my email during this time. For urgent issues, contact -x-. Otherwise, I will respond after I return.” When I return to office, I quickly delete all the junk and then sort through the content that actually requires a response. It’s not fun, but I also just build that into my first day return schedule.

          1. Polyhymnia O’Keefe*

            When I get those kinds of messages, I just immediately schedule a follow-up email to send when the colleague is back. Schedule send is one of my most-used organizational tools.

            Actually, if I know they’re away and I’m sending something to just them (as opposed to a conversation where they’re cc’d with others), I’ll schedule it to send a day or two after they’re back in the office. It’s out of my brain and off my to-do list, but doesn’t hit their inbox until they’re back. Win-win.

    4. MissMuffett*

      I think a heads up to your main clients/stakeholders/emailers about a week-ish in advance would also be useful. This is common practice in my department. “I’ll be out the weeks of __. So and so is my backup during this time, but if there’s anything you think you’ll need, please try to get it to me before __ so I can address it”. Most people don’t take me up on this but occasionally a few do, and I can either knock the item out or at least have it in a better place to hand off to the backup for the period I’m out.

      1. Alan*

        This too, although I’m always a little hesitant because some people will take something that could have waited until my return and ask for it before I go anyway. So I am *very* selective in who I tell.

  4. Anon for this*

    To me, someone having porn set to their phone screen is just as bad as those people who wear jackets with the anime porn faces on them. If I were a hiring manager, I would not hire someone who thought that was tasteful clothing to wear to a job interview, and the same rules kind of apply to phone screens too.

    I would also be incredibly annoyed to learn a coworker was bringing porn into the workplace, because, well… what are they doing with the porn? Porn is generally intended to be used for completely non work related activities, so aside from the discomfort of being made to look at it, there’d also be the wondering how much of their shift they’re wasting on looking at that and doing things when they should be working.

    1. Ipsedixitism*

      “well… what are they doing with the porn?”

      The letter about the coworker in the bathroom stall from this Monday springs to mind… (not what this LW is about necessarily but many people are going to think that if they see it!)

      2. Anon for this*

        That is an excellent way to put how much this would make me dislike a coworker. I’m trying to deal with our overwhelming workload, and THEY’RE giving me reason to suspect they’re the coworker from that letter? It’s not just gross. It also implies that they’re not WORKING when they should be, and making me do more of my share of the work.

    2. Lenora Rose*

      Can you clarify your assumption that an anime character’s face on a jacket is related to porn? Because while anime ranges from G to XXX, I would generally assume anything worn in public is from the “could watch this in a mainstream movie theatre” part of the ratings.

      1. Frosty*

        There are a lot of hoodies with ahegao faces on them. Don’t google that from a work computer but it’s essentially anime sex faces

      2. fhqwhgads*

        They’re not assuming any anime character on jacket is related to porn. You’re assuming anime face on jacket is not. The example mentioned is specifically merch related to XXX anime.

        1. Elsewise*

          Just adding, these are not faces that can easily be mistaken for normal anime. If you see someone with a bunch of anime characters on their shirt/jacket/car/bag and you DON’T immediately think “oh wow, that’s hugely inappropriate to have in public”, it’s probably just anime.

    3. Grimalkin*

      And of top of everything else, I imagine the porn and the, er, “obvious benefit” from having it on one’s phone lockscreen… might defeat the purpose of motivating them to NOT look at their phone…

  5. H*

    Using a deontological framework to justify the decision to have porn ai as your lock screen is an intriguing choice.

    1. Silver Robin*

      yeah that was an entertaining sentence to read.

      If anyone wants a quick definition:
      1. Ethical theory concerned with duties and rights.

      2. The science which relates to duty or moral obligation.

      3. The ethical study of duties, obligations, and rights, with an approach focusing on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves and not on the goodness or badness of the consequences of those actions.

      1. Anon for this*

        Which is funny because the app fails points 1 and 2. When you’re at work, you have a duty to your coworkers to do your work, and not spend hours of your day sleeping, or otherwise not doing your job, while leaving your coworkers to do your share of shared tasks.

        This is morally wrong, because it’s giving the coworkers the impression that instead of working, OP is looking at his phone behind closed doors. Honestly, he might as well start job hunting, because the more I think about this, the more certain I become that there is no way I could ever trust someone who did this again. Every time he asked me for help with something, “well if you weren’t slacking off with your phone you could’ve done this yourself” would play through my mind.

      2. Juicebox Hero*

        So, in other words, “it’s good if I decide it’s good, and to hell with the consequences”?

        What could possibly go wrong? (Rhetorical question; I’m an American in 2025.)

        1. ecnaseener*

          Sorta. It’s basically rules-based ethics (as opposed to consequence-based or character-based). So more like “it’s fine if it’s not specifically against any well-defined ethical rules.”

          I assume what LW was getting at was there’s nothing inherently wrong with porn in general, the only unethical part is exploitation of sex workers, ergo AI porn is fine. (I think this ignores other ethical issues with AI, but whatever.)

          1. br_612*

            Also the ethical issue that Alison brought up of exposing others to explicit images without their consent. That is also inherently bad.

            1. ecnaseener*

              Of course, but LW wasn’t saying otherwise. They said porn “is not deontologically bad, but I never would’ve shown it at work.”

              1. fhqwhgads*

                Right, it’s sort of a nonsense sentence. Since the part where it becomes bad is when you show it to people without their consent, which is what happened, and which was enabled to happen by the using it as a lockscreen.

              2. br_612*

                It’s on their lockscreen. People WILL see it. It doesn’t matter if it’s at work or at the grocery store or a server at a restaurant, the likelihood that people will see it when LW pulls out their phone, even if LW isn’t intentionally showing them, is more than high enough to make just having it on their lockscreen inherently problematic.

              3. Lenora Rose*

                They rather negated their good intentions there by putting the porn on the lockscreen.

                On many phones, there’s an option for including a means of contact in case the phone is lost on the lockscreen because if you lose your phone and a stranger looks at it, it’s the only part they CAN see.

              4. LaurCha*

                They took the phone out into the world. Any reasonable person can expect their phone to be seen by someone, somewhere, out in the world. Perhaps they didn’t *intend* to show it at work, but they had to know it was very, very likely someone would see it.

                Honestly it just gives me the ick and I would not want to work next to someone who feels the need to have sexually explicit material with them 24/7.

          2. Lenora Rose*

            Also, there are versions where “It’s *only* good if it supports one of these specific guidelines for what constitutes a moral act”, which can be very restrictive (Which is why most people prefer and focus on the versions where “It’s only bad if it breaks one of these ethical rules”).

            Thing is, while consensually looking at other people having consenting sex (which is what porn is at its core) might not be against any rules, there are a whole lot of things about porn (especially presented in non-private spaces) and AI that ARE against ethical rules so it’s not at all obvious it’s automatically deontologically fine.

            1. br_612*

              I think it’s fairly evident that while LW may have taken a philosophy or ethics course in college, they don’t truly understand this system and are attempting to use it to justify themselves. Which is a very fresh out of college thing to do.

              Though this one is . . . particularly egregious.

              1. Lenora Rose*

                This. I was thinking it reminded me of so many people in college and shortly thereafter, including the “deep philosophers” (Usually not the actual philosophy majors, to be fair) who didn’t have the practice to go with all the theory.

      3. Clisby*

        Yeah, and I had never heard the word; I just figured OP had misspelled ontological. That doesn’t make any sense either.

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          I’d never heard the term either, but I figured the LW using a high-falutin’ word to justify his choice to have porn on his lock screen.

          Which brings to mind Plato’s tripartite soul, but now I’m the one who’s being a wanker, so I’ll stop here.

    2. Tio*

      Yeah, like, there’s nothing deontologically wrong with wearing stained sweatpants at work, but you can’t do that either. There are rules, you broke them, and in a way worse way than the sweatpants because other people are more affected by seeing random porn than old sweatpants! OP, you knew this was not ok, and that’s part of why you used it – as a disincentive. It worked out badly. Take it off your screen and work really hard to be the perfect professional from now on.

      1. Hey, I'm Wohrking Heah!*

        This. I know piling on the OP isn’t constructive, they will hopefully take this all to heart and move on. (Please research the ethics of AI in general though.) Worst case, they’ll have to leave this job in a couple years if they can’t shake this off. Us Olds need to remember that this is a generation who could find and have been exposed to porn since they could access the web. (Not justifying what OP did but they are so young and are learning a hard lesson- rightfully.) We’re seeing addiction in 12 and 13 year old buys in my jurisdiction. I was wondering if they still sell erector sets as toys and wow, that’s one to look up, even on moderate safe search.

    3. Mid*

      I snorted at that part of the letter, and have a strong suspicion this person could be my ex. (Well, it’s unlikely, but it deeply sounds like something my ex would do/say/write.)

      But for the LW, regardless of your personal philosophies, porn is never okay in the office, so it’s best to not have on your phone screen even if you don’t intend to look at it. Phones have built in time restrictions you can set (you could even have a friend set up the password so you can’t access it), there are numerous third party apps and devices (lock boxes, etc) that can stop you from accessing apps or your entire phone. Exposing everyone around you to porn without their consent is not the best, most reasonable solution.

      1. Archi-detect*

        or locking it in their car in some kind of lockbock (given they said they wait to get to their car to check it)

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      Right??? Granted, 99% of my understanding of philosophy comes from watching The Good Place, but I feel like “don’t non-consensually expose people to porn in public” is a pretty reasonable ethical rule. If your justification for something is “it’s technically allowed” you probably know you’re in the wrong, and it definitely makes this feel extra creepy to me.

      1. MsM*

        “Would Season 1 Eleanor and/or Jason think this was a good idea?” seems like as solid a framework for decision-making as any to me.

        1. bamcheeks*

          We’re assuming that we’re NOT going to do the things Eleanor and Jason think are good ideas, right? Just want to make sure we’re on the same page here.

          1. MsM*

            What, you don’t think throwing flaming bottles to create new problems is a good solution? ;p

            (Yes, yes, we are 100% on the same page.)

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        Yeah, if you try to rules-lawyer why it’s okay to expose nonconsenting bystanders to your porn, those people will find ways to bystand elsewhere.

        And when they are your coworkers, determining to bystand far away from you is probably not ideal for your career.

    5. A Swarm of Velociraptors in a Trench Coat*

      It’s also flawed deontology – unless OP has somehow found a magical unicorn AI porn generator that has been 100% ethically created.
      AI porn is almost certainly non-consensually produced in terms of the original performers and other creators of the AI’s training-bank of real-life porn not consenting to being used to train generative AI – and has a high likelihood of including some imagery in its training bank that was made non-consensually/coercively.

      1. Funko Pops Day*

        Not to mention “my solution to keeping my phone away is to warm the planet and consume scare resources”

    6. Workerbee*

      I was also struck by this parenthetical aside: “(The reduced phone use was my New Year’s resolution, and it has made me noticeably mentally sharper.)”

      LW #2, since you actively chose to use porn as your lock screen before this mental sharpness visited itself upon you, perhaps now you can instead actively choose to do the half-click it takes to find more appropriate reduce-phone-use methods.

    7. HannahS*

      My guess is that the OP is young, new to the workforce, and feeling defensive. OP, you KNEW that having porn at work was inappropriate, because it motivated you to not take your phone out, and now you feel embarrassed. It’s a hangover from undergrad to leap to a philosophical discussion to try and argue why, actually, you weren’t wrong. But this isn’t an essay; this is a workplace. You will face the consequences regardless of your own personal beliefs.

      I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but buttholes are also not ontologically and–and are in fact very important and healthy and normal–
      but presumably the OP knows to keep theirs neatly tucked away at work.

      2. el l*

        Totally agree. In undergrad, your job is to learn to think and argue, which is why using $10 words and this rationalization is OK and even rewarded there.

        But now you’re out in the world, your job is to do, and your ability to think and talk clearly is taken for granted. You must behave differently because the old ways are a bad old habit now.

        As you’ve learned the hard way.

      3. Dark Macadamia*

        He gets to look at porn whenever he wants but has a “totally innocent and logical” excuse if anyone objects?

      4. ReallyBadPerson*

        That particular phrase struck me as arrogant and condescending. “Heh, heh, of course astute readers will know these benefits, so let’s not waste time discussing them, but I was saying so importantly…”

        I know a lot of people have puffy egos when they get out of college (I certainly did!) but this is another level of puff.

    9. Sparkles McFadden*

      I laughed louder at that statement than I did at the explanation that the LW’s motivation for having a porn lock screen was to use the phone less often. I started imagining someone spending hour crafting the question in a way that might elicit a response that wasn’t “Stop doing that. It’s unprofessional and weird.”

      1. Darrowby 2297*

        That’s where I kind of lost it—any time I see that lengthy of an explanation or backstory for something that shouldn’t have to be that detailed or complicated, I’m giving it the side eye. We can tell ourselves stories but they won’t necessarily fly for most other people. It’s doubtful OP’s coworkers will want to hear such a tale.

  6. 123*

    #2. Full transparency you will now have to work extra hard to lose any reputation about being perceived as icky or creepy. I’m sorry, but no matter what reason you give people it comes across really gross having porn as your Lock Screen. Not trying to be mean but trying to be honest about truely how bad this looks to basically everyone around you… even outside of work in every day life for anyone who sees it.

    1. Daria grace*

      I suspect trying to give your coworkers a reason/context for this risks making things worse not better

      1. Silver Robin*

        yeah… folks are likely assuming this is an issue of forgetting to close out of an app or something. And while that is not something one should be looking at during work hours, it is easy enough to imagine as a mistake. Sure, lapse in judgement, but one that is common enough that people can comprehend and move on.

        Explaining that you put it there on purpose to reduce your phone usage…that is a bigger and weirder error in judgement that would make folks remember for way longer.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          This is true. Plus it was fairly obvious, given a colleague commented on it, that OP was not being very smooth or organised with their phone. It’s going to come over more like an embarrassing accident than deliberately creepy exposure. If OP gets into the weeds of discussing it, it instead risks raising the prospect of their judgement and the fact that exposing people to porn non consensually was due to their thoughtlessness. Less said, soonest mended.

          1. Everything Bagel*

            Yes, it’s probably better for OP for coworkers to think it was an accident than to think the porn is intentionally on the phone all the time, regardless of the reason.

        2. Michigander*

          Yes, that’s true. For most people that’ll come across as bizarre reasoning and will probably be odder than whatever they’re imagining. Don’t say anything about it and try to be as polite and innocuous as possible and hope that everyone thinks it was some kind of mistake.

        3. Smithy*

          Yeah – unless you work somewhere wildly back-stabby – I do believe that most people will give you the most route one assumption. I do think that this is a case where explaining it leads to far more problems, than just saying it’s a mistake that will never happen again if it does ever come up.

      2. bel*

        Yeah. There’s no good explanation. Apologize if it comes up (your coworkers might prefer to pretend it never happened) and make damn sure that it doesn’t happen again. That means no porn on your phone.

        1. learnedthehardway*

          Agreed. I’d go so far as to say your phone was hacked by a friend who put it on there as a prank. And that you’re mortified.

          Lying – yes. Ethically wrong – yes. But it will make your colleagues more comfortable and will resolve this situation.

          It’s obvious you were/are totally mortified. Your reaction of taking the day off sick and then working from home for the rest of the week plays well into this.

          2. fhqwhgads*

            Yeah, if one were inclined to try to explain it away, the truth is not a good explanation, but “pranked and saw it and that’s why i tried not to take the phone out of the bag” is pretty much the only plausible and not ick explanation. Well, pranked or “malware on the device that hadn’t been fixed yet”.

          3. boof*

            Or even “Sorry about that, temporary mistake I hadn’t gotten around to fixing fast enough” – nonspecific, IMHO ok to call it a “mistake” if you LW thinks it’s a mistake now, even LW didn’t before!

      3. Ellie*

        I think an apology might help. At least it would signal that the behaviour is not likely to be repeated, and that they get that this was unacceptable.

    2. Beth*

      Yeah, word about this has almost definitely gotten around and it’s a really bad look. It’s not insurmountable! But you need to stick to a really scrupulously professional persona for the foreseeable future. Best case scenario, people noticed the reveal was unintentional, realized that you were mortified about it, decide it’s out of character for you, and move on–but that’s only a possibility if you 1) don’t over-explain in a way that makes it look less accidental, and 2) don’t do anything remotely like it again, so it can genuinely be out-of-character.

  7. Heidi*

    “Everyone is looking at me like they think something’s wrong with me…” I wonder how LW2 knows this if they left work right away and have been working from home since.

    1. nnn*

      Since it says they wrote the letter the day it happened I read that as meaning that’s how people were looking at them in the meeting where it happened.

      2. Heidi*

        They could be on a zoom, but unless it’s the same 3 people, it might be catastrophizing to assume “everyone” has been made aware of what happened.

  8. Meow*

    #2, I’m more concerned that somehow you believe you’ve done nothing wrong or unprofessional, and believe you are the victim, than the already at minimum bizarre situation you got yourself into. I’m seeing a real lack of insight and accountability here.

    1. Andromeda*

      I think they showed a baffling lack of judgement but I do think they understand it was wrong to expose other people to it at work. There have been a couple letters here where people have accidentally shown something NSFW at work (eg leaving something open in a tab by accident) and it’s mortifying but not usually a career ender.

      I don’t really see much of a difference between that and this, in terms of “oh crap, I accidentally showed my coworkers something they absolutely shouldn’t have seen”.

      I’m more concerned over whether non-work people are just randomly being flashed porn if the LW wants to watch YouTube on the bus or something. Or if a similar situation to this happens outside work…

      1. Dog momma*

        Andromeda, I thought the same, random porn watching in public..& if there’s a kid nearby close enough to see, police could be involved asap. bc there’s no good reason anyone should be exposed to this in public. Do what you want in your own home, I don’t need to see it

        1. Mid*

          It would be very strange for police to be involved because a child looked at someone’s phone Lock Screen. That doesn’t make it right (it’s also not illegal to pick your nose and flick the findings around on the bus but that doesn’t make it okay to do it.) It’s gross because it’s not cool to expose people to porn without their consent, but we don’t need to make up false consequences like getting arrested.

      2. Elitist Semicolon*

        This sounds like a good Mortification Week prompt: the most embarrassing thing you’ve accidentally shown or sent to a coworker?

  9. Forensic13*

    #2: this may not be an issue, but I would be extra wary about using AI-generated pornography. I wouldn’t trust it to know what would constitute especially taboo or illegal content, so there would be the risk that on top of something being NSFW, it might be something truly offensive even outside of work.

    1. Joana*

      Ooh I didn’t even think of that. Mostly in my mind when I think of AI images, I think of the bizarre ways they go wrong: extra limbs, people fused together, AI’s absolute failure at rendering discernible text. But I’ve definitely heard of it creating/promoting material that is ‘report to the police’ level of bad if you saw someone with it. Embarrassment is probably the least of someone’s problems in that case.

      1. Ellie*

        It was the first thing I thought of. Mainly because the way OP described people’s reactions sounded a bit over the top for a regular image. So I either assumed they worked at a Catholic primary school, or more likely, the AI algorithm comes up with some truly weird stuff.

        1. londonedit*

          Really? I’m not really remotely prudish (certainly not anywhere near ‘Catholic school’ levels of prudish) but if I was at work on a random Thursday morning and I realised a colleague had pornographic images on their phone, I would definitely have a ‘WTAF’ reaction and probably think ‘Ewww…I’m going to steer clear of Fergus, that was seriously gross’. It would 100% change my opinion of that colleague.

        2. WheresMyPen*

          I think if they worked at a Catholic Primary School (or any school) that would be immediate grounds for firing. They mentioned working in a cubicle so I assume it’s an office environment.

        3. Magpie*

          How were their reactions over the top? They just went quiet and looked at each other. Sounds like a pretty normal reaction to suddenly being exposed to porn at work when you’re not expecting it

          1. Eldritch Office Worker*

            Agreed. I think a stronger reaction would’ve also been completely justified.

            The letter writer’s reaction is a little over the top. This was embarrassing and problematic, but just withdrawing completely for over a week sounds like it will draw more attention to the incident, not less.

          2. Ellie*

            OP has spent a week away from work… that’s kind of over the top. Unless it was something truly heinous.

      2. Jennifer Strange*

        Mostly in my mind when I think of AI images, I think of the bizarre ways they go wrong: extra limbs

        Okay, totally inappropriate, but now all I can think of is what “extra parts” might appear in AI-generated porn…

    2. Caramel & Cheddar*

      There’s also a lot of revenge porn being done via AI now, which seems like another thing you wouldn’t necessarily want on your phone.

    3. RC*

      Yeah this was my thought as well; AI is already icky for the usual art, IP, and environmental reasons, and if you’re using it for porn I’m not surprised if it’s super extra icky and nonconsensual, be it revenge porn or CSAM that it might come up with.

    4. Disappointed With the Staff*

      “offensive” meaning strict liability offense under the law? Yes, definitely that can happen.

      I’m waiting for the first case where a user is convicted for possession of something that provably comes from one of the major public AI companies public servers. If possession is illegal manufacture is even more so. But are AI companies subject to the law? Only time will tell.

    5. Roland*

      In the US at least, depictions of illegal acts are not illegal. There’s lot of good reasons for OP to stop but that’s not really one of them.

      1. Wayward Sun*

        OTOH, some states have laws that classify AI-generated child sexual abuse content as illegal in the same way photos are.

    6. whatchamacallit*

      Yep I also jumped to the AI part as well, after the obvious problem of having porn on your lockscreen at work. It’s ethically murky. You don’t know how it’s being generated, but it’s probably based on nude photos of actual people, which is ripping off sex workers at best and using people’s private photos without consent at worst.

      If I were your employer, I would be questioning your judgment for a whole host of reasons.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        This was my thought as well. If you never want to take your phone out at work, then turn it off, or leave it in your car. There are far easier ways to deal with this.

        I’m afraid that LW thought this was a really clever move on their part, but guess what…it wasn’t. It was the exact opposite of clever.

        porn + personal life = whatever; it’s your life

        porn + work life = bad idea, always

      2. e271828*

        *And* the power switch is free, totally under user control, and will never download viruses on your phone.

      1. D*

        If it came off like this to coworkers, I can only imagine what a date would think if they caught sight of this mess, which is significantly more likely. Conceivably LW’s friends might be the type to be into this or think it’s funny. A date is much less likely to, I think.

      2. Teapot Connoisseuse*

        Glad I didn’t have a mouthful of tea while reading this, or it might have forcibly reduced my phone use until I could save up for a new one!

  12. Ellka*

    Porn as your wallpaper is an overall bad idea. What if a child happens to see it (outside of work, obviously). Your coworkers could take this to HR, but even if they don’t, be prepared for this to be a topic of gossip for a bit.

  13. FanciestCat*

    On #5, I agree with they’re totally outdated in the US but I was looking at some CV templates for NZ and they contained objectives (although it did say it was optional). Are they outdated there too, or still more of a thing? What about other countries?

    1. Andy*

      In late 90s Australian high school this was never a thing when we covered resume writing. I was surprised to see it on resumes that came in while I was working part time in college less than a decade later (not least of all because it was a retail job!). I’ve never used it when applying for any job; I would have thought that was covered in the application letter.

      1. kalli*

        I had it taught to me as part of the ‘resume format’ in late 90s work experience in rural Australian high school, and dropped it pretty much as soon as I was looking for a post-uni ‘real job’.

        Even Seek lets you use a cover letter; that’s where you say ‘this is who I am’, ‘this is how I fit the job’, ‘this is why i’m interested in the job’ and ‘this is why I’d be a good choice for the job’ and anything else you need to say!

    3. bamcheeks*

      UK – I don’t like objectives but I do look for / use a summary at the top, typically 3-4 bullet points summarising professional identity, length/relevance of experience and what you’re looking for. I find it really helpful to have an at-a-glance summary of someone’s experience and understand how they see this job fitting into their overall plan.

      1. Emmy Noether*

        Midway through my last job search, I revamped my CV by letting go of trying to make it 1 page, and introducing a bullet point summary at the top. Anecdotally, I got a lot more bites with the new version.

        The summary is also very handy as the part to taylor to each specific job, and to use keywords from the job posting.

      2. Weegie*

        Also UK, and also generally use a short bullet-point summary at the top of my CV. It’s a useful way to briefly highlight my most relevant experience and skills and has always worked for me (or, at least, has never been detrimental).

      3. Mockingjay*

        I agree with a summary. I stuff keywords in it; ATSs and HR in my industry screen for certain technical experiences, so I mention mine at the top of the resume to catch in a quick look or scan.

        I also have a skills bullet section at the very end – this is targeted specifically for ATSs.

    4. Irish Teacher.*

      I’m Irish and never heard of objectives on a CV other than on this website.

      I’m not even sure what they would be.

      That’s not to say there is no industry in Ireland that uses them. There may well be. But I haven’t heard of them.

      As an aside, an Irish soap had people discussing whether or not to put a photo on their CV the other night and I was thinking of AAM.

    5. TM*

      Kiwi here too, and it’s a nope from NZ and Oz to have an “objective” in either country. I saw it a few times when hiring in Australia, and never understood the point – everyone’s actual objective is to get a decent job at decent pay!

      Regarding googling CV templates, it’s never provided good results for me in two decades. I think there’s also sufficient variation between countries that some suggestions are just outright inappropriate. For example, unless specifically requested, headshots simply should not be included with a CV in AU/NZ. (And even if specifically requested, it’s a big side eye from me unless the job is media-related.)

      1. KiwiLib*

        NZ here – I used one 26 years ago. I know the timing because my objective was along the lines of combining parenthood and career so I figured it explained why I was keen on a part time job. wouldn’t use one now though.

    6. PhyllisB*

      Sigh…I had this argument with another son in law. He was insisting on putting an objective and I was telling him not to, that no one used them anymore, but he said his grandfather told him it was “essential” to a well crafted resume so I gave up.
      I never saw the point because I never saw one that didn’t say something like seeking a position of responsibility that will utilize all my strengths and talents. Not exact wording but close enough. What does that even mean?

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, I was always like, my objective is to get a job to earn money so I can support my cats and my hiking habit. But how does one word this on a resume? It’s just fluff no matter what you put there, so just nix it and let the substance of your resume speak for itself.

  14. Tau*

    #4, I just wanted to cosign Alison’s statement here –

    People will generally take their cues from you on this kind of thing, so the more your vibe is “I have this under control,” the more likely they are to take it that way.

    Very different situation, but I have a stutter. When I left university and started looking for jobs, I decided to try addressing it openly at the start of interviews etc. It helps a ton – not only does it reduce stress a lot on my part because I’m not worrying about when people notice and what they think, but I’ve had no negative along with some really stunningly positive reactions to it, along the lines of the atmosphere in an interview instantly feeling several degrees warmer after disclosure. I think there’s something about disclosing like this that can make you seem both professional and in control (because that’s the message you’re sending – “hey, I got this”) but also open and approachable (because you’re sharing a “vulnerability”), and a lot of people react well to that. At this point I disclose whenever I meet someone new if there’s any way of fitting it into the conversation, and would recommend it to anyone with a similar thing going on.

    1. Anon Fed*

      I wanted to add a “thank you” to #4 – My asthma has been kicking up something fierce in the last couple of days (I used my inhaler both last night and this morning). I usually only use my inhaler a few times a year. I thought that maybe I was getting Covid or the flu (the test was negative).

      It never dawned on me it’s another symptom of the stress I am under.

      1. snarkalupagus*

        Just sending you and all feds a great big Jedi hug (for those who want it). We see you and appreciate you and the work you do, and what you’re being put through is absolutely awful.

      2. #4 Inhaler User*

        Inhaler OP here. At first I had the same thought, is this Covid? two Covid tests came back negative.
        It’s the timing that twigged me it was stress related – it started a few days after we received the Stop Work Orders. Similar to you, up till now I was typically using my rescue inhaler a few times a year, usually during allergy season.

    2. HR Exec Popping In*

      I agree. As someone with a disability, I find if you are upfront about it and just treat it as a matter of fact and no big deal, others generally appreciate this and will mirror your attitude.

    3. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      I think it does help to set the scene. I had to interview someone with a stutter once and I felt so bad for him! Because of course one would stutter worse in a high-stakes situation like an interview. I talked to HR afterwards about whether we could do an accommodation and interview him by chat or something, but they said the candidate would have had to request it.

    4. mlem*

      From the other side of the equation, thank you for establishing it upfront. I still cringe to remember a phone conversation I once had with a rather more senior member of my company; he would pause to such an extent that I thought he was either prompting me or searching for a word (because I do that sometimes) and I would helpfully! make suggestions. I later learned (or was reminded) that he had a stutter and realized I must have come across as quite rude.

    5. Dasein9 (he/him)*

      Echoing the folks who agree that being nonchalant and up-front about the inhaler here. I once had a full-day interview and nobody thought twice about my gum-chewing after I explained it was nicotine gum and I was quitting smoking.

    6. GrimVagary*

      This is going to sound weird, but I’ve noticed that people will warm up to you more quickly if you show a little vulnerability. By mentioning your stutter up top, you show that you trust them to be cool about it. Swearing also works (depending on environment, obviously, but the point is that it’s a relatively harmless social taboo to break as long as you’re not insulting anyone), compliments (by putting the ball in their court), sharing a laugh or an exasperated look over a small mistake you’ve made, like stumbling or dropping something. If I show someone I’m not a threat by opening myself up to rejection, they tend to relax. Obviously anyone can take it too far, but I found it easier to move through the world if I treated others like they were on the same team as me. Often, they agreed.

      1. Alan*

        Do they really work now? We tried those when our kids were younger on our family computer, and (A) they made accessing a lot of legitimate stuff really a pain and (B) did a pretty poor job of filtering out actual NSFW stuff!

        1. But what to call me?*

          My roommate set up our apartment’s internet in college and for some reason she decided to put parental controls on it. I had to tell her to remove them because it was blocking all kinds of legitimate stuff and she looked at me like I was announcing I wanted to look at porn.

          1. New Jack Karyn*

            And what if you did want to look at porn?! As long as you weren’t bothering her with it, that’s your business.

        2. IT-Man*

          You’re asking about two different things. Phones do have parental controls to limit access to screen time.

          Filters as a whole have come a long way and the technology they use is relatively different. They’re not perfect and can block legitimate stuff, but they work at better rates.

          I work for a cotton company, specifically one that “gins” cotton. We use Cisco products, and their filtering service is called Umbrella, which gets used by a lot of different offerings, including OpenDNS which is a free configurable filter.

          One morning we discovered that some of our web services just stopped working internally, but not everywhere. When I checked on my home service (which uses OpenDNS) I discovered that it had been content blocked.

          What category?

          Alcohol.

          The presence of “gin” multiple times on our website got the whole domain blocked.

          I had to email Cisco to whitelist it. It was back relatively quickly.

  16. Ellis Bell*

    OP1, while your boss should definitely have had the wherewithal to say “Oh obviously you can’t come in.. say no more”, they clearly don’t. If it’s something you can’t do, make it clearer you’re not asking for permission, the fates have already spoken. The fact that you’re a superstar should embolden you here. Your word will be trusted if you say something is impossible.

    1. Ellie*

      I don’t think its too late though. You can always text back and say, “After having another look at her, I’ve realised I really can’t come in. She will vomit on the floor, and I have to get her to a doctor. I won’t be able to come in today”, and then just stick to it.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I think this is quite a useful script to keep in the back pocket for people who unintentionally soften and hedge more that they need to, and it backfires. It has the advantage of “Oops I tried, but … No.” I did used to work with a woman who used very, very polite phrasing and when people took advantage of it, she would just correct them in the moment. Sort of “Ah no, I actually meant to say you need to do it, not can you do it. Apologies if my phrasing confused you.”

      2. Anonym*

        Yeah, this child needs to be cared for AT HOME, full stop. It is outrageous that the boss even suggested an ill child be dragged to a STORE. It is not safe or even remotely ethical!!! So horrified. Poor kid, poor OP. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this – that boss is off their d*mn rocker.

        I hope the boss only suggested this because they’re so ill that they’re not quite with it, and that they’re not normally this unreasonable. This year’s flu is a beast.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      I thought the obvious answer was for boss to come in and take over the shift. If the four year old can do it, surely a grown up with senior responsibilities can manage.

    3. HR Exec Popping In*

      Being clear on what you can and can not do is the lesson. It is 100% ok to say, I am unable to open the store today and you will need to make other arrangements. Sometimes we are so conditioned to “ask permission” we do this even when we are not. And then we get upset when others don’t understand that this wasn’t a real question.

    4. Spreadsheet Queen*

      Not surprised at all that it would work this way at a store. I’ve done the retail thing for a major discounter. When 1 manager was home with flu so bad his wife found him hallucinating on the kitchen floor, the store manager was home with his kid who just had minor surgery (said manager did not realize in advance he was supposed to stay home with his kid after getting home from said surgery so this was a surprise to everyone), I was home sick with the flu (although planning to come in at 5 to close so as not to burden anyone else), and the other manager left 3 hours into his shift to take his daughter to the ER (the daughter he’d never mentioned!), the thing is that nobody at the store level has the authority to close the store and send everyone home (and doing so would still have required a manager to come in and do all the closing procedures and set the alarm). So yeah, the service desk called me at home that there wasn’t a manager in the store, and I came in, not realizing that no one was going to relieve me in an hour or two so I could sleep a bit and shower and put on clothes that I hadn’t worn the day before. So, suddenly I have a 12 hour day in yesterday’s clothes, with the flu, no lunch or dinner, and I WANTED TO DIE. Retail is HORRIBLE for this sort of thing. I’m no longer in my 20s and I still don’t know what I was actually supposed to have done. In theory, that was the store manager’s job to figure out, not me, an assistant manager, but he didn’t. I will say, that was the non-workiest workday I ever did in retail. I sat in the office and anytime anyone paged me, I called their station, asked them what they though they should do and said “yeah, do that”. I gave out my passwords to approve things, and all the things you’re not supposed to do. Because F that. (I changed them the next day).

      1. misspiggy*

        Surely the answer would have been to close the store? I know I’m coming from a European perspective, but if you can’t safely staff a place because staff are sick or engaged in emergencies, doesn’t the law protect people from losing their jobs?

  17. JJ*

    OP2. Yeah, this made me laugh. Particularly the part that you did this to avoid phone overuse, like, surely there are better ways! It’s like setting a mouse trap in your snack bar and losing a finger.
    Anyway, I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson.
    As for damage control, I’d write to the people who witnessed the background and apologize, saying you got a weird virus on your phone or that a friend pranked you with an AI generated background “surprise” app, or something. And just for heaven’s sake don’t do this again, but if you do, please do tell.

    1. Ron McDon*

      I was coming here to suggest something like this – if I saw this on a coworker’s phone screen I’d feel very uncomfortable being around them, but if they explained their phone had been hacked that morning and they were trying to find out how to reset it, I’d feel very understanding, and probably sympathetic towards them.

      If they said they’d added a porn background screen to stop them using their phone so much, I’d think they were a bit weird and want to avoid them going forwards. Sorry, OP2.

      1. Empress Ki*

        I don’t approve what LW did, but avoiding someone for this seems a very strong reaction for me.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          Pretty comfortable saying that someone who thinks that first doing this, and then telling folks about it, is a good idea is not someone I want to spend any more time around than is absolutely necessary.

        2. Allonge*

          I don’t know – someone randomly exposing you to porn is a great reason to avoid them (or to want to, anyway).

          Obviously at work this has limits – you likely need to be able to work together.

          1. Eldritch Office Worker*

            Right like I wouldn’t refuse to work with someone after this, but I would not be social with them and I might even ask if we could avoid working together assuming that wasn’t logistically a nightmare.

        3. PokemonGoToThePolls*

          Nah, it’s pretty justified, if for no other reason than not wanting to be subjected to the phone lock screen again.

        4. Lisa*

          I wouldn’t refuse to work with them, but I wouldn’t interact with them any more than necessary. If nothing else I wouldn’t want to chance seeing it again.

        5. Aggretsuko*

          If someone has poor enough judgment to put porn on their phone in a situation where any random person can see it if it rings, I don’t think well of that person. At best, they are not making intelligent life choices. At worst, they’re a person who gets their inner jollies about forcing porn on people like they’re Kanye.

          1. Annie*

            Right, I don’t think I could not think that their judgement was way out of whack after seeing the screen and if they tried to justify it the way the LW tried to justify it.
            Um, no.

        6. kitto*

          if i encountered someone who had porn visible on their phone in the workplace, let alone kept it as their lockscreen, i would do everything i could to avoid them unless absolutely necessary for the job. i’d also try to make sure one-on-one work-related conversations weren’t in private meeting rooms.

          to me, it doesn’t just say they have poor judgement, but also that they are (deliberately or not) unconcerned with others’ consent and boundaries. that makes a person unsafe imo

    2. Yvette*

      They might be able to get away with saying that somebody did this to their phone and they haven’t been able to figure out how to get rid of it yet. But all that aside this was a seriously dumb way to try to limit your phone use.

      1. Aggretsuko*

        ….yeah, I don’t think this is really about limiting phone use, from the weird cagey way OP used to describe that. You could just write the word “NO” or put a big graphic icon of “NO” on your phone instead. You don’t HAVE to put porn up.

    3. WheresMyPen*

      I think telling them that now will sound even more like a made-up excuse. If it were a prank surely OP would have said that in the moment and seemed shocked? Just own the lapse in judgement quietly and do your best going forward to act professionally.

      1. sb51*

        Possibly the LW could squeak by with a white lie about a dare or lost bet, which would come off as juvenile/bad judgement but not creepy. But only if they only use that excuse once, and don’t put out any other weird vibes.

        1. metadata minion*

          A dare or bet would still read as creepy to me, because the person thought that “put porn on your lock screen” was a reasonable thing to make a bet about.

      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Right OPs reaction of disappearing for an extended period of time after the incident will only serve to make it a bigger deal and undercut any polite fiction they could’ve come up with in the moment to cover it.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Yes, of all the ways to convince your coworkers you are a normal person who recognizes social norms and boundaries, “hide from them at home” is not going to work.

      3. MsM*

        Honestly, I wouldn’t believe “I was hacked” even if they’d come up with that in the moment. Hackers want your money and/or data; they’re generally not going to all that trouble just to drop random images on your phone to mess with you.

    4. Mockingjay*

      I wouldn’t do a white lie. Act professional going forward, but if it does come up, a rueful acknowledgement and apology is all that’s needed: “That was not my finest moment. I’m sorry for any discomfort it caused. It’s been removed from my device and won’t happen again.” Then move on to a work topic.

    5. WorkerDrone*

      I know the absolute last thing I would ever, ever, ever want to do is have to interact with this colleague about the porn on their phone. There is zero reason, including an apology or explanation. I would neither want nor appreciate it. The thought of a co-worker trying to awkwardly explain to me why they exposed me to their porn makes me want to burn my workplace down.

      Even it if was over email as opposed to in-person, even if it was written in the most vague and professional way – nope. I would not engage or respond beyond hitting the delete button and I’d be even more put-off than I was to begin with. This is one of those rare occasions where an apology would make things worse (for me, personally).

      The only thing I’d want is for it to never happen again and never be mentioned again.

    6. CherryBlossom*

      I think trying to make up some sort of story or justification will just make OP2 look worse.

      A quick “I’m so sorry you saw that, it won’t happen again” will be enough to acknowledge that that you recognize the mistake without drawing any more attention to it than necessary.

    8. DramaQ*

      Uh huh. Your lock screen, which people set on their own, was a virus or a prank. A virus/prank that you have not noticed on a device that people tend to carry on them and pretty much use 24/7. You only noticed it when it fell out of your bag in front of people you REALLY don’t want seeing porn on your phone.

      Uh huh.

      Drop it. Pretend it never existed. If LW2 is lucky that is what their coworkers will do also. If they keep bringing it up even if it is a one time apology it keeps it in the front of everyone’s minds and starts to really get the hamster wheel going in regards to LW2s thought process.

      I get massive “ick” from the letter because I cannot figure out the reasoning being “I don’t want to look at my phone all the time .. I’ll use porn on the one screen EVERYONE around me may possibly see if I take my phone out to keep me from doing it!

      If I wasn’t considering going to HR before I would consider it now if the LW decided to mass email an apology and a random ass justification for the lock screen that sounds even more stupid than the actual logic behind it.

      Porn isn’t acceptable period. While I may not avoid the person completely because you can’t do that at work I am going to seriously question their judgement from here on out . There is no escaping that, giving an excuse of “ha ha it was a joke! I had no idea porn was on my phone!” makes it even worse. Now I am going to not only question their judgement but I am going to be even more hyper aware of their behavior at work and looking for any other red flags in regards to their professionalism and conduct.

      Consider this a MASSIVE life lesson learned and if LW2 keeps their job thank whatever deity they choose that got them out of this mess.

      1. Insert Clever Name Here*

        Yes, I think OP should drop it (the topic and this app).

        But I know lots of people who either don’t have passcodes on their phones or whose phones take a long time to switch to the lock screen. I’ve even taken a goofy selfie of myself and made it a niece’s lock screen when she left her un-locked phone next to me* so it’s absolutely something that’s possible.

        *After she found it and laughed about it, we had a great convo about why you should always have a passcode, one she ignored from her parents but listened to from me.

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          “she ignored from her parents but listened to from me.”

          The role of uncle/auntie who helps regulate behaviors of young people cannot be overstated.

    9. Alan*

      Not quite the same thing but I had a coworker e-mail me porn, at work, and it didn’t change the way we worked together long-term. I was pretty livid, told him that he could have gotten both of us fired, he got defensive, but over time we forgot about it. For some reason he thought that I would find it funny.

  18. Bluz*

    LW2-just ew. What did I just read??? If I was one of your coworkers I would definitely judge you and then wonder if you were doing something at work with the porn. I don’t know what possessed you to download porn thinking this was a valid solution when you could have downloaded an app to help limit your screen use. You will definitely have to be very professional since as a coworker I would look at you in a different light from now on. Hopefully people will forget and move on.

    1. HR Exec Popping In*

      Only time and consistent professional behavior will make this go away. I would also get the porn off your phone and I’d let people see that you don’t have porn on it. Otherwise they will likely always be wondering if it is still on the phone – which the idea of is creepy.

      1. HR Exec Popping In*

        Oh, and it is NEVER ok to have porn in the workplace. It doesn’t matter if you think people won’t see it or not. I actually find it odd that people don’t realize that.

      2. Insert Clever Name Here*

        Yeah, new lockscreen better be something with no people on it. Landscapes of nature are your friend for the next, oh, 5 years of working here.

  19. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, your boss’s request was really out of order. Apart from anything else, it would not be fair to your child to get her out of bed and into your workplace when she is ill. And it would be very hard for you to give her your full attention while working.

    And depending on who else might be in the office, you could be exposing others to germs.

    You are definitely not overreacting.

    LW2, that is really not an appropriate background to have on your phone. Even if you left it at home and never brought it near the workplace, do you ever take it with you when you go shopping, when you socialise? People could accidentally see it in any of those situations too or even if they were visiting your home and that is not OK.

    It sounds like using your phone less is a benefit for you but there are other ways to do that like leaving it at home or in your locker at work or having something like a My Little Pony or Tellytubbies background, if you want something it would be embarrassing if workmates saw.

    The good thing is, you are presumably young and it’s likely your coworkers will chalk it down to an immature mistake.

    1. Dahlia*

      LW1 doesn’t even work in an office! They work in a store, so there’s gonna be customers in and out all day!

  20. Leenie*

    Professional life aside, it’s really inadvisable to have porn on your lock screen if you ever want to date or even just hang out with actual people in real life. Or you know, ever answer your phone at Target while unsuspecting people are nearby. Or interact with humans in person on any level ever. Online edgelord behavior doesn’t translate well to real life.

    1. McThrill*

      As I mentioned in my own comment, there’s a certain type of guy who insists on making their taste in porn and kink very public and very obvious. And 99% of people absolutely do not want to hang out with that guy.

    2. Michigander*

      Yes, I’m very curious about this. Did they think that they’d be able to never let anyone see their phone screen ever, in any situation, so it would be okay? Or did they think that as long as their coworkers didn’t see and it didn’t jeopardise their career, it wouldn’t matter if anyone else they came across was rudely expose to AI porn while, like, waiting in line to pay at the grocery store?

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I think they thought they would get to use the word “deontological.”

        But not with people who have power over their employment–like they realized the cast of admirers for this stirring speech couldn’t be drawn from people at work.

      2. Umami*

        Honestly, it sounds like they made up this excuse for having it and is trying it out here to see if it’s believable and something to tell the people who saw it. It’s … not.

        1. Carys, Lady of Weeds (OP#3)*

          Yeah, this is my read on it. It’s just SO gross, and bringing armchair philosophy into the explanation (incorrectly) definitely supports that “I’m the main character and can do what I want bc no one else matters” vibe.

          1. Carys, Lady of Weeds*

            whoops! not OP3, that’s from an old letter, I didn’t realise that was still added to my username.

      3. Angela*

        Right! The reason having a porn lock screen is a deterrent to using the phone at work is that people will see the porn, and that’s bad at work. So that means that they assume the porn WILL be seen when the phone is used. It also means that people seeing the porn is only bad while at work, and only because it would negatively affect the LW. It’s incredibly self-centered.

        1. Snudance Prooter*

          Yeah, other people aren’t going to view it as, “If OP users their phone, the consequence is that OPwill be embarrassed.” They’ll see it as, “if OP uses their phone, the consequence is that other people will be unwillingly exposed to sexual material.”

          Gross.

      4. LaurCha*

        ding ding ding! You know they’re walking around, phone in hand, all over the place. “Oh, oops! teehee! Didn’t mean for you to see that!” It’s giving fetish.

    3. Antilles*

      Yeah, even if this hadn’t happened at work, this feels insanely risky given just how many situations there are where people will unintentionally glimpse your phone’s lock screen.

    4. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah, even people who come inside your home, like a plumber or a date or a friend are not necessarily going to be okay with a viewing of this.

    5. Cee*

      Right! And also, it’s ok to use your personal phone at work occasionally? Never ever using your phone at work is a very silly objective.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        So, I’m projecting my own experience with ADHD and my ADHD students here, but some people, even nuerotypicals, have zero self control with their phone to a fairly career-damaging degree. I could see why “never use it at work” would be more achievable to some people than “I’ll use it moderately”. It’s a bit like an alcoholic saying “I’ll just have one drink”.

  21. Third wheel in the office*

    “Aside from obvious benefits, this motivates me to never take out my phone at work.”

    Skeeving slightly at the first part of that sentence. Yeah, porn in the workplace is not okay (unless you’re in a very specific subset of workplaces…)

    1. McThrill*

      That is not a sentence to skeeve slightly over, it’s full on gross. Once again begging dudes to just please, be normal around other people for ten goddamn minutes.

      1. Andromeda*

        I don’t think LW ever specified they were a dude — common practice here is to assume “she”. And I definitely have seen women *in this comments section* be very weird about sexual stuff at work too. (There’s one argument I remember reading where a female commenter kept saying there was nothing logically wrong with doing sexual things in the office where she could be overheard)

        To be clear, this is not a “not all men”, it’s a “yes enough men and some women”.

        2. kalli*

          To be clear, Alison uses she when pronouns/gender aren’t clear, for her own reasons, and people in the comments can make whatever assumption they like; there’s no rule or commonality about it.

        3. londonedit*

          Common practice here isn’t to assume ‘she’, really. That’s something Alison does in her responses, just because too often people still default to ‘Manager = male’ and by using ‘she’ to refer to ‘the boss’ when she doesn’t know their gender, it’s just a subtle way of stopping that ‘the boss’ = ‘he’ thing that automatically tends to happen in people’s brains.

          This could be a man or a woman, the OP didn’t specify.

        4. Glengarry Glenn Close*

          It’s not common practice to assume she, that’s just something Alisn does when referring to managers I think. Unless this is the Autostraddle person I’m pretty confident saying this is a guy!

          1. Andromeda*

            I don’t think it matters much — the advice is still the same — but let’s be real, this is still an assumption.

        5. fhqwhgads*

          No it’s not at all the practice to assume “she”. In the past, when genders were unknown. Alison would default to “she” when referring to a manager in order to dilute the often-default-mental-image of a manager as a dude. Some people then extrapolated that to “always assume she” but it was never the intent, nor a directive.

    2. Morning Reader*

      The explanation confuses me too. What obvious benefits? Is having porn (that you didn’t ask for and may not be to your taste) at your fingertips constantly a benefit? Seems like it would be a downside, especially as described it is there as a deterrent to keep LW from looking at their phone. So… you want to see it, or you don’t? If you don’t, especially at random inappropriate times, how is that a benefit?
      I’m not a porn user myself but my impression is that it’s very easy to find online, if you’re looking for it. Why does LW need to have it served up constantly; shouldn’t it be sufficient to get it when you look for it? I think this is the reason why they shouldn’t attempt to explain to coworkers, because the explanation is worse (in terms of giving the impression that LW is a big porn user) than the accidental sighting.

      1. Antilles*

        I was wondering that too. If you consider the porn an “obvious benefit”, wouldn’t having it super easily accessible make you more likely to look at your phone, knowing that you’re always one click away from it?

      2. londonedit*

        That is the thing that makes me lean more towards the idea that this is a (certain type of) man writing in – I read it with a sort of ‘…and hey, getting to see porn every time I look at my phone can’t be a bad thing, right?? I mean, naked women, phwoaaaaar!!’ vibe.

  22. Michigander*

    What I want to know about LW2: Did you assume you’d be able to keep everyone ever from getting a glimpse of your phone screen? Or did you just think you needed to keep your coworkers from getting a look at the NSFW images, but if someone at a shop saw it when you pulled out your phone to pay with Apple Pay or someone standing next to you while you were bored and waiting in line saw it, that would be fine? Aside from being a bizarre way to limit phone usage, it’s very short-sighted to think that no innocent bystanders (at work or otherwise) would ever have to catch a glimpse of your lock screen.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      A few years back I had a customer whose phone screen was a neon outline of a buff male body in bikini briefs. Now, I like buff male bods just fine, but in a time and place of my own choosing, and it struck me as kind of tacky.

      I use a picture of my cats as my lock screen and I’ve gotten enough random “awww, cute kitties!” to realize that a heck of a lot more people than you think are catching glimpses of your phone screen.

  23. McThrill*

    #2 – Gonna be honest here, describing using AI generated porn on your lockscreen as having “obvious benefits” is really super gross. There is a certain type of guy that insists on viewing porn openly and in public, and work or not, you are definitely giving off That Guy™ vibes to everyone around you. Stop it and be normal about your phone and keep porn where it belongs (away from people who didn’t consent to see it with you). Also maybe consider therapy because “I will put highly visible pornographic images on my phone to make me to embarrassed to open my phone at work, but presumably not in public” isn’t a normal response to using your phone too much.

    1. McThrill*

      Should probably edit since the LW didn’t specify their gender or pronouns – do not be That Person™. I jumped to “guy” because in my own personal experiences with people who put their porn front and center in very obvious ways, those people have always been men. But this behavior is skeezy no matter who is doing it. Please stop.

      1. I.C.K.*

        Appreciated. In my experience it is women who are more likely to be open about their porn use and masturbation habits (e.g., talking about their vibrators, which all seem to have names beginning with Mr.) than men. I strongly suspect that any man who mentioned owning a fleshlight would be shunned by all the women in his life.

        1. Mid*

          I strongly disagree with your suspected shunning, and while women might discuss it more, men are far more likely to be the perpetrators of inappropriate physical actions, like masturbation in inappropriate places, like the office bathroom, the bus, the aisle of the grocery store, the park where kids are playing…which are all places (except the office bathroom) that I’ve personally witnessed that behavior. And the arrest statistics back that up.

      2. Former Librarian of SHIELD*

        I worked in a public library for years and men consuming porn in public is an extremely common thing that library staff have to deal with. In 20 years, I never encountered a woman watching porn in public, and neither have any of the other librarians I’ve talked to. Not even once. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but it does point out a trend that watching porn in public where other people are present is something done more often by men than by women.

        1. Emily Byrd Starr*

          I went to college in the late 90’s/early 00’s when the internet was just a baby, and the only way to access it on campus was to go to a computer center. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who saw nothing wrong with looking at porn at the computer center. Some even went so far as to change the wallpaper or default website upon opening the browser to porn, so that the next person who used the computer would see it.

  24. Cheap ass rolling with it*

    LW3 – My boss has an OOO email that says something like

    “I am travelling from . I will not be responding to your email. Due to the number of emails I receive during this time, do not assume I will reply to your email when I return. If important/urgent, please re-send your email after .”

    This way, emails that can be resolved during your vacation are. Also, the people who really want to follow up know to re-contact you again.

    (He doesn’t delete the emails, he just doesn’t go through them.) Importantly, he’s the boss of the company, so he would never get in trouble for this.

  25. kalli*

    2: if you need to not use your phone, put it out of reach. This is a sexual harassment complaint in the making and I am not as optimistic that your employment won’t be adversely affected.

    3: “I am out of the office and will be returning on March 10th. If you need a response before this date, please contact Coworker at their email; otherwise, you’re welcome to follow up with me after my return.” sounds less aggressive and suggests that people follow up without clearly stating any emails will be ignored. I wouldn’t recommend deleting anything in case you need to search them or refer back to something later, but if you just stick it in a separate folder that doesn’t default to trash until you’re relatively caught up, then you can delete at that point. I do sympathise as I can be gone for a week and come back to 1000+ emails (and have had that in a day more than once) but you really need someone doing the role while you’re gone for it to really work out.

    4: Inhalers are normalised and have been since the 90s; most people who don’t know someone with asthma will maybe not understand the details of day-to-day asthma life, but a puffer or puffer with spacer is somewhere between glasses and a smartwatch in terms of socially acceptable. If you need it, use it, say excuse me like you would if you sneezed, and carry on. If you need accommodations for your asthma if you were successful in getting the role, you can bring that up when you get the offer.

  26. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    2. True story: I once worked with a guy who had his Lock Screen set to something decidedly not safe for work and even though he was asked to leave the company (for other reasons) it’s still a department legend told over a decade later.

    Because he truly didn’t see the harm. It was his phone, his business and we had no right to call him a perv. If he hadn’t tried to claim it was for a reason, that he was in the right and we were in the wrong we probably wouldn’t still be laughing about it.

    And speaking from the IT department: please don’t bring smut into the office, even on a non company hardware. Because the instant you connect to the wifi we CAN trace it and if your colleagues have reported you there’s probably a very weary IT staffer going through every single system log on all your devices.

  27. Bonkers*

    LW2: if you have an iPhone and $50 to spare, I’d highly recommend the Brick. It locks down your phone except specified useful apps, and it can’t be undone until you tap the phone on a physical transponder, which I leave at home during work.

  28. CityMouse*

    There’s no way I’m bringing a sick kid anywhere like that. They need to be comfortable and somewhere they can comfortably sleep, not a workplace and the customers would also be upset around a sick kid. Even a normally well behaved kid also tends to be weepy and grouchy when they’re sick. Just a horrible idea all around.

      1. CityMouse*

        Yes, and even if the boss doesn’t care about his staff getting sick customers would be upset about it too.

        1. JustaTech*

          Yeah, if I went into a store (especially a corporate store and not like a tiny small business) and saw a sick preschooler sleeping under the cash register (or where ever the manager thought that the child would end up) I would be really upset at the *corporate practices* (not the individual) and would probably take my business elsewhere.

    3. LaminarFlow*

      Totally! As a customer, I am very empathetic to people who work in small businesses, and end up in (crappy) situations where they are forced to bring sick children with them to work. However, this practice is terrible for business, as well as for employee retention.

    4. Hyaline*

      It’s such a cruel thing to ask someone to do to their kid! “Oh, Jane is sick? Feeling awful? Feverish and terrible headache? Nauseated? Yeah, bundle her up, stuff her in the car, and drag her to work where there’s not going to be any of the comforts of home.” It’s awful in all respects, but the sheer, willing cruelty of expecting someone else to treat their kid like that just sent it for me.

  29. Expectations*

    I have never worked in any job where it would be okay to either delete emails while you were out or tell people you were going to do so. Even when I had an emergency medical leave of three months I had to wade through my emails. I only skimmed subject lines in most cases, but I had to look.

    Even if someone else has already taken care of required actions, knowing what happened in those areas you cover while you were out is usually necessary or, at least considered such.

    I’ve never seen such a message incoming either, and I’ve had some roles where I get a reasonable volume of away msgs.

    If you either used that away msg or asked to use it at any place I’ve worked it would not be taken well.

    That said, I am willing to entertain the thought that it might be okay somewhere. If others have done it at your company, that might make it okay there. If you have a good relationship with someone who’s been at the company for a long time I might ask them about the idea before implementation or asking your boss.

    1. Head Sheep Counter*

      Yeah I found this idea fascinating and would be some what put off by a message stating that my message would be deleted.

      1. Too Many Emails*

        I would say that I get OOO responses saying email will be deleted occasionally. I think not using the term ‘deleted’ is the best advice. A gentler phrase would work.

        1. Head Sheep Counter*

          This must be an difference in industry or something. Which is fascinating and I hope would be at least touched on in onboarding. Because its really off-putting.

  30. Despachito*

    OP2 – I think you already know that having this type of pictures on your screen is a bad idea and you’d better get rid of this.

    However, if your behavior is impeccably professional besides that, I doubt that your coworkers will think badly of you. I have seen explicit pictures pop out on my screen when I absolutely did not intend them to, and if this happened to another person who does not act cavalier about it and looks ashamed, it was an one-off incident and there is nothing else in their behavior that would suggest creepiness I would assume that it was a lapse rather than something suspicious.

    Just please delete it and find another way to limit your online presence.

  31. Bosses*

    And it’s bosses like those in #1 which make it impossible for some of us to stop taking pandemic-level precautions. Sigh.

  32. Thomas*

    #3, being on the other end of this would annoy me and I would NOT be inclined to co-operate with your demand about when I’m allowed to send you emails. Then again my role’s in IT. If someone ignores my email it’s often either their loss, or it’s something where we have the authority to “force the issue” in a way that’s more hassle for them than if they just worked with us.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      I think your case is an outlier.

      That said, I would never just mass delete all these emails either. We get a lot of updates at our work about IT things, and while they could wait until I get back, I still want to make sure I know about them and take care of them.

    2. H2*

      What I don’t really understand about it is that from the sender’s POV, I don’t really see why it matters to you if you read the email that I *just sent you* or if I set myself a reminder and send you another one when you’re back from vacation. So why should I be inconvenienced for your vacation when I already sent you the email? And, yes, I understand that a lot of emails are more time sensitive and need to be handled by someone else…but that’s the purpose of a more standard out of office reply.

      For sure this seems like a culture thing, and it’s probably just something that I’m not used to, but I would definitely be sending that second email with a side dish of cranky.

      1. Barbara in Swampeast*

        Yeah, the idea that I have to keep track of when someone is the office or not and hold onto info until they return is silly.

      2. PinkSodaMix*

        The idea is most of the email you get while you’re out for 5+ business days won’t be relevant, so it masks emails that you actually need to read when you’re back.

        However, LW is missing a small but important option in the OOO message. It should say to either resend the email with “URGENT” in the subject line or resend it after a certain date. That way, you can resend it now if you want, or you can wait, or you can do the professional thing and reach out to their OOO backup.

      3. Workplace Sherlock*

        This is exactly what I was thinking reading the letter. The whole point of email is that I send it when I need to and you read it when you’re able. Deleting the email I already sent you and expecting me to send you another one is not in any way productive.

      4. Iranian yogurt*

        This seems like a good use case for the “schedule send” option, but I get that it’s outside the norm and would make me groan a bit at the extra clicks.

    3. Antilles*

      I really don’t understand how this would work in practice.
      1.) Many of the emails will already be dealt with, but sometimes emails aren’t particularly urgent. Especially for emails sent near the end of your vacation. The email from the Friday afternoon right before you return to work is almost certain to still be an active issue when you get back.
      2.) Very few people are actually going to re-send those emails once you get back. Some won’t read your OOO message in detail, some will figure that’s not really the case you’re just trying to firmly set a not-checking-emails boundary, and plenty of people will intend to do so then forget. And in all of these cases, they’re still going to expect you to take care of things.
      3.) Even if someone’s covering for you, there’s often still stuff you need to know. Sure, I can and will give you a rundown of the events that happened, but that rundown isn’t going to cover all the nitty-gritty details that are already in the email chain.
      4.) What about company-wide emails from HR on benefits updates or IT on new policies or management or etc? They’re definitely not tracking you down individually to give you the information they already gave via mass-email.

      1. HonorBox*

        All of these are great points. There is still accountability, and doing a batch delete of 2 weeks worth of emails isn’t going to be helpful for all of the reasons you suggest.

        While not the same, my daughter is home sick right now and will have missed at least two days of school this week. When she returns, she’ll be responsible for assignments she missed. She’ll need to check with friends to get some notes about what was covered in classes she’s missed this week. She can’t just not do the assignments or get the notes because it all happened when she was absent.

      2. LaminarFlow*

        +1 to all of this. Especially since part of the point of OOTO auto-responses is to put any relevant information about who to contact about X and who to contact about Y in the auto-response message. I have never re-sent an email to someone after they have returned from being OOTO, unless they specifically ask me to. But, I have contacted the alternate point of contact after receiving an OOTO notification.

      3. Alan*

        All of this. I said in another comment that there are lots of e-mails I receive as part of a large group, and no one’s going to delay/resend the e-mail just because I’m absent. I spend my first day or two back going through all my e-mail, coming back up to speed, and dealing with the few things that are still pending. For me at least it’s a nice way to spend my first day or two back.

    4. boof*

      I’m not really sure I understand all this – or exactly what the LW is doing – outlook and I imagine many other emails have various block and fwd features and I think it’s totally reasonable to set up an out of office/block/etc feature when out.

    5. Other Alice*

      I also work in a role where a request like that wouldn’t fly. I have email threads where up to a dozen stakeholders are CC’d on emails, so I ignore the OOO messages unless I’m expecting a reply from that person, figuring that whoever is on holiday will see the email when they see it. If they come back a month later saying they didn’t know about a project change or didn’t receive a document because they deleted the emails I sent while they were out, that is very much not my issue.

      It must be a cultural thing like Alison said so I think just make sure it’s something you can do in your industry because in mine it would be a very bizarre thing to do.

  33. Bananapants*

    LW#2 That is an absolutely bananas “solution”. Like other people have said here, get a Brick or use parental controls / screen use apps. There are so many times when your phone might be seen accidentally, including by random strangers who don’t want to see AI porn (which besides the sexual content issue could get into nightmarish uncanny valley territory and also brings up ethical issues—what if a real person’s features are used for instance?) I’m really questioning the judgment here.

  34. Grasshopper Removal LLC*

    LW2:

    I’m actually a bit lost for words here.

    In the situation that you put your coworkers, I would have gone to HR already. In your boss’s position, I would look for a new employee.

    I don’t know if the rules of the community allow me to recommend psychotherapy (if they do not, sorry and feel free to remove comment!). But that’s what I would recommend at this point. This is insanely risky behavior, and could possibly expose you to legal trouble as well.

  35. mango chiffon*

    So if you ever lost your phone or left it somewhere, you expect someone picking it up to be exposed to porn? I’m baffled by the lock screen choice here because that is entirely public and you’ll be flashing anyone in public with explicit images any time you use the phone. I genuinely don’t understand the thinking here and the lack of judgement is the serious problem here with your coworkers.

  36. Odd One Out*

    #2 Years ago, before AI, one of my managers had actual porn as a screensaver on his computer. Real, live naked women in various inappropriate poses. He refused to take it down. I refused to ever go into his office again.

    1. Vaccuuuuuuummm*

      Wasn’t there a whole controversy in the computer science world where someone used a (cropped) NSFW pic as a placeholder or calibration in a research paper in the 70s? And then it became a weird tradition among CS and similar fields in academia to use that image, much to the chagrin of many women in the field?

      1. Alan*

        I was a CS grad student in the 80s. The only thing remotely like what you describe is that in image processing/analysis (still in its infancy back then) we did have some test/calibration images in common use, cropped and uncropped, with some female nudity. That was just in the area of image processing, though, not CS as a whole, and they weren’t used gratuitously or for shock value or anything like that. For better or worse, they were test images, along with many other test images.

        1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

          Unless you also had naked men, they were indeed being used gratuitously. The assumption being that only men would see them and that those men would find it enjoyable to do so in the course of their work. Just like pinup calendars.

      2. Emmy Noether*

        You’re talking about Lenna! It’s an image from a playboy magazine from 1972 that was (?) used to test image processing. The cropped part has her head with a hat with a feather in it and her bare shoulder (it does have a variety of textures, which was probably the justification).

        We still used the image in my informatics class in… 2007.

      3. spiriferida*

        In the case of that image (the Lena image) the use itself shows at best the woman’s bare shoulder. The problem isn’t that porn is being shown to the unwary, it’s more about what it says about sexism in the field that people are stubbornly clinging onto using that picture and saying they “don’t see the big deal” because it’s not technically NSFW. It’s a very different kind of problem from showing straight-up porn to your coworkers.

  37. Peanut Hamper*

    Just a reminder: if you get sick days at your job, they are part of your compensation. Asking to take a sick day is like asking to be paid. Just take the sick day.

    And don’t be sorry if it makes your boss’s life a bit more difficult for one day. That’s why they make the big bucks.

    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      I just want to add that a lot of bosses pull the weird compliment/guilt thing with sick time: “You are so valuable we cannot function without you” which is beyond ridiculous. When something like that happens, please reframe it for yourself as “Then there’s no way there will be any repercussions from me taking my sick time, to which I am entitled.”

      Also, LW, please practice stating rather than asking. “I am putting in for vacation for these dates” and “I cannot come in today due you projectile vomiting” etc.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        Excellent point.

        Yeah, some bosses are terrible in this ridiculous way. My response to this is always “Well, how did you function before I came to work here? Yeah, let’s just do that thing for a day or two. The world is not going to end because I’m out sick.”

    2. HannahS*

      Do retail workers in the US typically get sick days? In my region, retail is typically a part-time job without benefits like sick time, pension, or extended health coverage.

      1. M*

        It depends on the company, but I’m career retail and have worked for multiple large companies (ones the average person has heard of) plus am obviously very familiar with industry norms, and full-time roles receive all the standard benefits that you would receive in a corporate role. Part-time workers don’t typically receive paid vacation or medical benefits (although it does vary, I know there are companies out there that do provide benefits for PT). Everyone who works on my team receives sick time, regardless of FT or PT status, although that’s dictated by my state so isn’t true across the board. Either way, since the LW has the ability to open the store, it’s certainly not impossible that she gets paid time.

      2. Coverage Associate*

        I think all employees in California get 1 hour of sick leave for each 35 hours worked, up to some maximum probably for overworked exempt employees.

    3. mlem*

      A LOT of retail and fast-food places establish the rule that, well, you CAN take your time off … IF you, personally, find another staffer to cover you. (That is absolutely their job to do, but they’ve convinced workers otherwise.)

  38. Pidgeot*

    LW4: Are you saying that you need your inhaler for every few *words* before you start wheezing? If it was every few sentences I think Alison’s script is perfect, but if it’s that frequent then a hour-long interview seems like it would be prohibitive, painful, and painfully slow that you wouldn’t be able to get through all questions or ask your own followups. If this is the case, maybe asking for a medical accommodation of writing your responses either in real time or ahead of time?

    1. #4 Inhaler User*

      Inhaler OP here.
      sometimes, yes, it’s every few words. I seem to do okay in the morning and it gets worse as the day goes on. My dark humor is how many syllables can I get out before I can’t breathe.
      For casual networking opportunities I’ve been open about my health situation and told them I can only communicate over text/email. Many networking people want a Zoom call, alas.
      Thank you for the suggestion for an accommodation for the interview itself, I knew people could ask for accommodations is they were already working I didn’t know I could ask for it for the interview itself.

      1. Pidgeot*

        You absolutely can! I don’t know if there’s legalese around doing so but most large-ish companies will offer during the interview stage. Think like a blind candidate may ask for a screen reader if they have to do a coding interview, or a hard-of-hearing candidate may ask for a sign language interpreter. There are even accommodations for neurodivergence and other conditions, such as getting the questions ahead of time or having more time to answer. Since your asthma flares are intermittent I suspect that typing to a shared screen during the zoom interview would be very reasonable, so you could make human faces at each other even if you’re not using your voice. Unless you’re interviewing for a role that involves 100% public speaking a reasonable interviewer should have no issues.

  39. Marzipan Shepherdess*

    OP2: Since you just graduated from college last year, I’m assuming that you’re fairly young and haven’t had many “serious” jobs yet – hence your catastrophizing about your colleagues’ reaction to your phone screen. No, your life isn’t ruined and (assuming that your work is sound) you’re almost certainly not going to be fired over this! If your managers have any experience and maturity themselves then they’re not going to have an aneurysm over discovering that a young employee downloaded porn on their personal (NOT work!) phone; you’re not the first to have done this and you won’t be the last. Of course you need to change that phone screen image, but this wasn’t even close to the level of, say, embezzling from your company or sexually assaulting a colleague.

    That being said, you’ve learned a most valuable lesson; whatever you bring to work WILL reflect on you professionally. That goes for, say, your office decor, coffee mug, choice of language and anything else your colleagues and/or customers/clients can see or hear! You can best recover from this mistake by being ultra-professional from now on and giving your colleagues no doubt whatsoever about your judgment going forward. (It might also be a good idea to change your phone’s default opening screen to something totally anodyne – such as a landscape scene – and occasionally using that phone so that your co-workers can see it.)

    1. Ellis Bell*

      I could absolutely be misunderstanding your read on this, but the porn the colleagues viewed was not simply a tab he left open, viewed accidentally, when he opened his phone but the actual lock screen. The phone was deliberately given a porn screen saver, and that’s why OP is wigging out – the whole point of doing that was to make his phone NSFW and it looks like deliberately exposing their porn. Anyway, TLDR, I agree he should *definitely* change that lock screen for something innocuous.

    2. Blue*

      Although your comment does make me wonder/hope that it was obvious to the coworkers that this was the LW’s personal phone….

    3. Workerbee*

      “If your managers have any experience and maturity themselves then they’re not going to have an aneurysm over discovering that a young employee downloaded porn on their personal (NOT work!) phone; you’re not the first to have done this and you won’t be the last. Of course you need to change that phone screen image, but this wasn’t even close to the level of, say, embezzling from your company or sexually assaulting a colleague.”

      What a weird comparison to make. It’s okay for this employee to endure and learn from repercussions coming from CHOOSING to use porn on their lock screen as their One True Way of not using their phone at work.

    4. megaboo*

      Maybe I’m immature, but I don’t think I would think positively about this coworker again. I would have real questions about their decision-making process moving forward.

    5. KJC*

      If this was a one time thing my coworker did, I would probably pretend I didn’t see this and move on. But I actually DO think exposing someone to sexual content without their consent is sexual harassment.

  40. Peanut Hamper*

    If I walked into a store (and this doesn’t sound like a grocery store, since it opens at 10:30 and LW mentions sales) and there was a crying, feverish, snot-producing four year old behind the counter, I would definitely walk right back out.

    LW’s manager has utterly horrible judgment.

    1. HonorBox*

      In retail especially, if there’s a 4 year old kid there for any more than a couple of minutes with someone working, it is not a good look, even if they’re completely healthy.

      Even with a healthy child along for the ride (let’s say regular childcare fell through on a particular day) I wouldn’t want an employee bringing a child with them. Because even then, the employee is going to be distracted. If the kid is sick, it is going to be off-putting to customers and you’re definitely not going to get the best from your employee that day.

      While I can appreciate the suggestion that the LW shouldn’t have asked and just told the boss they weren’t coming in, any reasonable person is going to understand what’s going on and tell that employee not to come in. There are ways – even covering a shift yourself as the boss – that there are ways to solve it. Being the boss isn’t always awesome, but you’ve gotta suck it up and do it.

    2. PinkSodaMix*

      Having worked in retail for years, I would ask to speak to that person’s manager and give them a strong talking to. Then I would contact corporate and let them know they have a manager who thinks a sick 4-year-old is not a good reason for their employee to stay at home.

      People in retail are taken advantage of left, right, and center, and I hate it. I do everything I can to stand up for them when I see this kind of stuff.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        I agree with you, but my concern would be that if the boss was unreasonable enough to demand this in the first place they might take any customer pushback out on the LW. I also try to stand up for retail workers where I can, but sometimes we can unintentionally make things worse if we don’t fully understand the background dynamics at play.

        1. HonorBox*

          I think this is a good point. It is probably a better thing to be overly kind to the person working while you are there. Someone unreasonable enough to tell them to bring a sick kid into work is definitely unreasonable enough to be upset because that same employee didn’t do a good enough job of keeping their sick kid quiet and out of the way.

    3. Just a decent human being*

      Boss sounds all kinds of horrible to be honest. I’m guessing that if LW had taken Boss’s advice and came in to work with their sick four year old Boss would have blamed her for any complaints and be completely oblivious that he gave the advice in the first place.

  41. Glengarry Glenn Close*

    I agree that an objective on a resume is useless and outdated, but as someone who hires it wouldn’t really matter as long as their relevant experience was clear

  42. Dinwar*

    #3: I’d be hesitant to say you’re deleting emails. Sometimes emails come in not because you need to do anything, but so that you have a record. I’ve received emails confirming approvals for various changes to projects, for example–I don’t need to do anything, but given my position I need to have that documentation somewhere. And it’s not just legal stuff, either; sometimes it’s so that you can go back–later, if/when it comes up–and see why the decision was made.

    I know a guy–senior project manager–that would take vacations to places pretty far off the beaten path. Like, mountain climbing in South America, kayaking in Alaska, that sort of thing. Zero chance he’s reading emails, and that was part of the point. We all pretty quickly learned to include him on the FYI emails as necessary, but to also set aside some time when he got back to discuss things with him. So it was sort of a hybrid approach. It didn’t have to be much; a quick chat on my way to the coffee pot was frequently enough to let him know what was going on (ten-minute chats with a twenty-person team take up a good chunk of the morning!). Worked pretty well.

    So as far as recommendations go, I’d say state in your out-of-office message that you’re unable to check emails, and on your end make a point to carve out time with the folks you routinely work with when you get back.

    1. umami*

      Yeah, the whole ‘your email will be deleted unread’ thing is a bit OTT. Routine internal communications are going to be delivered en masse, and you are going to be held accountable for the content of those messages even if they are delivered when you are OOO. It sounds a bit precious to expect others to accommodate your desire to come back and empty your inbox by deleting messages without reading them.

  43. Llama Llama*

    OP3 – As someone who doesn’t read emails or work during PTO but regularly get 100 emails a week, I honestly wouldn’t recommend deleting your emails and expect people to just re-email you when you get back.

    Important information that doesn’t need a response is often in those emails. Heck, yesterday I wasn’t responsible for responding to but activity 100% effecting me was discussed.

  44. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    Re: the autoresponder – is it really that hard to just skim through your email when you get back? I regularly take 2-3 weeks out of office (at least once a year), come back to 5,000+ emails, and can easily figure out what still needs my attention and what can be deleted in about two hours on my first morning back. IMO that’s worth it to avoid the off-putting message to colleagues. If you miss something you miss something, you can clean that up in a more relationally-oriented way with the individuals impacted.

    If you’re worried about not having the time for it, I often tell my team I’ll be back half a day or even a full day later than I actually will be (and I leave my autoresponder up during that time). No one knows I’m working for those first few hours, so I can use it just to get caught up without interruption.

    1. Alan*

      Well, it takes me longer than it takes you apparently, but yeah, I just deal with it when I return. It doesn’t take long. And then I don’t miss something. Expecting people to delay/resend isn’t realistic. Other people can’t be expected to make you a special case.

    2. Consonance*

      I think this letter writer, having never actually disengaged from email before, might just not know what the standard (in my experience, at least) practice is. Not checking emails for a couple weeks of planned PTO is normal. Also normal to have a backlog of emails to go through when you return. I always set my autoreply to indicate that I am away, not checking emails, and provide a point of contact for urgent matters.

      How you deal with it when you return is up to you. I know people who choose to spend some time on, say, the Sunday before you return to go through email so it’s not such a big Thing when you return. Many emails just get deleted. Some are now outdated – great – delete! Pin/flag those that will need to actually be addressed.

      Personally, I try to block off time on my first day back specifically for going through emails and getting caught back up.

      I have *never* come across people who simply delete all their emails from their time away. I didn’t even do that when I was on parental leave for four months! (surprisingly easy to get through those – maybe even easier than a one week vacation – since I was incommunicado and so no one was trying to contact me) Obviously your situation may be different in any number of ways, but I wanted to mention the more usual practice since you might not have been aware of it.

      1. Olive*

        Chiming in to agree 100% with this! If you get a lot of emails at work, many are probably sent to multiple contacts, have c’est stakeholders, etc. It’s just not reasonable to ask people to not send emails for 2 weeks. Imagine a coworker is asked why they haven’t sent the needed follow up and they say OP3 told me not to send emails so I’m not doing my job, how would that go over? Or if someone sends you an email with an action item during this time, they will still expect it done after your return and may be upset if you say you deleted the email. Just some examples!

  46. Cee*

    I just had a recruiter tell me that I need to have an objective at the top of my resume! I would have thought they were up to date on these things…

    2. Glengarry Glenn Close*

      While I agree with the advice that an objective is unnecessary, it shouldn’t hurt a candidate either as long as their relevant qualifications/experience is apparent and easily understood

  47. Delta Delta*

    #1 – I love that 2025 is the Year of Petty Revenge. I’d tell Jane as soon as we arrive at my work place to make sure to shake hands with my boss. If Jane is a 4 year old who does normal 4 year old things, she’ll say, “I don’t feel good but mommy said you said we have to be here.” and then cough a few times.

    #5 – Isn’t the objective of the resume itself to help you get hired at the job you applied for? Having an objective on the document itself a) eats up valuable real estate and b) is redundant because why else would you have sent a resume?

  48. Contracts Killer*

    #4 I wouldn’t sweat this at all. You don’t even have to disclose that it is for asthma. I’ve had asthma for years and was surprised when our pediatrician prescribed my exact inhaler for our kid’s use when they had a chest cold. I asked around to other parents and found out that it’s apparently it’s fairly common for a rescue inhaler to be prescribed for bad chest congestion. I think you could just say – sorry, I may need to use my inhaler during the interview due to the weather. I’ve also noticed that a lot of fellow coworkers have asthma (or at least have a prescribed inhaler) to some degree. Whenever I pull mine out, there seems to be a chorus of “oh, you have one, too!” I don’t think it will be weird at all for you to use during an interview. Also, I don’t know how your specific rescue inhaler works, but for mine, a pretty common one, two puffs taken 5 minutes apart are supposed to work for well over an hour, so maybe you could take them right before your interview just in case?

    I know you didn’t ask for advice for once you get the job, but this may be useful to you. Anytime I start a new job, I keep a spare inhaler in an easily accessible but tucked away place like an unlocked drawer. I let the people on either side of my office know where it is (if they seem reasonably normal, lol), that it’s extremely rare that I need it, but that I feel more comfortable with a couple people knowing where it is just in case I do. I also let my work friends know. I have great coworkers, and if I were to have an emergency on the other side of the office, I know that at least two or three of them would be sprinting to my office to grab my inhaler for me.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I would disclose it was asthma if it’s an in-person interview just to ward off any concern that I came to the interview contagious, which could be a bigger deal. But overall yes it shouldn’t be a huge deal.

      1. Dancing Otter*

        I don’t know. It’s a common misconception that asthmatics are sick more often. Discrimination in hiring is real.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          I don’t think you can avoid that if you’re going to be using a medical device in an interview though, and I think letting them think you came in sick would compound the issue by bringing your professional judgement into question.

      2. Dr. Lake House*

        You obviously don’t have to do this, but please know that OCD sufferers everywhere appreciate it. I have a colleague with asthma, and I started to panic when he began coughing a while ago (happens often).

    2. Turquoisecow*

      My rescue inhaler I was told not to use more than once every four hours. It could be that some people have more severe asthma than I do and other inhalers work differently but also if I’m in a situation that may trigger asthma (like for me, exercise), I was also told it’s fine to take in advance of that activity.

    3. #4 Inhaler User*

      Inhaler OP here. Yeah, sometimes I get an hour of relief, sometimes not. A big challenge is the unpredictability.
      Thank you for your suggestion about keeping an inhaler handy at work and letting co-workers know what to do in case of an emergency. I’ve had co-workers let me know which drawer has their epi-pen, where their diabetic supplies are. And this is the same type of thing.

  49. Falling Diphthong*

    I think the problem is that, in OP’s head, AI is supposed to insert a level of deniability for OP (“I didn’t do this, the AI did it”) that the people around OP are (rightly) not perceiving at all.

  50. TotesMaGoats*

    #3-I find the “I’m just going to delete your email, so send it on my schedule” type of OoO response very off-putting. The benefit to email is that I can send it when it’s convenient to me and you can read it when it’s convenient to you.

    I could see how this would make more sense for long absences. My OoO when on maternity leave was very clear when/why I was out and clear on who to email because I was not checking it. I still had thousands of emails to delete.

    But as always, AAM is right. Your work place may be different than mine and this be totally fine there. Or maybe there is a nuance between clients and coworkers.

    One thing I am working on is unsubscribing from all the junk emails I get at work, so there is less to delete.

  51. HonorBox*

    OP3 – Your OOO message should indicate the dates you’ll be away from the office and list contact info for those who are handling specific things in your absence. If you need to, create some rules and folders to help manage your inbox. But you still need to triage your inbox when you get back. Telling someone that anything sent while you’re out will be treated as though it was never sent/received isn’t the right move.

    Most people will understand if they don’t hear back from you right away, or that they need to contact someone else for something urgent while you’re away. But I think drawing the hard line you’re drawing isn’t going to land as well. Asking people to flag a later date so they can resend messages to ensure you’ve received them is putting a lot more on them than you should. Also, just thinking about the possibility of that, your normal flow of email may increase exponentially the day or two after your return if people do actually resend what they’ve sent previously, which may be overwhelming for you and might create even longer delays in your reply.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Right this is a good point. I don’t think “flood me with emails when I return” is quite the hack LW might think it is.

      1. HonorBox*

        There are some – myself included, at times – who might be a little upset about having to re-send a message and would purposely do so right away on that first day back, even if it wasn’t super urgent. So then the LW is stuck with emails that aren’t high priority at the top of the inbox when they could have instead replied later that day or sometime that week.

    2. Sneaky Squirrel*

      The number of teams messages and emails to my inbox that I would get that first date back stresses me out far more than spending a morning cleaning out emails. I already am inundated with people who feel the need to “catch me up” on what happened when I return from time off and that’s with them having a forwarding contact for urgent requests.

    3. Pi314*

      Agreed. And realistically, if someone does require their urgent attention to something shortly after they get back, they will probably follow up on their own accord if they don’t get a response quickly.

  52. Dancing Otter*

    Re #1, I am reminded of an old letter about an employee whose sick child infected the entire office staff with a digestive virus (possibly norovirus?). Can’t find it right now, but taking a sick child to work is just such a bad idea for so many reasons.

    1. Dancing Otter*

      Found it!
      It’s called “my employee knowingly brought norovirus into the office and got a bunch of people sick”

    2. Funko Pops Day*

      Yeah, I feel like there should have been an immediate “Oh, sorry, I must not have been clear. Jane is very ill and definitely can’t be in the store, so I will not be available today.”

  53. Anon for this*

    Alison, the more I think about it, the more I think OP2 should just start job hunting.

    If this was one of my coworkers… the immediate impression this would give me would consist, in large part, of “ugh, so this is what you’re doing instead of working.” And that would stick with me, even if they subsequently took pains to act scrupulously professional. The acting scrupulously professional would come off as a ruse, an attempt to convince me that they aren’t lazing about every day because they now know I know their secret. And every time they asked me to help them with their workload, my brain would be saying “but if you weren’t playing with your phone you could’ve done this yourself”. It would definitely make me less willing to help them.

    1. Silver Robin*

      Not that I think what LW2 did was okay, but you seriously could never ever ever just let it go as a singular lapse in judgement? You are going to assign manipulative and deceptive motivations to this person rather than mortification and an attempt to improve? There is no way they could ever genuinely just need help because in the normal flow of things, everyone needs help once in a while? Really?

      1. I WORKED on a Hellmouth*

        I would never be comfortable around a person who willingly and purposely brought porn to our shared workplace. And I don’t see any problem feeling that way, because they would have willingly and purposely brought *porn* to our *shared* *workplace*.

        1. I WORKED on a Hellmouth*

          I mean, I would help them with work stuff if they needed it and asked me. But I probably wouldn’t offer help on my own, and I would definitely always think of them as Porno Pete or whatever.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      I don’t think this is a typically common reaction, though? I think the OP exhibited very, very bad judgement but most people look for patterns of behaviour, even when on high alert, rather than just writing people off based on one incident. Also, all professional behaviour is a ruse.

    3. NonnyMouse*

      There’s no implication this person wasn’t working. I didn’t read that at all from the letter.

      It was just an accident (a dumb one at that), but there was no indication the person wasn’t working and watching porn.

  54. Parenthesis Guy*

    #2: The consequences for your choice will likely depend on your company’s culture. Some companies won’t blink an eye at this type of behavior. Other companies will absolutely fire you for it. It also depends on your position. If you work with external clients, you’re more likely to get in trouble then if you just work with internal people.

    Given your reaction, I suspect you’re not in a business where this behavior is ok. Something like this is tough, but possible to come back from.

  55. KB*

    #2 OP, besides the obvious sexual harassment in the workplace you’ve now committed, why in the world would it be OK to have porn on your lock screen out in the world? It’s an extremely creepy thing to do and “besides the obvious benefits” makes me think you don’t realize just how bad this is. Screen time controls on your phone exist for a reason! What an absolutely wild jump to make from “I would like to look at my phone less” to “I will put porn on it”!

    1. PA*

      It’s a fair point that people outside the work place also should be able to have an expectation of not being exposed to unwanted sexual content, and it would be wise for OP to realize it’s actually a transgression against others to expose them to pornography without consent. And exposing children to pornography is actually reportable child abuse in many states. It’s just not a good idea to have this visible to others, period.

  56. Somehow I Manage*

    I see a fair number of resumes, and a handful for each position we advertise for will include an objective statement. I can’t say I’ve ever been swayed positively by one. They do catch my eye when they’re either extraordinarily generic or the candidate has obviously made it specific for a particular field, but didn’t think to adjust it at all when they’re applying to a different field.

    Honestly, I know that you as a candidate have one overarching objective: to get hired. And that’s fine. Use that real estate on your resume to highlight specific achievements and metrics instead.

    1. I don't work in this van*

      This is my take on it as well – it’s a liability. Most are innoculous and won’t have any impact, but why risk it since there’s no upside?

  57. middlemgmt*

    #3 – don’t do that. If you are out on an extended leave – medical, parental, etc. – for months, then yes. but it’s only two weeks. it’s really not cool to tell other people they have to resend something to you just because you don’t feel like wading through your email when you’re back. that’s you putting the burden of your vacation on them and giving them something extra to remember and do. i sympathize. i really do. i get even more emails than you per day and my unread email stack can be enormous. I was out for two weeks just now myself and in the hospital for part of it. but it’s still not okay for you to make that their problem. you can tell them it may take you a while to respond when you return. you can tell them to email or call someone else in the meantime if it’s urgent. but no. do not tell people that you are going to delete their emails and that they have to effectively do something twice just to give you the freedom to not care.

  58. ecnaseener*

    #3: I’ve also seen autoreplies that include something like “if you need me to read your message after I get back, please re-send it with [RESPONSE NEEDED] in the subject line.”

    2. HonorBox*

      While maybe a step in the right direction, I’m not sure I like this either. If someone is sending an email (and I’m not talking about the random newsletter, cold-call sales email, etc.) presumably there’s something they want the recipient to be aware of, even if there’s no reply needed. A couple examples off the top of my head:

      *HR sends a message letting everyone know that beginning April 10, employees will no longer be reimbursed for mileage on personal vehicles and should use company cars.
      *Event planner sends an update about an upcoming speaking engagement and lets people know that the venue has changed.
      *Outside client sends updated budget and new logo file for use on collateral material being produced.

      None of those require an explicit response. But they do require acknowledgement in the work the recipient does. They can’t later submit a mileage reimbursement request. They can’t show up at the wrong venue. They can’t use the wrong logo on the collateral. All of that was communicated and the recipient will be expected to know it and use it.

      1. ecnaseener*

        Yeah, I don’t remember whether the one I saw was “response needed” or some other code. The point is just to convey “yes, really read this when you get back weeks/months from now.”

        As for announcements from HR and the like, yeah that’s on the recipient to check for those knowing they won’t have been re-sent with the code word.

  59. Sneaky Squirrel*

    #3 – I understand wanting to delete everything and start fresh but it feels like it yields more downside than upside. If I told my colleagues that I was going to delete their email, I can 100% guarantee I would come back to a flood of people messaging me on the day I come back, flooding my inbox, and acting like their issue was urgent even if it wasn’t earlier. I’d be more stressed out because instead of having half the morning, now I’m being asked to react without context.

    Plus, my colleagues will occasionally cc me in escalating conversations that don’t need my action but to give me a courtesy heads up of something that may need my urgent response in the future. Those emails are for my benefit. I wouldn’t expect those colleagues to send those again.

  61. I'm A Little Teapot*

    #3 – I have the same issue sometimes, though my asthma makes me cough uncontrollably. Made worse by speaking of course! I just do a brief “I’m in the middle of an asthma flare up that’s making me cough, I apologize for the annoyance”, then move on. And when I start coughing, I’ll drink my tea (it helps), get the cough to stop, say excuse me, then continue on.

  62. CatDude*

    LW2 – Using a porn lockscreen to keep yourself from looking at your phone at work is so monumentally stupid that I am suspicious this is more than that, and you get a thrill out of knowing this could happen. If you really wanted to use that strategy, you could easily have a safe for work embarrassing picture of yourself or something.

    1. CherryBlossom*

      I’ve been using a similar strategy, but I’ve gone the extreme opposite end of what LW2’s done: I have a screenshot of a kid’s show my nephew likes as my lockscreen (Bluey, for those curious).

      Would I be embarrassed to have a coworker see this? Absolutely! Does it encourage me to keep my phone away? Yep! But on the off-chance it happens, the worst outcome is some light teasing and then my coworkers and I end up chatting about the kids in our lives.

      The point of all that is; there’s ways to discourage yourself from checking your phone that don’t involve inappropriate content.

      1. CatDude*

        Yep, that strategy makes much more sense! Although that might not be so embarassing; I’ve not watched it, but I’ve heard from friends whose opinion I respect that Bluey is a very good watch even for adults.

        1. JustaTech*

          As someone who is starting to watch a lot of Bluey, Bluey is parenting education disguised as a kids show. It is also very watchable and not insulting to anyone’s intelligence.

  63. Mesquito*

    I think a good rule of thumb is that if you need to put a modifier like “deontologically” or “teleologically” before the word “bad” in the phrase “it’s not bad to do this,” you probably shouldn’t do it at work. I’d even go so far as to say that even anything “not technically bad” deserves a second look in these situations

    1. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Yeah, it’s definitely a signal that they’re going some serious rationalizing mental gymnastics to justify what they’re doing.

  64. Leslie Ludgate*

    #3 – If I received that out of office, I’d be baffled by the idea that I have to manage your workload while you’re on vacation by resending my request when you’re back.

    1. HonorBox*

      Yep. And as I commented above, there are going to be some who would be more than baffled. They’re going to be upset.

      As we’ve read many times on this site, email is asynchronous. That gets people into some bad spots because they send emails at 2am just to make sure they send it. But it can be sent whenever and read whenever, and unless a server crashes, there’s a place for it in an inbox whether you check it every 10 minutes or check every 10 days. Why would someone need to send something a second time when there’s a place for it?

    2. mreasy*

      Yeah, if this was someone I was doing business with, I would reconsider upon receiving that response. If a coworker, I would grumble, depending on how irritating or not they are to work with… but an external contact? I would come away with a really bad impression. It’s pretty entitled to presume that people writing you have time to re-send the message at all, let alone remember when you return so they know when to re-send it. Are they meant to set a reminder? That’s a lot of steps you’re requiring of someone so that you don’t have to deal with a post-vacation inbox, which is something that almost everyone else just handles when they get back.

    3. Head Sheep Counter*

      Yup and I’d file it as someone who I’d definitely be less polite about having to re-send an email. Unless I’m your assistant… its not my job to manage your job.

  65. silly little public health worker*

    @ LW2 with the lock screen – I actually managed someone who had a VERY similar circumstance, let me tell you what happened.

    I was managing a group of VERY new-to-the-workforce workers. One of my cohort (they all shared an office) came to me to tell me that another, I’ll call him Barry, was watching anime at his cubicle all day that included yaoi (which is a kind of anime p*rnography). Barry scrupulously wore headphones and had the furthest cubicle in the back of the office and used YouTube like you’d expect people to use Spotify. I didn’t have a problem with YouTube anime because he seemed to consistenly be working while having it on on the background – but I had only ever seen pretty tame content and had no idea there was occasional p*rn. Barry didn’t know anyone had seen what he was watching.

    I called Barry into my office and asked him to please stop doing this??? He didn’t understand why this was an issue – honestly, that was the bigger red flag for me than the fact that it happened. People new to the workforce do ALL KINDS OF bizarre things but awareness – and openness to correction – are really crucial. I basically told him – this isn’t debatable, you have to stop doing it, and he stopped. Were I to encounter this now, I would talk about sexualization in the workplace but this was over 10 years ago and I didn’t know how to have that conversation as a 23yo myself with my first management position.

    The p*rn really wasn’t an issue after that, and I stand by my decision to set a firm line with him and lay out consequences for recurrence. Workplace norms are very different from anything he’d encountered before and while it seemed OBVIOUS to me, I have ABSOLUTELY seen weirder come out of people who haven’t had jobs before. There were other, bigger issues with this employee (persistent lateness, standoffishness, work quality problems) and this also caused issues with his coworkers. But I firmly believe that, as Alison said, if this person had shaped up in other ways, we all would’ve moved past the yaoi.

    1. New Jack Karyn*

      See, now I think that the “porn at work” and “other issues with this employee”are absolutely related. Someone who is that out of touch with workplace norms is going to be a problem in more than one area.

  66. Grizzled*

    NGL, if I saw a male coworker flashing porn at me for any reason, I would be 100% creeped out and avoid him. I would not be in a room or vehicle alone with him. I would alert my female coworkers about the incident so they could make safety decisions for themselves, and also inform my supervisor. Men can be scary, and having a male coworker do this (even unintentionally) would scare the shit out of me. If OP is a female I would be less concerned for my physical safety.

    1. Crepe Myrtle*

      If it were a coworker of any gender I would do my best to not be around them whenever possible. yuck yuck yuck

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yeah I totally agree with Grizzled that if it were a male coworker I’d have more of a danger siren going off, but the overall discomfort would be the same regardless.

    2. NonnyMouse*

      Wait, even if it were an accident? And on a personal device – not on a work device?

      Watching porn isn’t inherently bad – and someone who watches porn isn’t inherently bad.

      It is totally wrong to watch porn at/bring porn to work. But just because someone likes porn and accidentally showed it doesn’t make them a bad person. And going around telling people about that person seems also bad – not only unprofessional but has the potential to have ramifications for spreading that information when it’s not your place to do so.

      1. Jackalope Sunrise*

        Speaking only for myself, the serial sexual harassers I’ve had to deal with at work don’t start blatantly and over the top. They start with small boundary pushes: “accidentally” showing an x-rated image, “accidentally” standing too close, “just making conversation” about coworkers’ appearances. I don’t have any way of knowing if this coworker legitimately made one mortifying slip-up with just me, if they’re “accidentally” doing this to all the women in the office separately, or if this is the first step of an escalating pattern of harassment.
        And the reason I would report it to my manager and HR, check in with other coworkers and keep a very high alert on future interactions with this person is because the only way I (and HR and management) can tell if it’s an unfortunate one-off or a pattern is by noting each and every instance of that pattern occurring. If it’s not a pattern and it never happens again, great we’ll all mostly move on (I still might be more guarded around this person because I don’t know if the behavior is going to repeat). And if it is a pattern, the earlier TPTB are aware of it, the earlier they can address it and mitigate harm.

        1. kitto*

          this is 100% it. it always starts with little transgressions – things that might be easy to write off as accidental or misinterpretations. now, after having experienced this pattern so many times, i don’t give these people the benefit of the doubt.

          if i see porn on a person’s device at work i assume it’s because they *wanted* people to see it in order to violate consent (like a digital flasher i guess). i’d also assume that they will now try something worse. frankly, if op2’s letter is real, i am suspicious that they are being predatory and hiding that with the phone overuse issue

      2. Gumby*

        If I were to be exposed to porn at my workplace then I would not owe the person who did that to me my silence. No matter what their excuse is. No matter if it was on purpose or on accident. No matter that it was a personal device. That would be a very disturbing thing that happened to me and I am entitled to my own story. It is absolutely my place to be able to talk about things *I* have experienced. Particularly when they are distressing / disturbing. I am not entitled to embellish; I am not entitled to give the person a nasty nickname; I am not entitled to key their car. But I do get to tell my own story.

      3. Grizzled*

        I’m not passing judgement on whether OP and his interests are good or bad. What I’m saying is that if the OP did this in front of me, I would be scared. How would I tell if it was accidental or intentional? Why would I trust him? As women, 99.99999% of whom have received some level of sexual harassment, you don’t take chances. You take precautions and you warn other women.

      4. New Jack Karyn*

        What ramifications would there be for telling others that Wakeen had porn on his phone? And why is not someone’s place to talk about it?

  67. NSFAnywhere*

    LW2 – Having coworkers see a pornographic photo on your personal phone is bad. But you know what else is? Having a stranger on the train or at the grocery store or at the public library or at a concert or at church or at the bar see a pornographic photo on your phone. People shouldn’t accidentally see that on your phone and if it is your lock screen/background, there’s a non-zero chance that someone else will be unwillingly exposed to something they don’t want/need to see.

    You’ll be able to come back from this at work. Don’t mention it again. Don’t try to explain it. Just let it go and be super professional in everything you do.

    And change your lock screen yesterday. Because what’ll be worse than the professional embarrassment you’re feeling now is what might happen if a stranger sees it and reports you to some sort of authority figure because their kid happens to see porn on your phone at a restaurant or the library or on the bus.

    1. MissMuffett*

      Your comment reminds me of the time on was on the NYC subway and someone across from me was watching porn with the sound on. Don’t even need to see it to be unwittingly exposed to it. Blech.

      1. NSFAnywhere*

        Yuck. I’m by no means a prude, but I do think there’s an appropriate place for material like that…and that’s in a private place.

  68. 1-800-BrownCow*

    LW#3: When I get an OOO response to an email I sent, I don’t bother reading the details. If my email needs an urgent response, I might glance at your return date or if you list another email contact to send it to, but otherwise I will delete OOO and assume to hear back from you when you return.

    Asking me to resend important emails after your return, I’m not keeping track of dates to resend emails to people.

    I get hundreds of email when I’m away on a trip. It might take me a week to get through them all after I return. I generally delete the obvious ones that don’t my attention and then slowly make my way through the rest as I can.

    1. Clisby*

      Also, I don’t get the difference between getting hundreds of emails up front and having hundreds of emails re-sent as OP asks. Either way, don’t they have the same number of emails to wade through?

  69. Lark*

    In re the porn: I doubt that you will be fired as long as you are otherwise a good employee and it was, broadly speaking, regular porn – not racist, not gory and nothing that could be mistaken for CSA material. If you are in social circles where people think that those things are okay as long as they’re “just AI”, you really need to grasp that image production and image effects in the world are two different things.

    You weren’t intending to show people a pornographic image – you very clearly did NOT want people to see your phone lock screen. It’s not illegal or uncommon to look at porn, it’s just something that people keep private and that should never be brought in to work.

    If someone had visible porn on their personal phone lockscreen at work, I would not think better of them, because I’d think it either youthfully bad judgement or actual aggression, like “you feminist killjoys want to think that you aren’t being judged as pieces of meat, but actually here is my porn to remind you what’s what”. In your case, as a young employee who tried to keep the phone hidden, I’d default to “this is bad judgement, hopefully they will turn this around”.

    Just as an anecdote: one time at work I encountered a woman whose work bag was a tote, clearly from some kind of fan convention or fanfic artist, with drawing of two nude male [major fandom] characters making out/having sex. No actual genitals were shown, it was a bag carried by a woman with images of men on it, it was very artsy, I think that all kinds of fanfic are good actually…and it totally torpedoed my views of that woman’s judgement. I just really, really don’t want to think about random colleagues’ sex lives, I don’t want to think about sexual matters at work, etc. It does not have to be something aggressive or threatening to be work-inappropriate.

    Also, I’d say that people are going to judge you in life and at work, and you want to make sure that you get judged on things you really care about, not on your porn preferences.

  70. Amy*

    Having an out of office reply that basically says ‘I’m out of office, no one is reading my emails, if it’s important, email again after X date’ is coming across as pompous . As a customer, I’d be really put off by this approach. This isn’t something you need to be broadcasting, IMHO.

  71. Alex*

    LW1 The trouble with being a “superstar” (especially if you are a female superstar), is that you often get *less* leeway and flexibility in these kinds of situations. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. If you are the superstar, people think they can ask more of you, because you can take it, obvi! You’re a star, after all! The star who stays late, doesn’t take sick days, and is always there for us!

    I know you think to yourself, I’m so valuable to them, I do such great work for them, why can’t they give me a break? But it is rare the manager who thinks like this. So you have to really make clear what you can and can’t do, because they think you can do everything.

  72. Temperance*

    Re #3:

    There’s a huge project that happens every few years that many others in my industry run, that takes progressively more time until the last 2 days, which run from about 6 am – 10 pm.

    One of my colleagues sets up an out of office that says something like “I’m managing Llama-palooza 2024, and will only be able to respond to messages relating to that program from Monday through Friday. If you need immediate assistance, please contact COWORKER, or otherwise, please follow up with me after Llamapalooza is completed on DATE.”

    It has never caused problems for him.

  73. Somehow I Manage*

    OK I’ve thought about the out of office email thing awhile, and I think there’s a better way to phrase the message.

    LW3, if you were to just say the following, you’re going to get the point across while also not coming off poorly. “I’ll be out of the office from (date) to (date). In my absence please contact Edwina for anything urgent. Upon my return, I’ll be working through the emails I’ve received, and will do my best to reply as fast as I can. If you need a faster response, please don’t hesitate to resend your initial message after I am back.”

    You’re acknowledging that you’ll be reading messages. You’re acknowledging that it’ll take some time to get through everything and giving people an option to ensure they’re at the top of your inbox. But you’re not conveying that any messages received during your absence aren’t important. And you’re not forcing someone to do extra work, just for their messages to be seen.

  74. becca*

    A suggestion for OP #4– I have asthma that flares up when I’m running, and a few years ago (at the suggestion of fellow runners), I started using the inhaler at the start of my runs, instead of letting myself get all wheezy and coughing and then using it. I can still feel the asthma lurking sometimes, or end up needing a second puff, but it makes it way easier to just keep going and not get derailed by an asthma attack.

    Obviously the usual “medical advice on the internet” disclaimers apply–my asthma is not your asthma, please consult your doctor if you’re unsure, etc etc–but it might be an alternative to using your inhaler in the middle of interviews.

  75. Wendy Darling*

    LW4, I straight up had an asthma attack during a job interview and had to bust out my rescue inhaler. My biggest asthma trigger is allergies, and there was some scent around I was allergic to, and boom. Wheezing, eye-watering mess. (This is not a normal thing for me at all — it does happen occasionally but basically never indoors!)

    I was super embarrassed but that was 2 1/2 years ago and I still work there so all’s well that ends well I guess! The people in that interview do remember that it happened but if it comes up they’re like “Oh I felt terrible, I thought we’d killed you during your interview.”

    So yeah, even if the inhaler/asthma thing goes maximally poorly, it is survivable.

    1. #4 Inhaler User*

      #4 Inhaler User here. Hi Wendy, I hear you on scents being a trigger! Certain scents have been an issue for me for ages, even before my asthma diagnosis. For sure, alls well that ends well, and it makes for a (I hope) funny story now that some time has gone by.

  76. DotDotDot*

    My whole family has asthma, and the information from our specialist says that using the rescue inhaler more than every 4 hours means its time to head to the emergency room. “trouble walking or talking” is specifically listed. I have a printout on my fridge with this information. I’m not giving you medical advice, but based on that knowledge, if I were interviewing you, I would be extremely alarmed.
    I actually don’t think I could continue to interview you in that condition, because I would be panicked that this is an emergency situation. It would be like having someone complaining of severe chest pain or unable to lift both arms.

    1. #4 Inhaler User*

      #4 Inhaler OP here. Yes, I was given similar advice when first diagnosed, that if I was using the rescue inhaler more than every 4 hours, my asthma was “poorly managed”. I do like your idea of putting that information on the fridge, I should do that for my family and others who are at our house pretty often. When I saw my doc about this flare-up, she seemed pretty calm about it (which helped me stay calm), she gave me a stronger daily maintenance inhaler and when I told her how often I’m using the rescue inhaler she said that was OK.
      It’s not an emergency situation, but I can absolutely see that it would look that way especially for someone I’m meeting for the first time.

    2. Asthma*

      You’re allowed to use it that frequently? I’m only allowed to use mine 4x in a 24 hour period and they must be at least 4 hours apart.

  77. Throwaway Account*

    OP #2, while what Alison said is correct, you exposed people at work to sexual material and that is hugely problematic, but being a person who looks at sexual material is not (assuming it is legal and not actually harming anyone).

    I feel like those two things (exposing others, looking at it yourself) are being conflated. When/if this comes up with a boss, keep your focus on how inappropriate exposing others to that material is. You do not need to feel guilty about looking at porn or address it at all.

    1. NonnyMouse*

      The OP is young – and it’s a useful lesson to learn. It doesn’t sound to me like they were showing it on purpose, rather that it was accidental. They could have chosen to address it right there (I’m sorry – that was inappropriate. I was trying to be discrete), but I think after the fact if it came up with HR – the appropriate response is that it was an accident and won’t happen again.

      Might it be office fodder gossip – maybe? Will it blow over eventually, yes.

      One of my old bosses once went to the wrong web address (aka porn) while he was trying to go to another very closely named site. This was in the 2000’s in the era of uncontrolled pop up madness, and his monitor faced a large window with a conference room on the other side. He spent a good 2-3 minutes trying to close all the pop ups and was justifiably mortified. But it was an accident, and when he told us about it later we all laughed.

      OP – either take the screensaver off your phone or don’t bring your personal phone into the word place.

    2. Moose*

      Agree, looking at it in general is not. Doing it where you might force unwilling people to see it–not only in a work context, but especially there–is the issue. I worry OP will read a lot of these comments as anti-porn and write the advice off as prudish but that isn’t the main issue.

  78. CommanderBanana*

    I feel like there had to be a better way to help you avoid your phone than putting porn on the lock screen.

    2. Budgie buddy*

      “I want to use my phone less, so I’ll make my lock screen a constantly renewing pleasurable to addictive image.”

      Make it make sense. O.o

      I fear this person’s addiction to graphic content has been spiraling out of control for long enough that they’ve reached the laughably insane / illegal level of excuses to engage more in it.

      1. kitto*

        yeah like… why does it have to be constantly changing? how does that make it more effective? it’s very transparently not about phone overuse

  79. Hyaline*

    #3 really feels like it must be very industry specific, but I can’t see any way to demand that, say, HR sending updates on benefits packages or IT sending reminders on software updates should individually email you later, or even that your colleagues sending info or updates should have to remember to resend them. And I really doubt that’s what’s meant here? But if it is…sorry, but catching up on email IS part of taking time away and always has been, except once upon a time it was a stack of memos on your desk instead.

    BUT I can also see how you wouldn’t want to wade through, say, a bunch of client emails, answering questions that have already been handled or wasting time chasing down “Did anyone else email Susan at PetCo?” I wonder if using the fact that Outlook has both in-network and out-of-network auto-reply settings could help? For in-network “I’m out of office from X to Y and will not be responding to messages until Z. For anything urgent, please see Georgette Binkley, and feel free to follow up after my return if you have not heard from me.” (with no discussion of resending messages, I’m refusing to read anything sent, etc). For external, however, depending, maybe there’s space for “Messages sent during this time will not be read; please work with Georgette Binkley [provide all contact info] instead.”

    1. HonorBox*

      I’m admittedly a little too invested in this letter today, but I think that any suggestion to an outsider that their messages will not be read at all is a little too self-important. If the LW happened to be attending a meeting a week after returning and the planner had to alter the venue or the timing, contacting Georgette isn’t going to ensure the LW has that update.

      Like you said catching up on email is part of returning to work after an absence. In many industries, there’s going to be some sort of update from an external person that doesn’t need to be immediately handled, but the recipient is still going to be accountable for knowing what’s in there.

  80. Moose*

    Hey LW #2, what are the “obvious benefits” of having AI porn on your phone lock screen? Please outline for me, here, the “obvious benefits.” Oh wait you don’t want to say them out loud in a crowded room? You maybe feel a little weird about describing exactly why you like having porn on your lock screen?

    Maybe use this as a sign to re-evaluate your relationship with sex and porn.

  81. an infinite number of monkeys*

    Well, now I’m curious what OP2’s ringtone was, because it sounds like it was pretty urgent to silence it in front of the coworkers as quickly as possible.

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      I’m curious who the caller was, as they (inadvertently) caused this avalanche of awkward. Can’t decide if it would be funnier to be the LW’s grandmother or just a spam call.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      See, I love that they tried to make their phone less attention grabbing by changing the lock screen, (to something very attention grabbing) but not by changing the max volume ringtone that sounds like an air raid siren.

  82. Lemondrops*

    #5 – I have gotten positive feedback on my highlights list of skills and software (per my career) at the top of my resume. it also helps with robots scanning for key terms/phrases. that would be a better use of space.

  83. FAFO*

    All the angst and overanalyzed comments about porn dude. He had bad, horrible, terrible judgement, is unlikely to live it down, hopefully learned a lesson, and should probably move on.

  84. mmiller540*

    3. Can my out-of-office messages say that emails sent while I’m out will be deleted?

    I would be afraid to have anything deleted in my absence, you could lose the history of a situation that may need to be resolved after you return to your office. My recommendation is that you set up an out of office greeting that includes the contact that is serving as back-up.

    You can set up a filter that all of your incoming emails goes into a folder automatically during a certain time frame/dates and automatically forwards it onto your back-up during the same time period. Your clients will not know that you are doing it. Clients do not care how you handle the things; just that you took care of them.

  85. Red*

    #5 – While I agree they’re outdated and take up a lot of resume real estate you also need to know your local employer market. Unfortunately where I live employers *do* like to see the objective. I’ve had more then one employer comment in my area on my objective in my interviews (and one time it was specifically a deciding factor in me getting employed). Are they silly? Yes. Are they redundant? Yes. Do some employers still have a bizarre attachment to them? Unfortunately, also yes.
    For context, the market that I’m in that likes to see them is rural agriculture, which tends to be run/staffed by older people/conservative people.
    so tl;dr: know your job industry/market’s preferences.

  86. YesPhoebeWould*

    Regarding #3, the “emails will be deleted”? No, you can’t do this in any way that is remotely professional. When somebody sends you a work-related email, it isn’t their job to track when you will be back from vacation. If the emails pile up, work through them when you get back.

    Doing this is extremely unprofessional and rude.

    If I ever got an auto-reply basically saying “I’m on vacation, and won’t read your email, even when I get back. Write it again when it is more convenient for me.”? I’d be very sorely tempted to burn you by sending you something critical, letting it be “effectively deleted” and then pointing out that you received it, you just didn’t do your job about it. Even if I didn’t do that? If I’m substantially higher-ranking than you (i.e. VP versus manager), I’m passing it along to your boss’s boss.

  87. MicroManagered*

    It’s unlikely that people hate you, although some of them might feel a little icky around you for a while until that impression gets overridden.

    If one of my coworkers did this, nothing is ever going to override my impression of them. They’re always going to be the person who had AI adult material out at work, on their phone. No silly backpack excuses or “it helps me stay off my phone” would help (because sh’yeah right).

    I don’t know that I’d “hate” them, and it probably wouldn’t be worth reporting to HR but I’d be considering it. It would permanently change my feelings about working with that person though.

  88. fhqwhgads*

    LW3, in addition to what Alison said, my experience has been that the whole “emails from X-Y date will be deleted” thing is much more common and accepted for extended leaves, like, at least 4 consecutive weeks.
    There are some office cultures where it’s always fine to say it, others where it’s never fine to say it, and some where it’d be weird for a 2 week vacation but not for something longer. You gotta know which you’re in.

  90. Boggle*

    #2 – Yeah, you’ve really given your coworkers something to think about and I can attest what they are thinking isn’t good. If this is real, you need to change your phone screen asap and also put your phone on silent during the workday. And why you ever thought it was a good idea to have porn on your phone’s lock screen is beyond me, and most people. You take your phone out to answer it in public, not just your office, right? No one wants to see that on someone’s phone.

  91. Jennifer Strange*

    Aside from obvious benefits

    So I get what your implying here, but I’m curious why being able to be sexually aroused while out and about in the world would be seen as a “benefit”? I can guarantee there’s a plethora of preteen/teen boys out there who would disagree. Personally, I’d have to say work is one of the top three places I WOULDN’T want to be sexually aroused (intentionally or otherwise). While I’m not going to accuse you of being a deviant, including this detail in your letter just makes you look worse in this situation.

  92. Nancy*

    LW3: Personally, I can’t imagine a situation where mass deleting work emails received during a vacation would be ok. That would definitely not be ok where I work, going through emails after vacation is an expected part of our job.

  93. RagingADHD*

    LW 2, I think if you have to resort to characterizing your actions as “not deontologically bad,” you need to take a step back and think about yourself, your perspective, and your relationship to other people and society. You aren’t following deontological ethics – you’re rules-lawyering.

    And you rules-lawyered yourself into a place where you couldn’t see your choices in context (thereby failing to recognize other duties and obligations, which would impact real deontological ethics).

    Yes, your impact on other people matters, and they are going to judge you for it. That’s how society works – people react to the way your actions affect them.

  94. Susie QQ*

    > I downloaded something on my personal phone so that every time I turn on the screen, the lock screen background is an AI porn pic.

    This is so bizarre. I’m sure it’s different everywhere, but there are times where I have needed to use my personal phone at work (such as answering a phone call from my child’s school that there’s a medical issue).

  95. HannahS*

    OP1, I feel for you. The working world is terribly unkind to parents, and your boss was absolutely out of line. In a lot of retail and other very hierarchical jobs (e.g. factory work, food service, housekeeping, etc.) it’s typical that “what boss says, goes.” Especially if you don’t have a union protecting you, there can be a culture where the boss does whatever they want. But that doesn’t make it ok, and if you’re a superstar being recognized by corporate, you have more power than you realize. It’s never 100% guranteed that your boss won’t go on a power trip and say, “You know what, you’re FIRED for not coming in after you’ve been up all night with a sick child and you should bring your child with you,” but that would be WAYYYYY out of left field and out of line. I think it’s much more likely that your boss would be annoyed, but they’d figure it out.

  96. boof*

    LW2 – I’ll try to assume you were thinking of your personal phone as private and just didn’t think too hard about what it might mean to have something on your lock screen or the fact that you were still bringing it to work even if you didn’t “plan” to use it – but I think this incident shows the error of your ways? The whole thing is a bit strange (trying to fish around in your backpack to silence the phone and accidentally flashing everyone), honestly deserves to be a sit-com piece or something. I appreciate that you are feeling mortified and not sure what to do with that feeling; as best I can tell, the thing to do with that feeling is /take the porn off your lock screen and never bring porn to work again/. In a few years I’m sure everyone will have forgotten about this if you do good work and don’t do anything else inappropriate; maybe someday this can be a “look back and cringe haha” story in your own mind. Right now just chalk it up to making a series of bad judgements that probably can be recovered from if you learn from it now and try to be scrupulously polite/professional at work.
    Maybe even flash your personal phone with a /normal lock screen/ around the same colleagues at some point soon in the near future if you really want to.

  97. Colorado*

    I’m still stuck on “Aside from obvious benefits”. What are the benefits of having porn as a screen saver? The first thing that would have come to mind for me is you are jerking off at work. Only because I wouldn’t have thought wow, that’s an odd lock screen. I would have thought why on earth is porn on his phone at work. In which case, you’d definitely drop on the respect bar for me.

  99. Raida*

    2. My coworkers saw porn on my phone’s lock screen

    I would tell my coworkers that I have an app on my phone that displays socially embarassing images to minimise my phone use – and that is does include porn-y stuff.
    And I am embarrassed as hell.
    And that’s why I was so weird with it in my bag.
    And that, while it REALLY helped cut down on my phone usage and I’ve REALLY seen improvements from that lowered use… I have taken the app off because I CANNOT do that again.
    And I am SO SORRY to have flashed hentai (or whatever) in the office, nobody wants to see that.

    1. Raida*

      It can become a funny anecdote of “hey you should ask Jojo on tips to use your mobile phone less!” “omg guys I’m sooo embarrassed… gather round, hear the tale…”

      And a more serious and thoughtful discussion at work around the benefits of cutting mobile phone use

    2. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      This is a super kind and genuinely helpful response. I hope they read it and follow your suggestions.

  100. Raida*

    4. Using an inhaler during a job interview

    If you are anxious, absolutely front load with “i might need to use an inhaler”

    If you are calm, put it on the table along with your water cup, biro, whatever. And just give it a tap, say “cold weather, not fun for my asthma” bit of an eye roll, we all know and understand right guys? at the start.
    If you need to use it, then pick it up, maintaining eye contact, shake shake shake, uncap, say anything that needs saying before the interruption, then use it, recapping while holding breath, popping it back down on the table, exhale, simply back into the conversation “The key to building dashboards is always how is it actually going to be used, not what do end users imagine they’d be using…”

    I do this with putting in eyedrops for my contact lenses, including just talking and maintaining eye contact while I’m doing it. Worst case scenario the other person says “Wow, that’s a power move” and we chuckle about it, I say I’m just glad I find it easy to put in eyedrops, we move on with the meeting.

    1. #4 Inhaler User*

      #4 Inhaler OP here. These replies are helping my confidence, that yes it is OK to say right away that I may be using an inhaler. The way you describe “pick it up, maintain eye contact, say something, use, finish sentence” is exactly what a friend of mine does. When he “talks with his hands” he’s got his inhaler in one hand.

      1. Acey*

        I usually turn away when using my inhaler in public b/c I know some people are uncomfortable with medical things, and also to indicate that I need a moment to gather myself — for me, I can’t always pay attention to what others are saying while using it. After the second puff though, I turn right around and continue where I was.

  101. Moose*

    LW 2 – Whatever “obvious benefits” you think you’re getting from this, they are outweighed by the potential of making people super uncomfortable, not just at work. You can look up whatever images you want on your phone any time. Get one of those apps that locks you out of Instagram or whatever if you want to use your phone less. You’ve overcomplicated the solution to your usage.

  102. el l*

    OP3:
    Don’t go there on deleting emails. Lots of people (including myself) would be insulted to know my message was deleted. I once had a large client who deleted emails from when he was on vacation (“if it’s important, they’ll call me again”) and to find that out when I needed things from him was extremely frustrating. My time was wasted.

    Just give your colleague’s contact info, and assume (unless your post vacation debrief indicates otherwise) that they’ve handled it for you and you can ignore.

  103. KJC*

    Like it or not, not everyone thinks porn is ethically neutral. Bringing it to work and to every public place you ever spend time and your phone rings is not a good idea. And even those who find it ethically neutral would be mad if their child were exposed to porn because some random dude’s phone at the deli was displaying it.

    As for the email deletions, I hate to admit I am one of those people who doesn’t always read the details of out of office messages and might not know my message had been deleted.

    1. KJC*

      p.s. This reminds of an intern I worked with but didn’t officially manage who used to make porn jokes at work in a very conservative company. I actually pulled him into an office one day and basically said, “I know different companies have different cultures, but just for the benefit of your career, I would recommend paying attention to what kinds of things people around you talk about in any particular workplace you enter and then aim to never be the sketchiest person in the room.”

  104. Wembem*

    I have some sympathy for #2. I could see getting to the same point with similar reasoning and taking a similar strategy – but it would lead me to a) not bring the phone with me at all or b) make extremely sure it is fully muted at all times.
    The embarrassing lock screen should not be where your initiative ends if the whole point of it is to take measures it *won’t* be seen.

  105. Acey*

    LW #4: For me, my doctor has also okayed proactive rescue inhaler usage. I have a job that requires lots of public speaking, and when my asthma is acting up, I’ll use my inhaler before meetings and such where I know I’ll be talking a lot. (Reminds me, I should use it before my 2pm presentation today.) Doing this means I rarely have to use my inhaler during an interview or similar level of talking.

  106. Bike Walk Bake Books*

    LW2, I don’t know that you’ll have time to read through all the comments that essentially say “I’m so squicked out by your ‘obvious benefits’ comment that my lunch is threatening to come back up” but here’s another one anyway.

    The squick isn’t coming for the people who work in that industry. It’s the mindset you’re bringing to your colleagues and people who interact with you in the workplace.

    Tell us you treat all people of the demographic represented in your preferred porn feed as worthy of dignity and respect in your work interactions and make us believe it.

  107. For Real Life*

    LW3 – When I’m going to be out of the office and unreachable for a week or more at a time, I start putting a bolded message in my email signature about two weeks out from the vacation itself. Perhaps this could be helpful in setting expectations for some of the folks who may email you while out? Something along the lines of:

    *Upcoming Travel* Please note that I will be out of the office and unavailable between X and Y dates. During this time, please reach out to A (email address) or B (email address) for any urgent matters, as I will not be reading or responding to emails. If you need my assistance with anything prior to my time away, please contact me by Z date.

  108. Kella*

    OP2: You developed a system to disincentivize you from looking at your phone at work where doing so risks doing significant damage to your own reputation and the potential to harm others around you (an ethically questionable decision I would add). The high risk makes it more motivating to avoid. Well, you (and your coworkers) have now experienced the consequences of that system. Allow that that shame and embarrassment and drop in work reputation to motivate you to never ever let this happen again, just as the system was designed to do, and get that sketchy app off your phone. And for future resolutions, find systems that won’t result in you being fired, or other people being violated, if they fail.

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