Work Text:
A reader writes:
Dear Allison,
My whole department is writing real person fanfic about senior management.
I know how this sounds, but it's even worse. There is a "secret book club" which everyone knows about, including our team leader and deputy leader. Nearly everyone in my department is either writing or reading it, and I think people from other departments as well? Or at least one employee from a different department is, anyway. It's erotic fanfiction. Their main 'ship': the company's owner (who takes a very active role in the company's day to day management) and the CEO (ditto). It's a very large company with an extremely high public profile — you've definitely heard of us. The work we do is politically sensitive and there's heaps of potential for scandal.
They don't do it on company time, but the "book club" meetings do take place at the workplace, and I think some of them are there while they're on call. I went once when I didn't know what sort of a secret book club it was. I thought it was just controversial literature like frequently challenged library books, that sort of thing. I have nothing against writing horny or romantic fanfic as a hobby, but this doesn't sound like something that should be happening here?
I'm wildly uncomfortable with this situation. I think it has potential to be sexual harassment (if it isn't already. I moved here for work, and where I'm from the laws and customs would regard this very differently.) Also, I don't know him well and only met him a few times before I got this job, but the CEO is a family friend from back before he started at this company, so picturing him in sexual situations is like picturing my dad the same way, or at least my dad's old uni buddy. Even if he wasn't, I'm not sure I'd want to be that invested in the love lives of the people who sign my paychecks.
I don't feel comfortable speaking up to my coworkers about this because I'm the new guy and only just got hired and apart from this they all are very good at their jobs and are very dedicated to their work. Plus, like I said, our team leader and deputy leader both know about it and haven't put a stop to it, and they know the owner and CEO socially. So maybe I'm overreacting and it isn't as inappropriate as it seems? But it's erotic fanfic about people we work with!
For complicated reasons relating to our company's unusual reporting structure, there is absolutely no way I can go to HR about this.
Oh, and to make this more awkward, I think maybe the owner and the CEO do have some sort of unacknowledged crush situation going on. It is extremely not my business and like I said I don't want to think about the CEO that way, but they are extremely close and intense about each other, and the owner refers to the CEO as "my dear HisName" in his @everyone Teams posts and annual company keynote speeches. Someone in the book club said he did the same in the last media release the CEO didn't draft for him (he used to be his secretary and apparently has kept some of his workload from that position?) but that was before my time. Neither of them is married.
What should I do?
I agree with you that this is incredibly inappropriate! I'm sorry that you are dealing with this.
Is there anyone in the secret book club who you are closer with? You could talk to them privately and mention your fears about the sexual harassment liability that they are opening themselves up to by having this secret book club read erotic fanfiction about your bosses. Hopefully this will be enough to get them to either stop reading and writing this type of fiction as a group activity, or to move it outside of the workplace.
If they decide that they are okay with taking that risk, then there's not much else you can do to dismantle the book club without getting your friends in trouble.
However, there's nothing saying that you can't organize your own secret book club that reads controversial literature. Or maybe you can work with your current book club to have alternating sessions where you talk about things you want to read, and only attend those meetings.
Also if there's someone who can discreetly but directly let the CEO know that the owner has feelings for him, they can talk to each other and either get together or not, and that should help ease some of the tension, and your friends will have less to write about!