Manager discovers employee records their meetings without permission, decides to confront her about it: 'Is she building a case against me?'

"Your call is being recorded" is a line we all heard at one point or another.

Whether we're on call with a random customer service number or out of the blue without explanation, everyone has the option to record their conversation with others if they feel the need to. But even if you can record everything, it doesn't mean you should. There are etiquette and even rules when it comes to the privacy of others, and those should be taken into consideration before any of us hit that 'record' button.

The employee below, for example, probably should have asked her manager if they were okay with all their 1:1s being recorded by her. But she didn't. Instead, she simply decided to go ahead and hit 'record' before each of their meetings, without so much as a word to her employer. So when the manager noticed her phone recording during one of their meetings, they were taken aback and were highly confused about the employee's inability to ask if they were okay with being recorded.

Why would the employee record their 1:1s? Is it because she refers to the recording later when she goes over everything they discussed? Or is she documenting everything because she is building something against her manager? If the recording was simply a tool to help her be a better employee, why didn't she disclose it in the first place? Keeping it quiet only makes it seem suspicious, which is exactly why the manager now thinks the employee might be hiding something.

Should the employee have asked for permission to record the meetings, or is it within her own rights to document the meetings, for whatever reason she might see fit?

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Boss talking to his female employee.
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My employee was recording our 1:1 and I don't know how to feel

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Boss talking to his female employee.
^{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
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It seems like this case is splitting people up, some thinking the manager is overreacting, while others agree that the employee should be confronted for her actions.
The real question is, how would you feel if you were in this manager's shoes? Would you have let it slide, or would you have confronted the employee and demanded an explanation for why she had been recording all your 1:1s?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!