A reader writes:

Weird thing just came up at my work that I’d be curious to hear you weigh in on. I work at a university that is 100% in-person, on-the-ground. My colleague Fergus has an office in an obscure little corner of the building. We rarely see him come in and out, and he tends to be around for odd hours.

Recently, a grad student who works at our front desk mentioned that she sees Fergus’ wife Jane coming to work with him quite often. This was news to me — Fergus’ wife has a 100% remote job that we thought she was doing from home. What I’ve gathered is that Jane seems to be coming to work with Fergus to do her work in his office, and it’s regular enough that our grad students know who she is.

What are your thoughts on this? Our school requires us to be 100% in-person because we work with confidential student records and so that students can stop by to see us at any time, and Jane does work related to confidential medical data, so it seems like it’s inherently a problem if they’re working in the same room. At the same time, that’s a pretty common setup for couples where both partners work remotely. But it also seems … just kind of odd, especially because he hasn’t mentioned this to anyone and almost seems to be sneaking her in. Like, it would make sense if they only had one car and they were coming into the city together because she had an in-town appointment, but they both have their own separate vehicles.

What do you think?

Yes, this is weird and it’s almost certainly a problem.

In many jobs, it wouldn’t be a big deal if it happened occasionally — like for an afternoon a couple times a year when she needed to do something nearby, or for one day because, I don’t know, there was construction happening in their house. But it shouldn’t be happening regularly, for the same reasons that any other random person shouldn’t be regularly working from your office.

Your employer hasn’t agreed to provide office space and other resources to Jane, there are confidentiality issues, it’s likely to pose at least some distraction to Fergus, people stopping by to talk to him may be deterred by her presence, there’s potential legal liability to your employer if something happens to Jane while she’s there … the list of problems goes on and on.

Personally, I’d mention it casually to your boss and see if they know about it.