Should you tell a friend if you overhear a personal conversation with his Lyft driver?
I suppose it’s human nature to becurious. But is there a line where one’s respect for someone else’s privacytrumps that natural curiosity?
Areader we’re calling J.K. received a call from an old friend recently. Thefriend had called while he was being driven by a Lyft driver to a destinationin a town to which he had just moved. J.K. happened to be walking outside whenhis friend called. It was a good conversation, J.K. recalled, thoughoccasionally the street traffic on J.K.’s walk made it challenging to hear.
Hisfriend filled him in on his new job in the new town. As the conversationwrapped up, the friend said goodbye. At first J.K. wrote that he couldn’t hearthat his friend was signing off so he kept his phone to his ear. Quickly,however, it became clear his friend was no longer talking to him but hadneglected to disconnect the call and was speaking to his Lyft driver.
Ido not know if Lyft drivers have taken their place alongside barbers orbartenders, who historically have been perceived as receptacles of stories fromrandom people who confide in them. I also don’t know why some people have feltcomfortable sharing personal stories with barbers and bartenders and now Lyft drivers— stories whose details they might never share with those close to them. Butthey do. And it was clear J.K.’s friend was entering into such a conversationwith his Lyft driver.
“Hewas telling his driver about his former job and why he had left,” wrote J.K.“They were details I had never heard.” J.K. listened for a while but grewuncomfortable that his friend didn’t know he could hear them.
“Idisconnected the call,” wrote J.K., “but I heard enough that I’m concerned.”Now, J.K. wants to know if he should say something to his friend or justpretend the event never happened and wait for his friend to bring up his pastjob experience if he wants to talk about it.
Ideally,J.K. would have disconnected the call as soon as he realized his friend didn’tbelieve they were still on the call. He could have shouted into the phone thathe could still hear him, but it’s likely his friend wouldn’t have heard him.The simpler thing perhaps would be to say nothing and pretend he didn’toverhear anything.
Butsince he did hear him, the right thing, I believe, is to let his friend know heheard the beginning of his friend’s conversation with his Lyft driver becausehe didn’t know they were finished talking. He doesn’t need to go into detailabout what he heard — which J.K. wrote wasn’t much — but he can let his friendknow he heard him. He can leave it to his friend to decide if he wants to talkabout what happened at his former job. If the friend doesn’t want to talk aboutit, J.K. should let it go.
J.K.’sfriend may be upset when he’s told about the call, but he also might appreciateJ.K.’s honesty. There’s no guarantee the response will go one way or the other,but the right thing is for J.K. to be honest and do what he would hope hisfriend would have done for him had the situation been reversed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
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