A reader writes:

Please help me, I am panicking here. My employee just posted a very, very explicit porn video to our company’s main announcements chat room, which has over 200 members. The video featured several very … unusually niche fetishes. (I’m not trying to kink shame at all, but I just mean to say that the video was extremely shocking and just … memorable.)

There were a few awkward comments and shocked emoji reactions before she quickly deleted the comment. I also saw it, but before I could do anything she called me, completely distraught. She basically said that she was deeply sorry and deeply ashamed, and that she wanted to resign because she couldn’t face us again. She wanted to mail in her laptop (!). I could barely get in a word. In any case, since she is already on PTO, I told her that she didn’t need to make any decisions yet, and that this wasn’t a big deal and would blow over. So she’s still on vacation right now.

I’m not really sure how this happened, but regardless I don’t care because it’s obviously an accident. She obviously wasn’t trying to sexually harass anyone, she’s clearly apologetic, and I’m absolutely sure she’s learned from it and won’t make that mistake again. I want to reassure her that she absolutely does not need to resign — that, although it may be embarrassing for a short while, this too will pass and everyone will get over it.

Most importantly, I don’t want her to resign because she’s a genuinely amazing person!! She’s super smart and creative, exceptionally hard-working and reliable, helpful and kind, and just overall a great person to work with. I would even describe her as one of the best hires I’ve made, someone with a lot of potential! I can’t say enough good things about her. I don’t want her to think this is the end of the world, because it isn’t, or that this incident would make me think any less of her. But I’m at a loss for how to get through to her!

And to be honest, I feel like I really understand where she’s coming from. If I were her, I know how utterly mortified I would feel. I think I literally had this nightmare once. That chat room is the main bulletin board for our company and has 200+ members, and most people at the company probably have “all notifications on” for that particular room. It is likely that many people saw it. So I can understand the impulse to just up and disappear. However, while that is obviously an overreaction to the situation, she seemed dead-set on actually going through with it.

I have no idea how to deal with this situation, and I don’t have too much time before her PTO is over. In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out:

• What do I tell her when she comes back? Should I email/call her now before she gets back? How should I help her get through the embarrassment/deal with the aftermath?

• What do I do in the meantime while she’s not here? Do I need to talk to my other employees/coworkers? Should I try to play this all off as a virus or something?

• Do I need to discuss this with HR? As I said, it’s obvious to me that this isn’t sexual harassment. What do I even say to them, if anything?

• About the 200+ other people at this company … do I need to do anything regarding that/speak up for her somehow? A lot of those people haven’t met her, so they don’t have the same positive impression of her that I/her teammates do. Should I try to say something in advance…? My instinct is to just leave it be and trust that people will forget.

• What should I do if she really quits?

• Anything else I’m not thinking of??

I just really care about her, I think she’s a fantastic employee and person, and I really hate to see her in this position. I feel awful that SHE feels this awful about it. I want to do right by her, whatever that means. Any advice at all would be deeply, deeply appreciated.

Oh no!

I’m sure she feels she has just announced her very specific and very dirty sexual fetishes to your entire company, and not only that but illustrated them in the most graphic way possible, without anyone’s consent.

She’s probably not thinking that it’s plausible this could somehow be spam-related, or that her teenage nephew did it as a terribly misguided prank, or that it was saved in the copy/paste function on her computer from the last user.

In other words, she really didn’t just come out to your whole company as a fan of Specific Kink X.

The more you can do to push those other possibilities into her brain, the better.

Do you have the ability to text her while she’s away? If so, I’d text her something like this: “Truly, Jane, do not worry! There are tons of things that could have caused this — spam, someone else using the copy/paste function on your computer before you did, a prank from a young relative — and no one here would ever possibly think you’d intended to post that in a group chat. Everyone assumes there’s an innocent explanation, and it would make it a far bigger deal if you did quit over it! I don’t want you to spend another minute of your vacation worrying about this. You’re an excellent employee, hugely valued, and that’s the end of it.” (If you can’t text her, maybe call her in a day, ask her to let you speak before she interjects, then say all this. Leave it on her voicemail if needed.)

It might be worth giving HR a heads-up about what happened. You don’t want them to hear about it themselves and have to track you down to ask about it. Frame it as “it was obviously a mistake, she deleted it immediately, she’s mortified, and I’m trying to talk her down from how upset she is over it.” (It could be wise to do this before you talk to the employee herself, to make sure you don’t hear anything that would change your messaging.)

If anyone else asks you about it, shut it down with, “Technology can get the best of any of us. She’s always been scrupulously professional and I have no reason to think there’s any more to it than that. She’s mortified and I don’t want to make it worse by harping on it. It happened, it got fixed.”

If she really follows through on quitting, you can tell her how devastated you’d be to lose her over something that no one is that worked up about, but ultimately it is her call. The more you can emphasize that no one is having the reaction she’s picturing them having, the better.