A woman who posts on TikTok as Kayla Jean | Multipotentialite (@kaylajeantravels) said in a video that she overheard two men in company shirts talking about a female manager while she was at lunch for work. She said the men described that manager as “a lot more emotional and problematic than any of her male peers because she’s a woman.” The TikTok video had gained 114,300 views and more than 1,000 comments.
Kayla said she was sitting at a table next to the two men, who she stated were wearing their company’s logo on their shirts. In the caption, she wrote, “It’s a small world and we’re more connected than you think. Please be aware of how you’re talking about people as well as representing yourself and the company you work for. These managers are talking about their subordinate.”
She said she is “pretty well connected on LinkedIn,” so she “just did a couple name searches plus their company name” and found the men, as well as the woman they were discussing. She stated that she had “a message drafted to their senior HR business partner of their company” and added, “it could really do something negative or positive to your career.”
Follow-up videos responded to comments telling her to mind her own business
In a follow-up TikTok video, Kayla replied to a comment that read, “Or maybe just eat lunch and mind your business. Some people are always looking to make trouble.” She said wearing a company logo while talking about an employee they manage, and using their own names in public, “makes it the organization’s business and everyone else around that can openly hear what they’re talking about.”
She said the talk was “not a private conversation, it’s a public one.” Addressing people who called it eavesdropping, she said, “please go look up the definition of eavesdropping.” Publicly identifying people in a professional context can have serious consequences, as when an Ohio woman was sued for leaving a one-star Google review for a manufacturing company.
She stated she “wasn’t intentionally trying to hear someone’s private conversation” and that she was sitting next to two men in company T-shirts with name badges who were using each other’s names and the name of the woman they manage.
In another follow-up video on TikTok, she said she kept seeing the comment “Mind your own business” and added, “honestly, I think that’s great advice until it isn’t.” She described the men as “managers in public talking about somebody they supervise in public” and asked, “So at what point does something become everyone’s business in public?”
She said people are told to report discrimination at work and asked what the difference is here. She stated she was “genuinely curious where people draw the line” and said maybe not everyone draws it in the same place. She argued that “mind your business” or “quit eavesdropping” does not “automatically win an argument.”
The question of when private matters become public concerns extends beyond workplace conduct, as when a North Carolina woman begged a company to stop cutting her trees but they cleared them anyway.
Kayla said the point of the videos “is not to get anybody fired, which likely will not happen.” She asked, “If you owned a company, would you want to know?” She said that would not be so someone could fire a person or because employees cannot vent, but because “you have people in uniform representing your company and using employees’ names in public.”
She called the “mind your own business and quit eavesdropping” line “a tired one” and said, “if we don’t speak up when we see something that we think is wrong, then what kind of society does that create?” She did not name the company, the men, or the manager in the videos provided.
Some viewers said she should have stayed out of it. One commenter wrote, “I usually just mind my own business. But ya know you do you.” Another said, “its time to normalize minding our own in public.” A third wrote, “To be fair this is weird af.”
Other commenters focused on the men’s remarks and company branding. One wrote, “Ironically… that’s a pretty emotional and problematic response.” Another suggested, “Send it to HR and separately send to her. Then she can see the company action or inaction and go from there!”
A person who identified as an HR manager wrote, “As an HR manager, no way on hell would I let this slide. If you’re wearing company-branded items, you’re representing the company, whether on or off the clock. I wouldn’t accept this any more than I’d accept racism, homophobia, etc.” Another commenter warned, “Be careful of trying to get someone fired…. Karma is real…..”
Published: Sep 6, 2026 06:00 am