Dear Prudence,
I’ve been working from home since March. A lot of my co-workers have partners and roommates who are also working from home, and it’s commonplace for people to walk by in the background during work Zoom calls or for kids to occasionally pop onto the screen to say hello. Until recently, nothing unprofessional has ever happened, but last week during a call with my co-worker “Madeline,” her husband burst into her office, called her the C-word, and blew up at her for forgetting peanut butter when she went to the store. Then he realized I could see and hear him and did a complete 180. Suddenly he was charming and acting like nothing had happened. Madeline followed his lead. I reached out to her afterward to ask if she was OK, and she pretended not to know what I was talking about. If my own roommate hadn’t overheard, I almost would have doubted what I’d witnessed. Now I’m unsure what to do. Madeline and I are friendly but not friends. Her husband seems deranged to me. I want to reach out to her again, but what if she keeps denying I saw anything?
—Rampage Over Zoom