I am part of a small business of myself, the business owner, and a recently new employee.
For all intents and purposes, it is just myself and the new employee are the ones running the business - the business owner is only attending monthly meetings to see how the business is progressing. We have reached a point where we have identified how we work together well, with only one issue; they are bringing their personal issues to work.
I have no issues with this in general, I sometimes have bad days, or lose control to my own personal issues, but it is not something that I bring up. At most, I might need to apologize for my behavior due to my "personal situations"; but I leave it at that.
They, on the other hand, bring it up as part of the morning meetings, and in detail. They give updates on how things are progressing, or regressing as the case may be. Again, I have no issue with them dealing with these situations, but I feel that this is not really something that we should be addressing in such detail in the workplace.
From an interpersonal perspective, I could approach them outside of work hours and address it there, but I do not feel comfortable with that at this point in time; partially because we do not really communicate on a level I am comfortable with outside of work hours, and partially because I cannot really support them in this either - I feel like my simple remarks of "I can understand things are tough" appears as a brush off.
So how should I be handling this, in a professional sense?
For clarification, the "issues" I have mentioned are along the lines of PTSD and anxiety.
I have spoken to him about some of issues before, but only in so far as how they affect work. For example, he is always keen to argue in the favor of the client, regardless of whether or not it is a good business idea - not only making me look bad for denying the client their request(s) but also having to take him away to discuss where he actually sits in the deal. This particular issue has been resolved, but he still brings up others that are far more personal; generally focusing on their origin in his childhood.
Quite simply; in a work environment I do not feel that these are things that should be brought up at any time, and I personally do not feel comfortable being included in the sharing.