PlatKat.com: Guess What I Heard

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Guess What I Heard

N.H. Town Fires Four Workers For Gossiping

I can see both sides of the coin, but some people really don't know when to quit when it comes to gossiping at work. Sure, people should be able to talk casually with their coworkers, and of course that can involve talking about other people sometimes. But as someone who has seen it get out of hand before, I'm happy to see someone taking action to stop it. It's annoying, unproductive, and worst of all, very contagious.

Two of my previous bosses had an absurd gossip habit. It's really hard to ignore when you are a subordinate who is just trying to get her work done.

I thought it was especially funny when one of the bosses in question once mentioned that people from other groups were always suspiciously looking over at our section as they walked by our bank of four cubes, eyeing the "lab" computer that no one's using. I wanted to tell her what they were really looking at were her and another coworker, sitting in a corner whispering like teenagers. If you have so many important secrets that you feel you must spend several hours a day whispering about them, let them out after work over a beer and some curly fries, or at least get a conference room so you don't bother the rest of us.

Boss #2 liked to talk about people after they set sail. Suddenly, when he lost two of our trainers, they were uncouth and underqualified anyway. Or when he found he couldn't keep someone on the team because he had an arrest record, he told the rest of us over lunch. During my annual review, he talked smack about someone else in comparison to my performance. I just hope when I left, he had some ridiculously bizarre epic saga about my great misdeeds, appearing highly unbelievable but likely very true.

So anyway, it is contagious. As a child copies a mother's actions in the home, an employee copies a boss's actions in the workplace. Yeah, I'm an adult and should know better, but there isn't one person who can honestly say they haven't fallen into the gossip trap. So I'm openly admitting it. I fell hard, and I fell deep. And I want to stop the habit dead in its tracks so it never happens again. I guess when you're forced to make conversation with people you have little in common with other than each other, it's inevitable.

But still bad.

Talking about people can really bring out your inner ugly, so I welcome anything being done to quell the urge so common in us normal folks. Sorry about your pensions ladies, consider it an expensive reminder to keep the workplace beautiful.

posted by platkat @ 10:29 AM