Office Gossip

What is it with office environments?
It doesn't seem to matter where your office is or what kind of work is done in that office, the gossip issue remains the same.
It really doesn't matter whether you work with mostly women or mostly men. But I must admit women tend to be the worst. Men just have different methods.
Though there are some differences the basic issues remain the same.

Gossip. What an ugly word, but hey that is the main form of communication around the office. We all hate the gossips, but yet often times that is the only way we find out anything on what's going on. Sad as it may be, most managers are so poor at communicating to their employees that the only way anybody can find out anything is through the gossipers. This of course leads to a lot of misinformation being passed around. It may eventually get straightened out, but not till after a lot of "damage" is done.

Why have managers not learned this yet? It is human nature to want to know what's going on, especially when it comes to one's job. Isn't it amazing how fast information is spread with no regard to accuracy? And we all know someone who is especially good at it too. Every office has its main source. I mean this person is so good at passing around misinformation they should be hired by our military for propaganda purposes.

So what do we do about the negative side of gossip? You can try and ignore them, but boy is that hard. How do you ignore a constant drone? I try most of the time, but I have found that it's best to act like you are not listening, then do and process the info and assume it's wrong. What this does is it gives you a clearer picture of the type of people you work with. This can be invaluable and help you steer clear of those out to do you harm. Even still it can be taxing on your energy level so only do this with a healthy dose of coffee or Mountain Dew.

So, why not have some fun. I mean, if you can't beat them join them!
Enlist the help of a fellow coworker who feels the same way you do. Then come up with a pretty farfetched story about yourself. I mean keep it so they can't hurt your career or get you in trouble, but make it something like you found remnants of a plane crash in your back yard with markings similar to Amelia Earhart or maybe Exxon keeps calling and bugging you since you found this black liquid bubbling up in your yard.
My favorite that was actually used where I worked is that Verizon is paying you $1200 a month to rent a small piece of your land to put up a cell phone tower. Never mind that you live down in a valley, it’s going to be a taller than normal tower.

If you can think of something a little more believable, but not damaging then go for it. You must be serious in your conversation so as to make it believable enough and just loud enough for the "right" person to overhear. Make sure they hear you say that this is strictly a hush, hush deal and no one is to know. Then sit back and enjoy the fun.

It won't take long for it to come back around and it will have a new twist to it as each passer adds their own embellishments. When someone does confront you about it, you can take one of two roads. You can act upset that your "secret" is out and play more with that or you can act shocked and bewildered at who would pass such a farfetched rumor about you! This method has been known to temporarily cure some bad gossipers.
Either way, it will be a lot of fun on how twisted the story may get. Just remember to be careful so you don't get yourself fired.

One way I have also got people to stop running to me with the latest even though I have told them in the past I'm not interested in hearing the latest gossip is this. When they start just interrupt them and say this, "Hey, I would love to hear about this, but believe it or not I actually have some work that needs to get done and could you just email me what you want to tell me? Thanks!" and immediately go back to typing or walk away, whatever. If you get an email, then keep it. Label the folder "latest news from so and so". Chances are you won't get a thing and will eventually get left out of the gossip loop.

Keep in mind though, if you manage to pull yourself out of the gossip loop and you have a manager that is lousy at communicating you may just be the last to know everyone's jobs are being shipped to India!

Have Fun!