I just started a new job on Monday, and already the office gossip woman has come up to me and bad mouthed the woman training me. In a round about way, she then asked me if said woman said anything bad about other employees to me. I gave her a blank look and said I knew nothing, but the woman who is training me warned me that shit would be talked about her and that people would try to find out if she said shit to me about other people in the office.

How petty can people be? What kind of office gossip has gone on where you work?

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Answers

A woman in our office was fired about 2months ago for what started as office gossip. (Her, gossiping about others). She took it too far and basically told one employee there had been a *meeting* about him when there wasn't. She was pretty much fired on the spot for that.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

its terrable!!!! thre was a rumer going arond that my boss was sleeping with 1 of the mecanics and the mecanic was sleeping with the book kepper and there all guyz!!!!!! i dont no if it was true???

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

What always amazes me and cracks me up at the same time about the gossip around my office over the past six years is that people are always so willing to believe that two coworkers are having an affair. I've heard that so many times from so many people about so many other people it's ridiculous. I'm usually skeptical, so there are very few I even consider in the neighborhood of being true. But it's also somewhat scary: in every case, at least one of the parties who are the targets of such rumors are management (I think the rumors are started by non- managers who are generally anti-management anyway), the manager is always the male in the alleged relationship, and I'm a manager so I'm always wondering if/when I'm going to be the victim of the next rumor du jour. Gossip sucks. I don't engage in it.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Believe it or not, we'd have this sort of problem. We're a small bunch, know each other well, we have 2 husband-wife teams (writer/photog), we often party together, and we're from small towns...so everybody knows everything, anyway. What we do is START rumors about each other with outsiders to have fun. (Her? She didn't try to grope you, did she? She's boinked every guy in the office TWICE and she's starting over. Him? Don't tell anyone, but uh, he likes other guys...oh yeah (roll eyes). The big black photographer, the one with arms like hams? Yeah...the ex-marine...that's his boyfriend. (Sh-h-h-h) Oh and her? Yeah she's a little old, but man when she takes her teeth out...well, use your imagination. Him? Hey, only if stay on all fours and can bleat convincingly. Watch out for her...uh, she's on parole for...she DIDN'T offer you any coffee, did she?...did you DRINK IT?)

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Bubba, you make me laugh so hard. It is fun to start rumors and see how wild they go. My company is unethical and pathological, so I can't even began to descirbe our rumor mill.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Since I'm only going to be working in the office for no more than 4 months (it is a contract job) I'm thinking of starting rumours about myself. The first day I was there, nine people asked me if I had kids. I'm thinking if I'm asked again, I'll answer "Well, not anymore..." and then run away.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Nicole, tell them about your first fiance and how you had to break up because he chose crystal meth over you. Tell them about how wallets kept disappearing at your last job, but they never disappeared on your days off. Yell obscenities out of nowhere and blame your alter personality. You should really eff with them!!!

I work in a big office, and there's always the "she's a lesbian", "they're hooking up" kinds, but nothing as good as you can make up to your new co-workers.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

I used to work for a company that was just as Vicki described hers. There was a lot of gossip, and sadly a lot of it was true. A lot of that shit was basically encouraged. What drove me nuts was that on the surface everyone was hyper-friendly. But in the bathrooms I'd always over hear someone mouthing off about someone else that they were just hugging and gushing over two seconds prior. It made for a very sick social dynamic. I was glad to get the hell out of there.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Nicole, hang your office cube with Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson pictures/tear-outs. When co-workers ask you if you like their music, say "No, I just think they're TOTALLY HOT!" And waggle your eyebrows up and down.

Or you could do what an ex co-worker of mine did... constantly talk about llamas. No, I'm not kidding. He'd find a way to interject a skeevy comment about llamas (with allusions of beastiality) into the most innocuous conversation. He was nuts. He got fired.

I don't do gossip well... I can never remember who did what to whom and when and why... heck, I can't be arsed to remember....

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Llamas??? WTF??

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Exactly!

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

One of our phtographers (as a gag) put some lipstick on his kid's 4H lamb, a pink ribbon on its head, then dressed it in a teddy and took a picture. We made up a slick, fake magazine cover that said: "Lingerie for Farm Animals - exclusively by Bergman's" with the photo on the front and pasted it around a Cosmopolitan. We threw it on the table in front of the couch with all the other magazines. We used to watch furtively to see how many people picked it up to thumb. Guess what happened? An office supply salesman, without bothering to thumb it and find out it was a fake, slipped it into his brief case one day when he thought no one was looking. HE STOLE IT! He's never been back. Hahahahaha! We still laugh about it.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Bubba, that's so deliciously cruel. Thank God we don't have any serious gossip mongers at my office. Gossip is so pointless and stupid because if you dig there's always a motive of jealousy or envy behind the carefully chosen words that makes gossip what it is. I always examine my own motives after I've said something about someone that had no real reason to be said (good or bad). I can still disappoint myself on occasion. So before we start categorising other gossip mongers, let's remember that we are all guilty of it in one form or another. Amen.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2000