ALT-1 Things you should never Talk about with Coworkers
Your colleagues can seem like friends, because you see them every day. This breeds a false sense of familiarity and you can fall into the trap of treating them like friends and telling them everything that you would tell your best friends. Although many life long friendships begin at work, there are many and diverse reasons why you should not talk about certain subjects with your colleagues.
You should never talk in a detailed manner about your private life. Your colleagues do not need to hear every minute detail of your holiday romance or your latest hot date. You can say that you met a nice boy or girl, but omit any intimate details. They are boring and might upset some people in the office. Such details, when fed through the gossip mill, assume a very different complexion and you might be horrified at what comes back to you. Gossip may also give others a certain picture of your character and personality.
In many workplaces, speculative and salacious gossip is rife. If that is so in your workplace, do not join in with the throng. Do not speculate on the details of other people’s private lives and never pass such gossip around. It is far better to be the person who changes the subject, when the talk changes from friendly interest to something more sinister.
If you see your boss, a colleague or anyone else that you know from work, when you are out socially, and they are with someone other than their spouse, somewhere they should not be, or any other apparently compromising situation. Never tell your colleagues, it is not anyone else’s business and it is not yours either. You may have misconstrued the situation or you may have got it dead right, but it is not your place to pass on what you saw. Doing so could cause unnecessary pain to others and have unforeseen repercussions on many lives.
Never talk about your salary, or raise, to colleagues it causes unnecessary hurt feelings and trouble. Although you may assume that they do the same job and must earn the same as you, they may be on a lower rate or not have had the same raise as you. There are probably very good reasons why your pay is higher; you might have worked longer or have particular skills that are reflected in your pay packet.
If you dislike someone, whether it is the boss or a colleague, it is best to keep those feelings to yourself, confiding in the wrong colleague may blow up in your face. You should be careful about who you confide in and be absolutely certain that you can trust a person before you tell them anything that could either come back and bite you, or cause trouble at work.
Sometimes, at work, people overhear things not meant for their ears. There are many pitfalls in this situation, and it calls for you to use judgment and discretion. If it is a piece of sensitive or personal information about someone, you should probably keep it to yourself, and certainly never gossip about it. If it is something that affects your colleagues, you must judge whether to tell them or not. Do consider that the bearer of bad news is often blamed for the news itself and that it may be best to remain silent and let your colleagues find out officially. The very worse thing to do is to overhear something, speculate on it, embroider it and feed it into the grapevine. If you are at all unsure of whether to tell your colleagues what you overheard, and then keep it to yourself, after all you only overheard it by chance and should not really have been listening.
Work colleagues can seem like friends, because you see them so often but there are many reasons why you should be reticent on certain subjects when speaking to colleagues. Discretion is a much under-rated virtue these days, and is one you should cultivate. Knowing what to talk about and what not to talk about is discretion. The trick is to talk enough to have good working relationships but not too much. There are many reasons why you should not treat your colleagues as friends or tell them everything that you would tell your best friend.
