Office Politics how to Identify the Office Gossip
The grapevine flourishes in every office, and feeding it is the office gossip. There is at least one gossip in every office and it is well to know who she (and it is usually a she, male gossips exist, but are rare) is. When you enter a new office, whether as a new manager or a new employee, you will want to learn quickly where the traps are. The gossip does not have the word “gossip” branded on her forehead, so is not immediately recognizable but, if you watch quietly for a while, you will know her by her behaviour.
Is there someone in the office who is the source of all information, who knows everything about everyone? Look for a nosy person who asks intrusive, personal questions. Does she spend her time going from person to person and desk to desk? She is information gathering or distributing the latest juicy morsel.
Another way of identifying the gossip is to put on your deerstalker and play Sherlock Holmes and trace information back to its source. When someone tells you the latest rumour ask where they heard it. If you do so a few times and get the same name as the answer you will know who the gossip is.
The puppet mistress is related to the gossip but is cleverer. She uses information for her own ends but does not actually spread that information herself. She is usually the sidekick of a more naïve person. The puppet mistress is crafty; she slips a comment here and there to her “friend” and presents things in a negative light. The naïve friend then spreads this gossip. The “friend” does not realize that the puppet mistress is manipulating her. The naïve friend will be blamed for gossiping. The puppet mistress makes bullets for others to fire and then quietly stands back, with apparently clean hands, to watch the fun. She is much harder to spot than an ordinary gossip in that she hides behind her “friend”, but if you watch carefully you can see the strings leading back to her. Luckily she is easier to stop than the gossip because once everyone knows what she is up to her spell is broken.
There are several reasons why some people step across the boundary from a natural, friendly interest in their fellow human beings to malicious gossip. The gossip may be insecure, or she may have confused television soap operas with real life, or she may feel powerless in her own life. It matters not, the best way to stop her is to ignore her and to be discreet in the personal information you give at work. There are many articles on Helium.com to give you more information on tactics to deal with the office gossip.
Knowing how to spot the office gossip is necessary if you are to avoid unhappiness in your new office. Until you know who she is, be careful about what you say about your life and non-committal in any conversation about anyone else. The quiet observation of the dynamics of any situation pays dividends later, and beats rushing in blindly and discovering later that you have landed in a hornet’s nest.
