Instead of gossiping, work!

‘I heard Cathy got pregnant with Bill’s baby but had to abort it’. Gossip like this is what rules the office. People get caught up with what’s happening in other people’s lives and forget what took them to work. Gossip at the office spreads like a wild bush fire. From one desk to another, word goes around like people are being paid to do that. The strangest part of it all is that whereas gossip was deemed ‘a woman’s thing’, men at work gossip just as much as women do, maybe even more. Every office from Africa to the Caribbean has gossip. I don’t know if it’s what keeps people entertained but frankly speaking it is uncouth and totally unnecessary. What is so hard about going to work and doing exactly what took you there or having lunch with colleagues while talking about soccer or the episode of Ugly Betty you watched the previous night and going home? Instead people gather up and talk about everything and everyone from the janitor to the CEO. If someone at work has the hots for you, you are finished because now you will be the most suitable thing to talk about. If you are spotted talking to another colleague in private, that becomes another issue because for sure they will want to know what you were whispering about! It’s like being in the Big Brother house considering your every move is monitored. If something happened the night before that you are not particularly proud of, be rest assured that by morning, your not so tiny mishap will already have been passed on to everyone like the flu! To be honest gossip is a disease and the saddest part about it is that there is no cure for it. And let us not fool ourselves into believing that there is good gossip. Unless you are talking about things affecting the world, you have no business prying into someone else’s life. It is rude. Gossip can only be destructive and it will slow you down at work. If you spend half your day gossiping, imagine what that waste of perfectly good time would have done for your work. Your performance in the office would be impeccable considering the constructive amount of time you’d be putting into it. Another thing we should know is that the one, who will come gossiping to you about someone, will also go gossiping about you. Try not to mind that even if you don’t actively participate in gossip, people still gossip about you. That is what they are there to do so the only thing you can do is not be a part of it. Do not lower yourself to the standards of people who in this era still behave as if they live in a cave. Even the Stone Age barbarians had better things to do with their time than gossip. Maybe it cannot be completely wiped out, but the only way to handle it is by saying no to it. rachelgaruka@yahoo.co.uk