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<p><img src="../../../../work/columns/img/www_subdomain/workinglife.gif" width="194" height="152" alt="the working life by Harry Goldstein">
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<font size="+1">
<b>
<font size="+2">D</font>IRTY
<font size="+2">D</font>ISHES
<font size="+2">M</font>OUNT
<font size="+2">A</font>S
<font size="+2">O</font>FFICE
<font size="+2">S</font>INKS
</font>
</b>
<p>
<p>Published August 12, 1996<br><p>
<a href="../../../../www_subdomain/work/archive/goldstein.html"><font size="+1">Previous columns</font></a>
<br>by
Harry Goldstein
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<font size="+2">R</font>ecently Bob, my managing editor at A.C.M.E., departed for another position, the first domino to fall in what promises to be a summer of transition. So to calm our nerves, drown our sorrows and help him celebrate his new future, we went a'swilling.
<p>
<font size="+2">O</font>ne toast lead to some tipsy confessions, which lead to a third round -- until I lost count, and my senses. The alcohol became truth serum and everyone start speculating about X's sexuality and Y's strange bathroom habits. Once we got Bob liquored up, we began pumping him for info. Usually very reserved when it came to office dish, he blathered on about who works the hardest, who deserves a raise and who needs to be fired, and wondered aloud about when everyone's going to get wise and abandon ship.
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<font size="+2">The alcohol became truth serum.
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<font size="+2">T</font>he next morning, we all avoided each other. Almost everyone seemed to feel pretty guilty about the intense gossip we all participated in. Which struck me as sort of weird. Even though there might have been a confessional mood pervading Bob's last hurrah, what we said in the back of some seedy bar over too-strong martinis isn't much different from what gets talked about every day.
<p>
<font size="+2">W</font>e can't help it. Some of our most interesting conversations are gossip -- an essential activity of any community. If anything, office gossip might be the most intense kind because we're stuck with the same people 40 hours a week. While a little idle conversation might not help us do our jobs better, it tends to bond us with our co-workers and helps convey important information--why do you think men call gossip "office politics"? Because information is power. Who can you trust with your secrets? Who thinks the same way you do about a fellow worker's shameless brown-nosing? Who is just as disgusted as you are at the guy from MIS with the too-friendly hands? Who seems a little on edge when you start talking about the people you wouldn't spare if you were wigged out on some experimental psychoactive anti-depressant, a disgruntled, trigger-happy employee making a little payback visit?
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<font size="+2">Gossip is an essential activity of any community.
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<font size="+2">O</font>f course the juiciest stuff is about sex. Who is sleeping with whom and what they might get out of it, career-wise, marriage-wise, disease-wise. That kind of conversation usually gets into some pretty interesting territory in terms of people's ethics (if they think the ends justify the means, what they consider out of bounds), plus you really find out how information is passed along in your organization -- who gets the skinny and who can't keep a secret.
<p>
<font size="+2">T</font>here <b>are</b> several down sides to gossip -- the dangers that makes it feel so illicit. Reputations can be ruined, careers damaged, feelings hurt, all from rumors spread thick on the gossip mill. If unfairly accused, say of sexual harassment, a fellow worker might find himself in the HR office defending himself against rumor and innuendo. On the other hand, sometimes gossip is the only way people can compare experiences with other people--if the guy from MIS touches one of your co-workers improperly and she complains about it to you and you remember the time he put his hand on your shoulder and "accidentally" brushed your breast. . . maybe that's the reality check you needed.
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<font size="+2">Reputations can be ruined, careers damaged, feelings hurt.
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<font size="+2">B</font>esides the dangers inherent in being a grape on the vine -- what are the other grapes saying about you? -- there's the guilt associated with talking about other grapes. Now it wouldn't be gossip if there were ethical parameters that people adhered to regarding subject matter, but for myself, speculation about someone's sexuality always makes me uncomfortable. I don't think I'm splitting hairs when I distinguish between gossip about office romances -- relationships that might alter other relationships in the office -- and speculation about sexual preference, a personal choice that really isn't anyone's business but your own. The prejudices that are revealed about the gossipers are far more disturbing than the implications of whether X swings this way or that. People who feel threatened by someone else's sexual preference to the point of openly discussing it need to be called on it. Guilt sets in if we let it slide as far as we did during the bull session at the bar with Bob -- which is probably why we avoided each other the next morning and why the gossip mill has ground to a stop -- at least this week.
</font>
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<hr><p>
<p><a href="mailto:hargold@mail.idt.net">Harry Goldstein</a> is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Utne Reader, American Book Review, Promethean, AltX, word.com, and other periodicals.
<font size="-1"><p>© 1996 Harry Goldstein, All Rights Reserved
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