{"id":1989,"date":"2010-05-22T18:11:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T22:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2010-05-23T08:43:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-23T12:43:05","slug":"the-office-gossip-gets-an-earful-from-3-advisers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/the-office-gossip-gets-an-earful-from-3-advisers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Office Gossip gets an earful from 3 advisers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"original<\/p>\n

Dear Office Politics,<\/p>\n

I try to be a nice person at work and to stay out of politics however about a couple weeks ago I made a comment about a coworker that I know I shouldn’t have and now I think it’s going to bite me in the butt. I noticed that one of my coworkers leaves for lunch everyday and then comes back and eats his lunch at his desk. I thought that maybe he does contractual work on the side during his lunch break and was curious about it. While chatting with some coworkers I mentioned it. It wasn’t to a supervisor or anyone of authority, I didn’t want to get him into trouble or anything. I felt bad right after I said it, but I guess I thought it wasn’t going to go past the room, and no harm no foul.<\/p>\n

Well, today he loudly announced to my boss and other coworkers that we need to have a meeting about gossip mongering because people are saying nasty things about what he does at lunch. I don’t know what to do as I’m scared to admit that I’m the one that said it. Also this coworker has a bad temper and can be very mean. How should I play this? In some hot water.<\/p>\n

In Some Hot Water<\/em><\/p>\n

Three Advisers give their best advice to “In Some Hot Water”<\/h3>\n

Sometimes we get a letter that poses such a universal dilemma that it’s worth exploring in more depth, and from multiple angles. This letter is a case in point. Gossip is a problem that plagues workplaces everywhere. Here are three responses to the same letter from three Office-Politics Advisers: Author and award-winning journalist, Rona Maynard<\/a>; Author and Founder, Skill Source, Jennifer Miller<\/a>; and Office-Politics.com Founder and Author, Franke James<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n
\"franke
\nFRANKE JAMES<\/a><\/div>\n

Dear Hot Water,<\/p>\n

Your last line “How should I play this?” is where I’m going to start. I sense from your question, that you see office politics as a game \u2013 and that you\u2019d like to be able to play it to your advantage.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where I\u2019ll focus my advice. Not surprisingly (given that I’m the creator of the game-book, Dear Office-Politics<\/a>) I like to view office politics as a game. And like all games, this one has rules (mostly unwritten), strategies, power plays, opposing teams, a scoreboard, and ultimately winners and losers. But as in sports, you don\u2019t need to play dirty to win…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"original<\/p>\n

Dear Office Politics,<\/p>\n

I try to be a nice person at work and to stay out of politics however about a couple weeks ago I made a comment about a coworker that I know I shouldn’t have and now I think it’s going to bite me in the butt. I noticed that one of my coworkers leaves for lunch everyday and then comes back and eats his lunch at his desk. I thought that maybe he does contractual work on the side during his lunch break and was curious about it. While chatting with some coworkers I mentioned it. It wasn’t to a supervisor or anyone of authority, I didn’t want to get him into trouble or anything. I felt bad right after I said it, but I guess I thought it wasn’t going to go past the room, and no harm no foul.<\/p>\n

Well, today he loudly announced to my boss and other coworkers that we need to have a meeting about gossip mongering because people are saying nasty things about what he does at lunch. I don’t know what to do as I’m scared to admit that I’m the one that said it. Also this coworker has a bad temper and can be very mean. How should I play this? In some hot water.<\/p>\n

In Some Hot Water<\/em><\/p>\n

Three Advisers give their best advice to “In Some Hot Water”<\/h3>\n

Sometimes we get a letter that poses such a universal dilemma that it’s worth exploring in more depth, and from multiple angles. This letter is a case in point. Gossip is a problem that plagues workplaces everywhere. Here are three responses to the same letter from three Office-Politics Advisers: Author and award-winning journalist, Rona Maynard<\/a>; Author and Founder, Skill Source, Jennifer Miller<\/a>; and Office-Politics.com Founder and Author, Franke James<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n
\"franke
\nFRANKE JAMES<\/a><\/div>\n

Dear Hot Water,<\/p>\n

Your last line “How should I play this?” is where I’m going to start. I sense from your question, that you see office politics as a game \u2013 and that you\u2019d like to be able to play it to your advantage.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where I\u2019ll focus my advice. Not surprisingly (given that I’m the creator of the game-book, Dear Office-Politics<\/a>) I like to view office politics as a game. And like all games, this one has rules (mostly unwritten), strategies, power plays, opposing teams, a scoreboard, and ultimately winners and losers. But as in sports, you don\u2019t need to play dirty to win…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[582,581,26,243,563,462,335,518,580],"class_list":["post-1989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-office-politics","category-rumors-gossip-and-buzz","tag-backstabbing","tag-founder","tag-franke-james","tag-gossip","tag-jennifer-miller","tag-office","tag-office-politicscom","tag-rona-maynard","tag-skill-source"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":82,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2429,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/2429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}