How to Deal With Gossip at Work

If you’re like many of us who spend most of our waking hours at the office, then you know that it’s important to establish good working relationships with your co-workers. You have your select friends – or maybe you get along with everybody – but there is one component to almost every office setting that we can count on, and that is the ever-spreading office gossip. Sometimes it’s hard to avoid because it can come up on us unexpectedly, and those are the times that we become vulnerable to it without realizing it. Here are a few suggestions on how to deal with office gossip without becoming part of it.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• patience, discipline

How to deal with gossip at work

1. Sustain a positive attitude about your job and about the environment around you. Speak positive and avoid saying negative things to anyone about your job unless your intention is to change it with a positive solution.

2. Understand that what goes around comes around and if you gossip about someone then the circle of gossip is still going. You need to stop it when it gets to you.

3. Avoid gathering with the small cliques at the water cooler or in the smoking area when you know that these are prominent places for gossip.

4. When you are approached with some “gossip”, let your response be something like, “If what so-and-so did is so wrong, you should talk to them and not be telling me because I can’t do anything about this,” or, “If this really bothers you then you should go and talk to them about it, not to me.” That usually stops all gossip dead in its tracks.

5. If the situation warrants your answer to be a little softer, then you can respond by adding something positive about the situation or the person being talked about. By countering the gossip with something positive, you have not only stopped the gossip at this point, but you have also stopped any further demeaning of that person.

6. Look into your mirror and examine yourself for perfection. It is inevitable that you will fall short of it. So remember that before you say negative things about others or mock their inabilities, you had better make sure that you don't have any yourself. Keeping that in mind, it becomes harder to gossip about others.

Tips & Warnings

• A thought to remember: when people gossip it’s because they can’t deal with negative issues in their own lives, and it’s easier for them to criticize others than to face their own situation.

[juliesam3]

on 11/28/2007 how true!