The tricky situation: One issue I continually beat my head against the wall with is dealing with people (namely co-workers) who talk poorly about others and gossip pretty much every single day. I feel so uncomfortable around them. They do that whole whispering in each other’s office thing, smile at your face only to stab you in the back. I know I’m doing the same by talking about them here but that is the thing I’m trying so hard to figure out and move beyond.
I’ve been at my job for too long but other prospects are lacking, and due to my complicated medical insurance and financial situation, I can’t up and quit, so while I’m there I have to get this thing figured out in order for me to have some semblance of sanity. It has been so stressful for me. I’ve read it oodles of times that what others think or say about me is none of my business. Well, that sounds all cute but how I feel in reaction to others doing this causes such inner turmoil. I don’t trust people when I see them do this. I isolate at work though I do my job and feel so fake when I have to interact with them. I feel especially phony and inauthentic when I’ve heard them say crappy things about others and have gathered they’ve done it to me too and then feel I must carry on like it never happened. What am I missing?? I don’t see how others carry on all smiles and chipper when this goes on all the time. I’d like to let the stuff just roll off my back, but it doesn’t. I’m sensitive to it. Can you please shine some light on this for me? I’m tired of living this way but have yet to find a solution.
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A big chunk of our life is spent at work so if something or someone there is affecting us, it has a knock-on effect on our well-being. I hear from people who become so overwhelmed by stressful situations at work that they for example, lose their sex drive, have stress-related illnesses, lose their confidence, or withdraw into themselves, to name but a few examples.
Office politics is very stressful if you’re a sensitive person who values integrity. Gossip, which is talking about other people’s business or speculating about people even if what’s being said isn’t truthful or fair, is something that we’ve all been guilty of to greater or lesser degrees but when it’s chronic, as in a person or group of people habitually gossip without regard for boundaries, courtesy, and in the workplace, professionalism, it takes its toll and affects morale.
Backstabbing is a relative of gossip and it’s what happens when someone pretends to be your friend or to at least be cool with you and then runs their mouth off when your back is turned.
Where was the last place that you spent a significant portion of your week at, that became a critical part of how you self-identified? Yep, that would be school.
Big time gossips and backstabbers are the ones who never grew out of it. Work is an extension of school where they get to be in a gang and play out various unresolved issues through passive aggressive and aggressive behaviour. They get to feel like a big fish in a small pond and it’s a distraction from their hidden insecurities and also from anything else that they’re avoiding in their personal life. It’s their way of feeling in pseudo control.
If you were the target of gossips at school or had experiences of being frozen out, or you were bullied, or you wanted to be in the cool gang but were looked down upon, or have a number of experiences of friendships gone wrong or befriending people who you have to pretend to be something you’re not with, odds are that you will find being around people like your co-workers, increasingly triggering and painful. You might be aware of what might make you extra sensitive to this situation or you might never have made the link between what you’re feeling now and what happened back then.
You’re only human and that means that you want to be accepted and you fear rejection, even if it’s by people that you’re not that keen on. Sure, we’d all like to say that we don’t give a rat’s when people dislike or criticise us but the reality is, it does bother us although how much it does is down to our self-image and the way that we internalise other people’s opinions.
Facts established: These people are gossips, they’re indiscriminate about it and no one, including their own gang, is exempt from it.
You are not the only person who’s figured out your co-workers–everyone else isn’t renting out the majority of the space in the minds to these people. They actively choose their responses even if their instinctive response is to initially feel injured. They consciously choose the thoughts and opinions that lead to inner peace.
Your co-worker’s behaviour is annoying and even harmful to employee morale but why is what they’re doing personalised to such a degree? You don’t need to try to appease them and it doesn’t matter how much you’ve tried to stay below the radar–these people always have something to say. Why are you trying to control the uncontrollable?
It sounds as if you’re stressed out by the knowledge and judgement of them being gossips rather than actual content. You may not know what’s been said but knowing that they’re gossips means that you’re obsessing on the surety that they must have put their claws into you. Isn’t it a lot of unnecessary stress to spend your days anticipating and imagining that you’re being talked about?
It’s you destroying your inner peace, not them. You have to make conscious choices about how you deal with them internally and externally.
Address why you’re sensitive to it. Get a sheet a paper and write down any memories and negative associations you have with being talked about and friendship. Anything that still brings up emotions for you, is where you’re carrying an emotional charge that’s getting poked at by working with these people. This gives you a jump-off point for healing these old wounds including forgiving your younger self, reframing the experiences, and even talking them through with a counselor or trusted person.
Instead of stewing in annoyance, what can you say to you each time thoughts of them pop into your head? What can you do differently?
The universe is forcing you to heed the lesson–you hiding out isn’t going to change anything. People are gonna say what they’re gonna say and think what they’re gonna think so it’s time to get on with the business of living. Instead of isolating you, which undoubtedly affects your output and your perception of your capabilities and the job itself, start showing up in small ways.
What do you gain from holding on to a position that’s hurting you? Be honest with you about why you have been in your job “too long”–my spidey senses tell me that obsessing about your co-workers is a distraction from facing feelings, thoughts and decisions about your job situation. If this means meeting with a careers or financial advisor, or finding out about what your options are for development or even movement with the company, so be it.
You are judging these people based on your own moral outlook. You don’t have to agree with their behaviour but accept them for who they are instead of stressing out your brain as to why they’re not as you would prefer. Their values differ, they’re not your cup of tea, this is OK.
You are not a “phony” when you interact with them; you are being professional and courteous. No need to avoid them–just be civil as and when needed. I feel uncomfortable around gossips and the trick I learned was to keep it light, don’t divulge your private life to them, and never show that you actually care about their opinion. You don’t need to join in on gossip and you don’t even need to judge them; judge the situation and recognise that they are the group of people that most companies have– believe me when I say that unless you work in a company where there’s only a couple of you, you will never escape gossipers. Wide berth them and find the people in your company who you do get on with.
Your thoughts?
Each Wednesday, I help a reader to solve a dilemma. To submit a question, please email natalie AT baggagereclaim.com with ‘Advice Wednesday’ in the subject line. If you would prefer your question to be featured on the podcast, drop a line to podcast AT baggagereclaim.com. Keep questions below 200 words. If you want detailed one-to-one support, please use my consultation service.
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I really struggle with gossips too but reading this, it occurred to me that part of my problem is that on one hand, I really dislike the people that do it but on the other, I want to be liked by them. I think this has a lot to do with school… My teenage self enjoys being righteous about how wrong they are but secretly wants to be in the cool gang. I won’t stop feeling like her if I keep acting as if these people are gods. It’s me who is giving them that power.
I’d try to make it stop by throwing myself on the sword and say, “Recently, my pastor gave a sermon on how and why we talk behind others’ backs or gossip. I’m ashamed to admit, I could see myself in the words he spoke. Please help me, ladies, don’t tempt me with juicy stories.”
On a more humorous (and honest) note, I like what Oprah said, “Honey, if they’ll carry a bone to you they’ll carry your bones to others.”
I have a female in-law who is extremely nosy, gossips, and makes unkind judgments about others. “Keeping it light” works, in conversations with this person; as does redirecting the conversation as tactfully as possible to something about herself. Often gossips like to talk about themselves.
I have a selection of rather noncommittal responses when forced to listen to her gossip:
“That’s interesting”; “Really!”; “I am surprised”, or “Oh” followed by a full stop and silence.
In response to inappropriate questions, I use : “I’m not sure”; “That hasn’t been decided”; “I need to keep that confidential” and other evasions.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve been applying polite and vague answers “oh…I don’t know”, “really?” “well…anyway,that’s life” and then the distracting “so is it cold outside? How’s the weather? Have you been out today?” – with some of the people I share the house with -so running into each other is inevitable.
I also notice looking super buys but smiley/positive at the same time while excusing yourself and changing the subject works to keep negativity at bay once you feel you’re entering their …negativity cloud
I’ll be using some of yours too thank you
Yep… Along the same lines, I want to be liked by women who seem cool and collected, wanted by men who reject/are not into me (although when I sit and think about it I don’t actually even like them much or at all as partners!!!), accepted by people who seem somehow superior to me. Who makes them superior? I do, by -like you said- giving them the power. It’s all in my head. We all want approval, and to be “elevated” to a superior status by these people up on a pedestal (that we dislike and have a low opinion of).
I mean I don’t know if that could also be the problem of the reader, but it is mine… I think if I ran into the people who intimidated me or bullied me in school I’d still probably feel uneasy and :-/regressing back to childhood unless I used my reasoning and newly acquired BR skills.
I think only now that I’ve started to like and accept myself more (despite the random, unexpected low depressive episodes) .only now I’m able to hold my own a bit better, to walk away from certain things, to be a bit more loving (I almost said selfish) towards myself and put aside what others do or say about others or me… It’s difficult but but at least my first run into my ex in a whole year was handled politely yet swiftly (I expedited him as was not interested in friendly chat) – by me. It sometimes help in my case to hold back a bit, take a breath, relax and try to remember who I am…
I think I’m moving away for the central point sorry!
I have a neighbour who enjoys talking about others in a negative way. I have made up my mind to kindly tell her to change the topic of discussion the next time she delves into such. That is so draining.
The one thing that changed my life
Natalie,
This topic is so timely for me. Sadly, in a recent spate of office politics brought on by a new administrator who is making uncomfortable changes, I found I was one of these awful gossipy people! Yuck! I found myself feeling very insecure and stressed. What I did to alleviate my anxiety was to go to key people whom I knew to be anti-our-new-administrator and I did a wah-wah, poor me thing which led to all these little pools of gossip and rancor. In short, I was an asshole. However, due to the BR skills I have learned, I knew I had to love me anyway and that meant finding out WHY. As some of the other comments said, I was putting our new administrator on a pedestal and giving her way more power over me than she actually had. Once I did some fact-finding I discovered she had no actual power over my job and I calmed way down.
This was a painful lesson for me because I had to see how petty I could be when I felt justified in being so. But I also had to face that this need to belong and be approved of is just part of being human and not to be so hard on me for being insecure and trying to get support. On a positive note I found a part of me that needed to be seen and heard and I feel stronger because I did some writing to get to know that part of me. And I also did some damage control by now being much more fair and neutral when I speak to others.
I agree that the lady with the problem is avoiding the real issue: needing to change her job. And I had to look at this for myself as well. Was I really that unhappy and stressed or was I avoiding something? I found I was avoiding taking responsibility for a very strong need/desire to work for myself. I guess I’d rather gossip and be in drama than to make that happen for myself. I have found that drama of any kind is usually me avoiding something hard.
There’s an old saying I learned years ago when it comes to work gossip, and yes men do it too! Quite frankly sometimes we men can be the worst! “Take 6 months minding your on business, take the next 6 months staying out of everybody elses!”
There were a million reasons why I couldn’t leave my old job, there were a million reasons why I couldn’t go back to school for art, there were a million reasons why I couldn’t leave my ex, there were a million reasons why I couldn’t get my own place, why I couldn’t leave an insufficient university program, why I couldn’t sing, learn piano, etc………………………….
You get the point.
But you know; I did all of those things. And with grace and style.
This isn’t school anymore, work is work; where you go is where you are/end up. Assuming you’re an adult, you must use your own power to grow up, protect your psyche, and make the decisions that are best for you regardless of what a gaggle of cackling geese at the office say or do.
Amen.
Harder when it is a bunch of step daughters gossiping about you, back stabbing you and then being fake to your face.
And if the step dad you are dating refuses to stick up for you in this instance, it is time to leave.
My approach with step daughters has been to NOT parent them. I laid down the law that I didn’t expect anything other than polite tolerance of me when we were sharing time with their Dad. In return I would give no advice and would only give my opinion if directly asked. Once they turned 18, I also pointed out that any household rules were agreed by both their father and I and if they didn’t like them they could chose to live elsewhere.
Oddly enough we have great relationships and they do ask my advice…because I’ve not been a step mother
Oh this came at the perfect time. Ive been away from your blog for a while but i think i was brought back for this piece.
Last week, i had a colleague call me in for a ‘meeting’. He’s an older guy and has become like a mentor. He told me that another co-worker of mine who i work with very closely and trained me, was doing some gossiping about me. I knew to be careful of her but i didnt know the full extent of her backstabbing ways. I left his office livid. I isolated myself for days and doesn’t make eye contact with her as i thought i might knock her teeth in.
After prayer and a little venting with friends, i decided to do 2 things, 1 mentioned in this article: first, i start showing up in small ways. On fridays, it gets quiet in our office so i offered to make lunch runs for everyone i know who is on my side. She wasn’t in but word might spread 😉 2. I humanized the gossiper by seeing her with her kids, her parents, as a young child. I have to be around her everyday and to keep from getting upset, i had to remind myself that she’s a human with a life, baggage, and is trying to make it like all of us. Im still deciding whether or not i need to talk with her about her mouth..she talks about everyone but herself. For now, I’ve figured out a way to not let the toxicity impact my attitude or productivity.
Grace, are you sure your colleague/mentor is trustworthy and not stirring up trouble? It looks like you were suspicious anyway, but have just been reading about triangulating behaviour, where someone pits two people against each other as a means of manipulation, so it’s worth considering this as a possibility. It doesn’t sound very healthy for him to handle it in a way that makes you furious, especially for a mature person.
And second, why are you going out of your way to get/keep allies, in a divisive way? You don’t have to prove yourself, the truth prevails in these situations as long as you hold your ground.
My first thought too, Happy B. I wonder about the mentor’s motivation – is he trying to orchestrate an office cat-fight? For what purpose? To prove to the powers that be that women can’t work together?
I was blindsided in a similar way by a friendly coworker who felt compelled to share with me unflattering gossip about me. I remember wondering “Why did she feel a need to share that?” I could have happily lived the rest of my borne days without knowledge of those comments, but she was hell-bent on sharing them with me. She was so happy to tell me….I remember.
I thought she and I had a great working relationship, we had been working together for 4 years, and when she took me aside, conspiratorially, I thought maybe she wanted to move from coworkers to friends by telling me something personal about herself. But, nope. It was something insulting to me.
I’ve decided her motivation was my 47 pound weight loss. She borders on obesely overweight, and I had lost weight and kept it off for over a year at that point. Who knows. Shaking my head.
Elgie R, hello!
It could have been to get Grace’s trust, for whatever reason, to feel like he’s looking out for her and others aren’t, so she is reliant on him. It could be divide and conquer, maybe women have united against him in the past. Or like you say, he might make claims to management that they can’t work together. All speculation, but I find it fishy to tell anyone the painful details of gossip about them. I think people do it earnestly when they’re younger, but in an office, most would just defend the person being gossiped about if it bothered them, and not get in the middle of it unless they want trouble.
You’ll never find the motivation of your coworker, but I like the saying, ‘what others think is none of your business’.
By the way, there was a gossip issue at my work and I think it was handled well – someone went to the manager, and she then called in the gossiper to ask her to stop. I think this is the best way to deal with it, though understand there might be complications in some places.
this is SO going on now in my small office with a few gossipy new hires. I know they talk about me- which I don’t care about so much (and I was bullied and talked about a lot as a kid/teen). It’s talking about people I know that I don’t like, although “gossiping” generally -even about someone I may not like- is distasteful. Since the gossipers are in adjacent offices to me I’ve started to wear earplugs. But I will agree this is tied to larger conflicts at work I’m having with my boss and this just adds to my anxiety. I come in an hour earlier and leave an hour earlier than everyone else, and use hour my lunchtime for a walk. Combined with the plugs my stress levels in the day are more manageable. However I’ m the first to point out that this seems like too much work. I need figure out how to not internalize but “internalize” is my middle name.
I have to say I respect your work a lot, but I think that there are a few topics I hold a little cynicism in my heart with. This article I am ok with, co-workers are co-workers, I’m not personally invested in this topic as have never really experienced this problem, although I have experienced the dilemma of inferiority for much of my life. I am 23 years old. I suffered from an eating disorder from the age of 12- 17 and was bullied relentlessly for it. I then entered into a series of disastrous and co-dependant relationships for a number of years – always ending in heartbreak and despair on my part. To top it all of, I was raped and fell pregnant by him on a night out when I was supposed to be “enjoying my singledom”. I now have no confidence or trust, I have been consistently betrayed and mostly but not always because of my own compulsion to set low boundaries and accept men into my life who I know are not good enough for me. The dilemma is that I then allow them to treat me like rubbish thinking that I should have the power to change them because I am somehow better than them. I am not. I don’t really believe that self esteem is anything more than watered down grandiosity. I have no reason really to think so much of myself…you do. You are a celebrated relationship blogger and expert on the topic. I have almost nothing talkable about to my name… yes I’ve had a full life, but if you’re aiming high, it has to be about looks or money. I am not attracted to nice men. They bore me. I crave excitement. Are there not nice men who are also exciting and don’t hurt me? I don’t know. I haven’t found them. I am an attractive woman and so far have only dated a series of Mr Unavailables, Mr Psychopaths, or Mr Autistics. I believe I am attracting these people because I myself am fundamentally flawed and unfixable, it’s almost chemical how I fall in with these people. I can’t just cut toxic family members out either, I love them. That is part of my belief system, to love and respect those despite their flaws and recognise that perfection is not attainable, to be self-effacing and see your own flaws and irregularities. I do not believe in this “I am wonderful despite everything” viewpoint. You are not, and I am not either. I am sure you have been dumped many times because people have found you boring or annoying or selfish or arrogant – many people have, to me, it is easier to deal with that process and accept it that to self deny throughout by consistently using the excuse of “Well they weren’t good enough anyway for me” thing. Maybe you weren’t good enough for them? Deal with it. Much easier to accept that way I feel than living in a world of delusion. However, each to their own.
Alex, I appreciate the honesty of your comment and can empathise – I’ve been there and can relate to a lot of it, including the eating disorder and attraction to the wrong people, Mr Unavailables in different packages.
Self esteem goes a lot deeper than ‘I am wonderful’ – it is not watered down grandiosity. Reading your words, I’m reminded of the kinds of struggles that happen when you lack self-esteem – on one hand you say ‘I am an attractive woman’, these men ‘are not good enough for me’, and your writing suggests a sense of superiority, while on the other hand, you say ‘I have no reason to think so much of myself’, ‘I am fundamentally flawed and unfixable’ etc. You seem resilient and self-aware, so I hope this doesn’t sound too critical.
When you develop healthy self esteem, you learn to like and love yourself more, and the more you look after yourself, you do become more wonderful, people want to be around you more, and it becomes a virtuous circle. BUT, while this happens, you’re also becoming less self-absorbed and are putting yourself less at the centre of things, especially other people’s behaviour, and you know what is and isn’t about you. It’s not about ‘having reason to think so much of myself’, but instead it’s accepting that you’re good *enough* to do the best for you and to reject toxic relationships, and to withstand rejections without letting them damage your sense of self. So in a way you’re *less* special and that’s fine, and you’re less likely to be or appear arrogant, and this is liberating. It’s a kind of mellowing out, at least in my experience.
You don’t develop self esteem by listing all your great qualities and achievements and blowing your own trumpet- that would be a shallow exercise. Instead, you develop it by working out things like what your values are, and how to challenge beliefs like the one that you’ll only be interested in unhealthy relationships, and how to nurture yourself.
Why would Nat or anyone else be any less wonderful for being dumped or not being liked? Are we only great if we’re better than everyone else or every single person likes and admires us? There is no such person, and the more courageous and true you are, the more likely that some people will find no use for you or find you too challenging. Everyone must have someone who finds them boring. That’s good reason to develop self esteem instead of put our esteem in the hands of others. If we won’t look after ourselves, who will?
These are only my thoughts – I hope it makes sense. It might just sound very contradictory, and is only based on my own experiences. I’m sure plenty of us celebrate and share our emotional achievements on here, but it’s complicated, not just ‘be positive’.