'I shame the office gossiper. With an added twist I didn't see coming.' AITA?
"I shame the office gossiper. With an added twist I didn't see coming."
I work with a woman - let's call her "Shelley" - who is always spreading gossip, most of which is told to her in confidence. She boasts how she can get information out of anyone. So I thought I would let it backfire on her.
One Friday night at the pub, early on, I told her I had a secret about one of our coworkers, a quiet, awkward nerdy type who manages the IT network. He's probably on the spectrum, but we won't go into that. Let's call him "Richard."
She begged me to tell her his secret. I insisted she would have to promise me to tell no one else, under any circumstances, that he told me in strictest confidence and would never forgive me. Of course she promised.
I told her "Richard" had won more than ten million dollars in a lottery, and was intent on continuing work and keeping it private. I said if she told anyone he would have to quit work. He loved his job and didn't do it for the money. She said his secret was safe with her.
During the course of the evening I watched her flit around the crowd, leaning in to whisper her treasure, and enjoying the astonishment that accompanied the reveal. I watched "Richard" become popular, and even attracting an abnormal level of female attention.
At the end of the evening "Richard" went home with one of the women from the office. A first. After sleeping with her, she admitted she knew about his lottery win. To which, he laughed and asked who told her that nonsense?
About an hour later, on Saturday morning, I got a phone call from "Shelley" furious that I had deceived her, and made a fool of her in front of the entire office. She didn't know how she was going to be able to face work on Monday.
I said she only had herself to blame. I told her not to tell ANYONE. And she told EVERYONE. Now she's threatening to take me to HR for spreading a malicious rumor with the intent of ostracizing her at work, jeopardizing her job. I said, be my guest. LOL.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
HR would probably have more to say about the office gossip. That stuff is HR fuel.
Richard owes you a beer.
I had the workplace narc show up at my workstation, he was also a kleptomaniac. He didn't think I saw him coming and was going for my wrenches, so I spun around and quickly told him I had done a customers small job in the middle of another customers big order all to the same specs, and just sent it out.
It took just under a minute for the boss to show up asking why I would send bad product out. We checked my samples to prove I didn't and he asked why I'd tell someone that I did. So I told him "Dude was coming to take my wrenches, and I need those, so I gave him something juicy to distract him." Boss was not amused at how I announced I knew who the narc was.
Well done!!! Gotta love the gossips - when you want gossip spread! When I quit my job after being bullied by my supervisor, I used the gossip grapevine to ensure that supervisor knew that I got a better job at twice the pay for half the hours.
I also used the gossip grapevine to make sure my daughter's high school English teacher knew that my daughter graduated university with a double degree, one of which was in English Literature, and never scored less than a distinction in all her assignments.
This particular teacher refused to allow my daughter to be enrolled in the English Lit programme at her high school because she said my daughter would not cope with it.
lol, this reminds me of how I used the local gossip system to get my apartment complex 'clean' for a couple of months. I knew one of the gardeners contracted to the complex and was aware that she was acquainted through a chain of people with one of the local pot dealers that started renting there.
I will state that I have no major issues with pot itself, used to be a happy little pothead some years back. I was more unhappy with the number of questionable people coming to buy their supply at all hours. PLUS, the dealer had her toddler son living with her.
So, I took the gardener aside let her know as the helpful person that I am, that I had it on very legit knowledge that the Aussie federal police were VERY interested in our local community as a whole.
She may want to let her friends know to give our complex a wide berth for a couple weeks. It took exactly 2 weeks for one of the local Karens to approach me with the 'latest gossip'. 😁 Dealer did end up moving out not too long after that.
I did something similar at my apartment many many years ago. We had a mom renting and her young adult son was living with her. He was so bad about stealing from her that she had a deadbolt added to her bedroom door.
While he live there, several times a day cars would pull up in front of the place, honk or yell for him, he would run down from the 3rd floor, "talk" to them for a couple of minutes and then go back upstairs and the car would leave.
We lived on the first floor, if he didn't answer, the car occupants would sometimes knock on my kitchen window asking me to let them into the building. We had no intercom and this was pre-cell phone days. I was like hell no, I don't know you. I was often called not so nice names.
This went on for a few months until I casually mentioned to the building gossip that the police were aware of possible drug dealing going on from our building. Soon after the cars stopped showing up and the mom didn't renew her lease. Peace was restored.