Make sure the other side(s) of a story
come to light.
I developed my first good gossip strategy for this situation.
After the incident in Example #1: Employee Target, I became the target of bad gossip. One day I found a young woman from another department crying in the hallway. I pulled her into the stairwell, saying I had gone to the stairwell on bad days myself. I stayed with her until she got past her tears. Whenever I saw her after that, I waved and said hello. She waved and said hello back.
Days later, the young woman started turning her back on me whenever I waved to her. She ignored my attempts at friendliness for about a week. Just as suddenly, she was friendly again. Clearly, someone had explained my side of whatever story to her.
Good karma for stopping the bad gossip of the older permanent employee? I hope so. The most likely person to tell my side of the story was the summer employee, after all.
Reference #1
Discouraging Bad Gossip Strategy #1
Alert Bad Gossip Targets
Example #1: Employee Target
Reference #2
Encouraging Good Gossip Strategy #1
Open Doors At Every Opportunity
The neighbor I wrote about for this example is still friendly to me.
© Paula M. Kramer, 2021 to the present
All rights reserved.