Dealing with rumors

The one with the biggest mouth is that one who I supervise. He believes ANYTHING he hears too. That makes him a big rumor spreader. One day he came in and says he heard someone say I wore a toupee. "Is it true?!?" he asks me excitedly. Crap - I've got a bald spot on top you moron. If I was wearing a toupee I wouldn't have that, now would I? The guy is a real dim bulb. I think everyone knows it. He's another jerk they won't let me get rid of. He always has to take off early on Friday so he'll have time to organize his wallet. Really. That's the kind of person they give me. I didn't pick him.

I guess I really don't care if people think I was looking at porn on the computer. Porn is the wellspring of life! People there who know me have probably heard me say I prefer porn to real woman. The porn has an off switch. Too bad real women don't have one of those!

Parador wrote:Serious? That whole place is a freaking joke. My office-mate would come in at noon. Freaking noon! Then she would get on the computer and go right to facebook to e-mail her friends. There are other people who come in late every day and nothing happens to then. A couple got caught having sex in the building while they were supposed to on duty. They didn't get fired.

They've had the computer for over 6 weeks. If they had anything to get me for I think they would have found it and fired me by now. They have to go through steps to fire someone anyway. I've never even gotten a bad evaluation. In fact I haven't gotten any evaluation is 4 years from my incompetent supervisor. That is one reason they have trouble getting rid of the real bad workers.

I was just writing this post to ask if anyone has ever been the victim of a rumor mill. I know the rumors must be flying around about me and I don't like it. I'm not even there to defend myself.

... ...'that's just the way it is'... ...so please try to just live with it. Incompetence is something that you'll always meet, everywhere you go. That's what a lecturer of mine said to my group and I many years ago, and it's certainly held true in every job I've had since then. I thought that you'd have been aware of this too at your age, Parador. Okay, I know that you probably ARE aware of it, but you're going to have to accept it too. Can you really afford to just up and leave from this job right now? Actually, on this note, I already know three people who have just 'upped' and left their good-paying jobs for personal reasons.

My advice - from my own experience - is to stay out of office politics as much as possible, and just keep your head down, stay quiet, and get your work done.

Kevin

Chucky wrote:
My advice - from my own experience - is to stay out of office politics as much as possible, and just keep your head down, stay quiet, and get your work done.

Kevin

But the people who act like that get more and more and more and more work piled on them until they can't take it anymore. They were doing that to me until a couple of years ago when I made a BIG fuss. They caved in. Why? Because they were WRONG. Everyone knows they are wrong. They've lost federal funding because the place is run so badly. They tried to get it back for two years but were finally rejected a couple of weeks ago because they kept screwing up. I read it in the newspaper along with everyone else in the whole state. I have no idea why the management has not been replaced. This is more than just a few incidents of incompetence. This is an entire culture of incompetence.

But I've talked about that before. The real question was about rumors.

True, but you can always still say 'no', Parador.

Chucky wrote:
My advice - from my own experience - is to stay out of office politics as much as possible, and just keep your head down, stay quiet, and get your work done.

Kevin

It has sence. And I agree. Having this in condideration, anyway you can´t avoid someone who doesn´t have an own life or dóesn´t like to work, or wants to take advantage in the office at the expense of other workers, even supervisers.

For Parador: I don´t know how to deal with rumors, my friend. You seems to be a strong guy. In my case, I never did anything. Just shut my month to this person and pissed me off??? (to be ungry).
What would I do now? If I know what´s the person who speard a rumor, I think I´ll try to talk to him/her to defend my position and make things clear. (I think I would do that, I´m not sure if I would be assertive enough).
I don´t know, lets see if someone else could give you another advise. Now, I´m thinking of a really crazy things and I don´t think they could help you to feel more integrated at your work place. Why don´t you ask this question to schizod guys, perhaps they could give you some good advises. I´m serious.

twistermind wrote:What would I do now? If I know what´s the person who speard a rumor, I think I´ll try to talk to him/her to defend my position and make things clear. (I think I would do that, I´m not sure if I would be assertive enough).

Will that help you? - I do not think that it will, and I think that I know what person you are talking about here. Talking to him would not help anything (or anyone). There are some things in life that will upset us, and there will be nothing that we can do about them. It is best - therefore - to ignore them.

Chucky, I´m not talking about any concrete person. I´m talking about Parador´s issue.
If you think I´m talking about the woman I talked about in another thread. I have all the things very clear, I reported her to the police and I won´t stop au to see her to loose her nurse license. It´s not a revange. It´s a question of justice.
Anyway, I agree with you that sometimes, we have to act with prudence and ignores the rumors.

I was actually thinking about someone else, from an incident here a few weeks ago.

No, Chucky. I know now why are you saying that. I was confused by your words, yesterday. Honey, I´m really interesting in this topic Parador´s begun. Any "normal" person will tell you that the best way to cope with rumors is ignoring them. Ok, I agree with this point.
In the case of avoidants, I´m pretty sure that we don´t do anything about a rumor but I´m also fairly sure that avoidants are far to ignore a rumor, we won´t probably say anything about it, however we´ll take it and use it againts ourselves and againts others.
I´ll put you an example, I´m doing a social exposure therapy so I was really open to talk to my neighbours, the sellers in the shops of my neighbourhood but since I had news about this crazy woman who send my parents anomnymous letters talking about me, what I do, where I go, and telling me a great amount of insults, I doubt I never open my month to anyone exept to talk about the weather ( what a topic, a ver "interesting" topic).

There are also other rumors that are really harmful because they affect you in your job, so what we can do with them?

I really can't agree with ignoring a rumor that is being spread about you. If you don't do something about it then people may start believing it. The comparison I can make is to politics. Someone started spreading the misinformation around that the new US healthcare bill created death panels. Obama didn't come out saying it wasn't true fast enough and more and more people started believing it. Right now I can't even fight the rumor because I'm not there.