Do you join in with work gossip?

[TheFedUps]

What is work gossip and what is just talking about things because they happen and you comment or feel disgruntled?
In every office I have worked people talk negatively about others ALL the time. They're disgruntled but don't do anything about anything. It's just
just putting down others discrediting them, so petty. If you don't join in your are the odd one out.

I hate this. I genuinely try not to say anything to anyone I wouldn’t say to their face - I know some people find this virtue-signally but I just think about karma etc. Little moans like “so and so didn’t do this again” that you can bring up to them in a non-confrontational way is fine but not actual botching/gossip

Absolutely not. Never have, never will. I make a point of not doing so, and I’m always the last to know if Susie from Marketing is shagging Tom from Finance. I’m not interested and I don’t care. If this means some people think I'm a bit aloof, so be it.

Can't stand work gossip. I was a teacher in a past life before having my DC and I laugh when people think they're professional.

@PlanetNormal

Absolutely not. Never have, never will. I make a point of not doing so, and I’m always the last to know if Susie from Marketing is shagging Tom from Finance. I’m not interested and I don’t care. If this means some people think I'm a bit aloof, so be it.

Oh that reminds me of being in a teaching job about 30 years ago, we were planning our late Christmas get-together, in March, and I asked a colleague if Steve, her OH, would be coming, I'd known the couple years earlier when we were all students. An embarrassed silence ensued, she and Steve had split up six months earlier! She went on the marry her divorce lawyer!

A lot of work gossip happens simply because people have nothing else to talk about. So it’s easy to talk about other colleagues as they are the common denominator.

Few years back I worked in a small office of women all a bit older than me, 50-60ish while I was in my twenties.

Their only topic of discussion was other peoples weight.

"Oh Jane has lost a few pounds hasn't she?"
"Ooh angie has hit the cakes since her husband left"
"Aw look a Mary and her neat bump, she's kept so slim during pregnancy"
"Oh erm Dove - are they allowed on your diet? You don't want to gain weight now do you"

Spent 4 years wanting to shove a mars bar up their arsed.

Gosh, absolutely not! Fortunately there’s very little of it at my workplace. But there’s an argument in favour of it that things get aired. Been there 10 years and witnessed 2 stand up arguments quickly blown over and one grievance. Against me

Depends what you mean. Yes I absolutely get involved in gossip, to know what is going on, it's vital.

But constant whinging is a different matter. I left my last workplace because the morale was awful and people got by by 'sharing the load' but it was draining.

If it's minor staffroom grumbles about the duty rota or that an extra (pointless) deadline has been issued then I'd join in a little, but leave if it got too bitchy.

Sitting around discussing colleagues in a gossipy way isn't something I'm interested in.

My philosophy is unless someone is confiding as a good friend, anyone who gossips about colleagues to me is likely to bitch about me to other colleagues.

I am the office gossip this week and it amused me a lot.