To ask if people really do this at work?

[Anycrispsleft]

We've just had a reorganisation at work and we have a new boss. The meeting was yesterday, had been booked in for a week, and there have been various rumours doing the rounds about it, most of them true. One of the people who used to work for new boss (F) came to our (me and G) small office on Wednesday and asked if we knew anything about what was going on (no) and asked if his boss had been invited to our meeting - and revealed that he had checked her calendar to see if she had a meeting booked at the same time.
Yesterday at the meeting the +1 manager had a go at 7s for spreading rumours and for "doing things like talking to other colleagues and checking calenders to try and find out what is going wrong. Now that sounds a lot like what F had done, but how did the big boss know? I certainly didn't tell him, so did G?
That's what I wanted to ask - do people do that? How do you even do it? Do you just drop the guy an email going "just thought you might like to know that F was down here asking questions" or whatever? I'm totally freaked out by the whole thing.

YANBU - who wants to be a grass
YABU - nothing wrong with letting senior management know what people are saying

Perhaps you could have phrased your OP as, someone at work came to gossip to me and my colleague about some changes being made and and the new boss mentioned these exact rumours in the next meeting. Did my colleague tell the manager about the person gossiping and also that they'd checked the management diary? Do people do this in the work place?. The answer is now that maybe she did and yes they do. But equally a manager who doesn't accept there is a level of gossip and speculation going on and doesn't lock their diary if it's not meant to be available to others is a bit naieve.

No, alas! Good luck in yours!

I would imagine that given F was nosying about and gossiping to the two of you he was also nosying about and gossiping to others.

But even if G did mention it to the boss what’s the big deal? They don’t appear to have told any lies.

Couldn’t agree more!!

If they don’t want speculation then they should be upfront.

No problem with the diary checking, that’s what they are for.

I think we've all (well me anyway) have gotten off track, with the focus on HufflePuff's Dear Diary 📖 📕

@Anycrispsleft lots of what you've said would give me pause for thought.
▪︎ do I want to work for management who treat staff like that?
▪︎ keep it professional but also a bit arms length from G, can you trust him/ her or are they likely to go to managers with every little thing?
▪︎ did Susan really kiss Dave with tongue during spin the bottle, at Tracey's 13th birthday party?
(Sorry, wrong diary 🤪)

On what planet?! If something in there is personal you show it as private or don’t put it in there in the first place.

If you have access to others calendars then you can check them. If your don’t have access and ask someone who does then that’s taking the piss
Do what your paid to do and if there is something going on you’ll be told when/if it affects you

The point is , in my opinion, it's not wrong to discuss this with your colleagues. Tbh I think it's a bit weird the managers, or whoever they are , haven't kept the department in the loop. Bad management, I say, but I see a lot of this. People exerting some made up superiority over "the workers."

@HuffleMyPuffle it’s a work calendar not a burn book

These are uncertain times and people have a lot riding on their employment so nothing surprises me.

If managers are appearing to be having covert meetings with limited communication then its normal for people to 'snoop' around to try to assess the risk to them - thats human. Checking peoples publicly available work calendars is hardly a crime.

I expect it cane up from someone else doing the same thing in a different way, ie saying to the manager at the watercooler 'so and so said such and such was having a meeting with x,y and z, do I need to be worried about that?' That's also normal.

Office politics are annoying as hell but a big part of working life for many. Be careful who you trust and never say anything youre not prepared to publicly standby if it comes to it is my advice.

I'm guessing F checked A's calendar which was fine and appropriate when A was F's boss but F shouldnt be able to check A's calendar when they no longer worked under A. However F was probably enjoying having access to information on A's calendar the rest of you didnt and decided to go waving it round the other employees as gossip. I imagine thats what Big Boss aka B was unhappy about not enough for a disciplinary as F shouldnt have been able to access it still but enough for a general warning.

Is this one of those Mumsnet only things? Where Mumsnet is its own alternative universe to the real world where people come up with such nonsense as though it’s normal?

Op randomly picked F and G for the first comment before explaining further (involving more letters). I’m sure A and B for the opening post would of also been anonymous lol

Could F of said something to A if he’s worked for them before?

I agree.

Also.. sounds like it was F trotting about doing a bit of digging.. but so what.. there were a lot of changes going on.
B Boss isn't the thought police. He can't control people's curiosity about the implications of workplace changes they know are afoot and how it will affect them personally.

It doesn't sound like you did anything wrong OP.... so I'd just forget about it.
Unless you are worried that your office chum G is a bit of an office Iago.

@Anycrispsleft

I had a period of behaviour in my former workplace similar to what you describe.

It usually came down to a combination of

1-general anxiety about workplace changes, thus engendering 'normal worried chit chat' between workers (do you know what's happening, is such and such changing, will there be layoffs?) but minimal anxiety

2-someone going about stirring up the shit, asking questions of others, adding to the rumour mill, stoking anxieties.

3-someone 'reporting' all this to management under the guise of 'concern for coworkers' well being'.

We eventually figured out that #s 2 & 3 as always the same person. She was an inveterate shit stirrer, often causing worries where there was no need which she'd then report to management in order to make herself look good. In essence, the classic 'snitch'. Thereafter she could never understand why we never told her anything and never responded to her questions and 'hints' about what we knew or what we were feeling.

You said:

One of the people who used to work for new boss (F) came to our (me and G) small office on Wednesday and asked if we knew anything about what was going on (no) and asked if his boss had been invited to our meeting - and revealed that he had checked her calendar to see if she had a meeting booked at the same time.

So, that's the person I'd be tight lipped around rather than G. Unless you've had suspicions about G previously

In the past, I have strategically whispered confidential stuff I know, deliberately to set someone I dislike up. It has always been because that person is cheating or doing something dodgy. BUT I haven't wanted to be the one to report it officially, so I always pick someone that I know has a big mouth, who will want to gossip about it.

I chanced upon this approach years ago, with huge success and once got someone sacked using this method. He deserved it. He was lazy, was ripping the organisation off and was sexually abusive of a member of staff who didn't want to report him. Job well done.

I agree with this.

If you want to be a boss, you have to appreciate that people below you in the organisation will have views on you, and will share them. Both in the office and to their families and friends! It goes with the territory.

That sounds like a logic puzzle. How confusing.

How’s it a breach of privacy when it’s available for anyone to look at?

It's not really cloak and dagger is it - they scheduled in a meeting to tell the people affected. It's not a "mystery", everyone knew a reorganisation was happening. One person decided they couldn't wait the couple of days.
There might well have been an order in which people had to be told things in case something happened during a prior meeting that required a rethink.

I work for a very large company, offices everywhere. We all have access to each others Outlook diaries in varying degrees. Some we can just see free busy times, no details of whether it's a meeting or lunch break. Some are totally open with the odd private appointments which is easy to do in Outlook. On occasion when my job role called for it, I had full access rights to Directors diaries, email and calendar. To be honest, it doesn't have to be your colleague, it could be anyone who has basic view only access and putting 2+2 together and mentioning it to the bosses.

Same.

The thing is, sometimes at work people are good friends with one of the managers and would just tell them this type of thing without being asked. And you might not know who is friends with who. Also F might be the kind of daft person who would have told A what they had done.

What happened at the meeting?!

Yeah everyone does it all the time