My colleagues in my immediate dept have all worked together for over 10 years. One lady used to work in this dept for over 10 years too before she got transferred to different dept but in same building so as you can imagine all these ladies are very close.
I started 18 months ago. I feel i've settled in well, and despite the age gap and the general feeling of bitchiness because we're all women (I guess you'd get that in any all-women dept though), I feel generally happy working with these ladies.
The lady who transferred is going thru some crisis at the moment. I think it may be she is getting divorced which has come as an unexpected shock to us all. I get on ok with this lady as she comes on work nights out etc because of the old ties, although I feel she is a backstabbing bitch and she never makes any effort with me and dislikes me because I have her old job and she hates the new one she is in.
So, all my colleagues have been whispering gossip about this old colleagues situation for the past week but I sort of realised the chatter was about her, and because I barely know her like the rest of them do, I never asked more about it until the other day two of the women, Val and Jackie, were whispering in hushed tones in the corner of the office when one of them should've been working. AT this point, I didn't know nothing about what the whispering was about or who it was about, I actually thought they may have been whispering about me as it was only the three of us in the office at the time. AT the end of the whispering, Jackie said out loud "You know what Val, it's a joke, isn't it? Don't you think?" and I piped up, haivng sat in silence for the whole whispering not hearing anything, "What's a joke?" I said to Jackie. She said, "Well, that's not for you to know. I don't think it's my place to say" and she walked off. I felt so left out that everyone else knew. I know now that ex colleagues divorce is none of my business, but I felt before I knew this, that I was possibly the subject of the gossip.