sozobe wrote: . . . The kind of gossip-mongering that is not too particular about whether something is true or not, so if for example you anger an alpha gossip you can be sure that a damaging rumor involving you will be circulating soon. So you're super careful not to anger the alpha gossip.
Bleh.
We had such a gossip in a place i worked once. She became frantic after about six months because i had been put in charge of payroll and she now had no access to people's payroll records as she once had. Additionally, i took the minutes to management meetings from which she was now excluded.
What appalled me, however, was what people are willing to believe. One day, several people approached me, saying: "Velma says you went out and got drunk last night, and then came to the office to sleep it off so you wouldn't be late for work." I'd say: "Oh yeah, and what makes her think that?" To which they would reply: "She says she saw you in the bathroom shaving when she got to work this morning."
People are idiots ! ! ! I suggested to each and every one of these people that they look at my face again, and tell me if they still believed that. More than half of them were so dense, that i had to point out to them that i had not shaved that day, and that the evidence of
that ought to have been their own eyesight.
Gossip is also one of the most ancient and popular forms of entertainment. Some people become very disgruntled if you expose gossip for the fairy story which is usually is.
