Rumor Control

The other night I was caught telling a rumor to someone. Not blatantly caught – or caught out . . . but caught. I met my old boss for drinks and was telling him stories from the past season at the far away place, and I mentioned the most extreme story about his replacement . . . that the replacement was so drunk in the bar one night that he pinned the stupid, loud-mouthed electrician boy up against the wall by the neck and yelled at him.

Then, low and behold and as luck would have it, the replacement called my old boss' cell phone and he joined us for drinks. And, of course, the story came up from him. Go figure. We were talking about how small the far away place is and then the replacement proceeded to tell us the most amazing rumor he heard about himself. He couldn't believe it, it was so ridiculous.

Guess what it was.

"Yeah, that's not true. That never happened. Don't you think my boss would have talked to me about it if it did!"

Great.

So, minutes before, there I was telling this same rumor to my old boss . . . and then boom, none of it was true.

Driving home from the bar, as I felt increasingly embarrassed and sickened from my blunder, I tried to make myself feel better by fighting with the replacement in my head. "But, you WERE really obnoxious and agro and drunk all the time, and you DID sleep with people inappropriately and and and . . . "

I realized that the rumor about him slamming someone up against the wall wasn't ridiculous and over the top like he thought . . . it was totally believable. His behavior throughout the season, and especially at the end, made that story ring true. We didn't check it against probable procedure or investigate the allegation because we SAW him too drunk after gatherings. We SAW him lose his temper publicly. We comforted the GA's he yelled at. We watched as he groped his own boss all over the New Years Eve dance floor. We defended HER when people thought she was the one who was too drunk. We didn't investigate or poo-poo the notion of him slamming someone up against the wall because it was no more inappropriate than the things we KNEW he actually did.

And this got me thinking about how we actually are kind of responsible for the rumors that go around about us. If someone told the same story about me . . . no one would believe it because they have never known me to be sloppy drunk and violent.

So, in some ways I feel better about talking out of school. Maybe it is just a rationalization. Mostly my observation made me want to remember to remember not to blab about people I work with to people who know them. And it also made me grateful that I am fundamentally fear based and old enough and wise enough to try to behave myself in a small community. Makes everything easier.