Water-cooler gossip is a tricky thing to deal with. You don’t want to be seen as the boring one who never indulges in a bit of gossip in the break room, but you most certainly don’t want to start hearing the gory details of your latest one-night stand start circulating the office. When in doubt, of course, the best policy is steering clear of office gossip altogether. But if you’re careful with what you listen to and divulge, the office grapevine can be a great way to keep yourself informed about what other people think of you and your work. If you keep your ear to the ground, it may help you discern what types of things you need to work on to make yourself a better employee.
While there’s no such thing as safe gossip, there are a couple of things you can do to make it safer. Firstly, try to listen and not speak. If you can manage to take part in a gossipy conversation without putting forward your own feelings on the subject, you may not be able to claim ignorance but you can gather valuable information about office politics without putting yourself on one side or another.
If you must speak up, keep your thoughts as open to interpretation as possible. By making broad statements about office politics instead of pointed comments, you’ll avoid the risk that it will get back to whoever you’re talking about.
Finally, know the extent to which you feel comfortable participating in office grapevine. Once those bounds are broken, simply excuse yourself from the conversation. When if comes to gossip, it’s always better to be a little rude than to take part in gossip that might truly damage your reputation and/or your career.
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How do you act on your breaks? Are you garrulous? Are you a break ringleader? Are you one of the employees who is always talking about your family, your vacation, your hobbies? Do you get into talking about others at work when they’re not on break with you?
There can be so much pressure and anxiety at work. There are projects to nurture and see through; there are long hours through which you often eat ad rehydrate poorly, increasing your discomfort and lowering your performance. There are inevitable interpersonal dynamics that do not always go well, and there is always the possibility of a company sea change that comes down to undo and redirect every thing you have been working on.
Congratulations! After a lot of diligent work, after all the soul searching and the positive things you did to change yourself, you got the job and have moved in to your cubicle. You never thought it would feel so good to settle down within those four gray walls with no ceiling, right? Well, enjoy the special moment. Then, once that has passed, take a good look around your cubicle and ask yourself, “What does this space say about me?” This is a smart thing to do, because everyone else who comes into your cubicle will be asking themselves the same question—“What does this cubicle say about this person?”
It may be a cliché, but few things negatively impact our health more than anger. Our heart speeds up. Our temples throb. We begin to perspire and we feel a serious tension headache squeezing our skulls. Our neck and shoulder muscles grip and strangle us. Our fists ball up. We almost feel our teeth becoming fangs like a beast!
It’s the stuff of romantic movies and TV sitcoms. You may even have friends who have indulged, and you may have, too, in the past. Perhaps you’re involved in an office romance even now. It seems romantic and exciting, but the truth is, it’s deadly. If you’re playing footsy under the conference table, you’re playing with fire.