Gossip at work can help

by M.T.

Employees that gossip at work are mostly wasting their time, but sometimes they are helping out.

I was eighteen and working in a day camp created by one of the local elementary schools. It was summer time, and, as bad as it may sound, this was my first legitimate job.

The job was supported by a state wide youth employment program, and put me into contact with a lot of young adults both older and younger than I was. One of my co-workers, David, started working late. When he came in during recess one morning, he was wearing a Bluetooth on his ear.

It was clear by his demeanor that kids weren’t his thing, and he was just there to get paid. David was cute. Despite everything I heard about romance in the workplace, I wanted to talk to him. I was surprised when he was in same classroom as I and responded to my attempts at flirting. A few days later he put his number in my phone and told me to “use it.”

We started chatting online after work. Then he became my boyfriend. It seemed too good to be true.

We were “together” for a few days when I started noticing fishy things going on at work. He flirted a lot with other girls, one in particular who mispronounced his name on purpose to get him mad.

Then, one of our trouble kids, Jennifer, started telling me about how David was talking to this flirty girl, and they left together from work one day. I noticed that everyone around me knew he was also with her.

When I confronted him about it, he said that kids lie. But why would Jennifer lie about something that had nothing to do with her? I soon found out from my coworkers that he had been having sex with this other girl. I broke up with him immediately. All that gossip at work helped me do the right thing.