So, I (35M) have been working for the same company for the last 14 years slowly working my way up the ladder.
During that time I became extremely close friends with a colleague (32F). We have worked together for over 10 years. We both moved city for our job in our 20s. I lived with her whilst in between places and she has always helped me with my disastrous love life.
We are so close that I was HER Best Man at her wedding and am godfather to her children. I also have a really good relationship with her husband, often going out with him to the football and drinks.
We have always accepted that there would be gossip about us. But we know our relationship is like that of siblings.
Unfortunately, it’s recently become public knowledge that her marriage is ending due to an affair! (Don’t even get me started on the situation of knowing about that and being friends with her husband, real loyalty dilemma). She eventually admitted the affair and they are separated.
I recently received a message from a former colleague letting me know that the office gossip was I was the man in the affair!
I probably should have expected this at some point. But I saw red and immediately charged into the kitchen and openly confronted the 3 middle aged office gossips! I berated them that their rumours would damage people lives- my friendship with both her and the husband, a relationship I am in that is starting to get serious. I told them they were wrong and that they needed to find something else to fill their sad little lives.
About an hour laterI got a message from my boss telling me to go home for the day. I feel I was justified in my actions and confronting them. I have had some people to message to say I they agreed with what I did and others say I was wrong for the way I did it. AITA?
**for those asking I was informed who was responsible for the gossip**
[deleted]
Gently YTA you should have known this would blow up. It doesn’t matter if you were justified in doing it. For one thing, you had no proof it was them even if they are the office gossips and second, you don’t just run up on folks and start getting angry at them. You go through HR but now these people have a reason to claim you harassed them.
INFO: did you former colleague say specifically those three women were saying this about you? if not YTA
Yeah YTA. You berated and insulted people at work, which is pretty much never OK. Exactly how big an asshole you were depends on whether you knew for sure that the people you berated were the ones spreading the gossip. “known to be office gossips” sounds like you assumed it was them.
NTA/But also YTA. You are totally justified in telling them to stop the gossip BUT HOW you did it wasn’t okay . You should have spoken to them calmly and once you had your emotions better managed. I totally understand where you’re coming from though and I’m not judging you, just offering my perspective
“Thank you for the time off, today has been very stressful! While I’m gone, can you make sure that when I get in to work tomorrow I don’t walk in the door as an unprofessional philanderer? Can you remind my co-workers that this kind of behavior, spreading slanderous rumors about the people they work with, is very disruptive to our work and wastes company time and money? If they have a history of this, perhaps they need to go on a performance improvement plan.”
ESH. You should have had your boss handle it, especially since you don’t know who started the rumor. For all you know, it could have been your former colleague.
NTA: Here’s the thing, you can be not an AH, but still behave poorly. While the activity of the gossips is abhorrent, you did not seek professional redress, you allowed your temper to get the best of you in the workplace.
Your boss had the right idea to let you go home to cool off. Hopefully they will speak up to help everyone understand how these words were harmful to you as well, but you now have an uphill battle.
Kinda YTA. You definitely added fuel to the fire. You’re not the AH for trying to end the gossip, but you are the AH for how you went about it. And now you’ve given them even more to talk about AND your boss is sending you home.
If you have an HR office, go quickly and get your side of the story on record.
YTA. Berating colleagues in anger is not a good look. You went from being the injured party to being the problem. You played that very poorly.
Just “charged into the kitchen” and started yelling at them, that’s why YTA.
You could’ve done a similar thing and not been the AH, but the way you describe it sounds pretty aggressive.
YTA for dealing with this in such an unprofessional way.
You “charged into the kitchen” and “berated” people because you assumed they were behind the gossip. Even if you were correct this is not the way to deal with something like this.
ESH
You’re more a dumb ass than an AH. You should have let management or HR handle it. You made it look worse for everyone by blowing up like that.
They ofc suck for spreading malicious gossip. But you are still an adult, and should have responded as such. This isn’t highschool.
Even when you have the moral high ground, it doesn’t mean that you’re justified in harming your professional reputation by doing so. That’s a poor judgement call on your end.
You suck to yourself, more than anyone else, here. Time to step into damage control mode.
YTA for how you handled it. It likely will NOT stop the gossip, you have given them even more fodder for the mill, and you likely may even get FIRED over this or if you are lucky only given a reprimand or a PIP.
In the extremely unlikely event you are not yet under discipline, you need to gather FACTS – as in hard proof of overhearing direct gossip spoken in your presence, hopefully FROM the women you accosted – and go to HR. File a formal complaint and PRAY that they take it seriously.