On The Road To Wisdom

Even though I've learned a lot from my husband since he has been in the corporate world four years longer than I have, there are still those things you can't really learn until you experience them for yourself.

I worked in a small physical therapy clinic for about three years while I was finishing up j-school, and because there were so few of us in the office, I never had to worry about "rumors" being spread around the water cooler. I also never had to worry about people finding things out about me that I didn't want them to know, because everyone was considerably older than I. We had a Monday thru Friday type relationship, and that was it.

It has always been important to me to keep my personal life separate from my work. If I have a bad morning, I have trained myself to leave the negativity at the door as soon as I arrive at the office. People do not need to know if I'm in a bad mood, or they might immediately assume it will affect the quality of my work. Unless something is drastically wrong and I absolutely cannot contain my emotions about whatever it is, I am the exact same person everyday as far as the people contained in the cubes around me are concerned.

Even if some of them happen to be more in my age range, and they're fun to hang out with, I must not let them see how much fun I can be with a little alcohol in my system. I'm trying to establish myself in this competitive, dense industry, and that'll never happen if I become too close with co-workers.

I've only recently learned that I cannot tell a certain co-worker, whom I've become quite good friends with over the past few months, certain things about my life. Or if I do, I must precede it with, "Please don't tell anyone about this." That I felt the need to say that at all should have been a red flag. Maybe one of these days I'll take my own advice. But because I didn't this time, the news that I was out late last night was all over the office this morning- before I even got there.

It's not like I did anything wrong to be ashamed about, but it's my personal life and I would never tell my co-workers details of my off-the-clock activities, and it wasn't this person's place to tell anyone either. The only thing this person accomplished was gaining the attention of those who sit in the surrounding cubes' because this person knew something they didn't.


Gossip.

No good comes out of it.

Now I'm forced to further sever relationships with the people I work with. Well, not sever, but definitely keep the personal aspect of the relationship at bay. You live, you learn, I guess. I've learned.


I'm just happy I didn't spill something career-ending, or reputation-threatening.