Help Me With Homework

[Ava]

I am taking my MBA, doing great and enjoying it.
We have to present a paper for Organizational Behavior. The topic is really interesting; rumors, gossip, and urban legends at the workplace.
The professor wants us to go around and ask managers and coworkers for those kind of stories. He's smart because he does research and we are his guinea pigs doing field work for him (we even have to sign a release form saying that we are OK with him using our stories) I asked a few people at work but they didn't know what to tell me.
My workplace is actually kind of boring, so I understand their reactions. We sit in front of computers and basically don't have much to do with the others.
I have a few stories from a previous job, where life was full of drama and emotions. You know; those low-wage service sector jobs where you interact with managers, customers and coworkers all day long.
So, would you be kind enough to share your stories with me? Rumors (the department is downsizing), gossip (she's sleeping with the boss), and urban legends (the Company pays women 80% less than men for the same job).
No need to name names.
Thanks in advance for your help!

[Mardi Gras Audrey]

I'll try to help.

When I was in the military, they decided to downsize but didn't tell our supervisors about it.  They got a "focus group" together to see what they could do to "make the transition easier".  Well, the folks in this focus group told all their friends and rumors were flying all over the world that people were getting laid off.  Some of the rumored emails even had folks' names, job titles, bases, etc.  Unfortunately, they did this about 6 months before putting out the official word.  The rumors took on epic proportions in that 6 months but the bosses were denying we were downsizing because they hadn't been told about it.  It was finally revealed to be true and it brought morale way down.  Most people were pissed more about how poorly it was handled than about the downsize itself.

When I worked in manufacturing, lots of people were doing things they shouldn't (this was a night shift, mandatory overtime, blue collar kinda job).  Gossip started that one of the guys (who was married) was messing around with one of the women coworkers (she was also married).  When she became pregnant with her 5th kid, it really exploded because we were all pretty sure it was his (her hubby had no clue and thought it was his).  She even hosted parties at her home and invited the "boyfriend" (and other colleagues).  Eventually, the hubby heard the gossip going around and confronted her about the affair (not the kid).  They broke up and she went on to get with the BF (He had caught his wife cheating on him while cruising around town on his "lunch break" at 2 AM.  The scary part is he was on a work-release program at the time and was only out of jail at night to be at work).  I don't think the hubby ever questioned the last kid (By the time the gossip of the affair got to him, it had been going on for a few years and the kid was a baby.  I think he thought he got the gossip when it was "fresh" so the dates didn't match up). 

[Ava]

Thanks!
I think your stories are better than the few I have from personal experience.
It's so difficult to collect them. People either don't understand what you are asking for, or don't want to tell you about gossip at our mutual workplace (understandably).
I'll use my stories first, and then add from others. My mom has a few she's told me. I hope the professor's fine with that as long as I clarify the stories happened to someone else.
And sorry about the downsizing. It got to be a very unsettling situation. I've never been in that sort of situation during my working life so far, but I know it happens and I'll probably have to live through something like that at some point.

Again, thanks so much for your help.

[The Captain]

I worked at the corporate HQ of a very well known company.  There were reductions in force (RIFs) ever two or three months or so and you never knew what group/department was going to get hit.

The only way everyone knew a RIF was coming was if the gates to the parking garage were left in the up position.  When someone was terminated they took your id badge and you needed that to get in/out of the garage.

So every time you came to work and saw the gates up everyone would wonder if today it was their turn.  The gossip would fly around the office and very little work would get done because everyone was distracted.  One of the rumors about the gates was they programmed/had them set up that way on purposed to keep everyone on edge and working hard to keep their jobs.

I doubt that is true but it does give some interesting insight into the human thought process.

Hope this helps your class.

[Waffle]

Here's a few stories from some places I used to work.

1.  I was a young new supervisor and the workers that reported to me were all men who were anywhere from 10 to 30 years older than me.  One guy pulled me aside and warned me about "Chuck".  According to the guy who pulled me aside, Chuck had gotten away with murder by killing his wife with a shotgun and somehow managing to get the authorities to believe it was a suicide.  I have no idea how true any of that was - I just know that several of the guys that I worked with believed it - because later other people told me the same story.


2.  Here's a rumor I know was false - because it involved me.  There was a guy at work who did odd jobs on the side.  He had been at my house several times working on one thing or another - he even remodeled my bathroom once.  So it wasn't unusually to see the two of us talking at work.  One morning, just by sheer coincidence, he happened to pull into the parking lot just after I did.  Someone who had seen us talking together also saw him pull into the parking lot after me and assumed that we were having an affair.


3.  I used to work at a company that had quarterly employee meetings.  During these meeting they would discuss the state of the business which included charts with budget numbers.  Many union people were convinced that the numbers were all bogus and that the company was making more money than they told us - supposedly the meetings were just a way to justify keeping wages low (not that they were really low to begin with).

Sounds like a fun class.  Hope these stories help.

[Otto the Orange]

me and this other person were up for a promotion in the military (a lower enlisted promotion at the first sergeant's discretion.  She got it because (and I quote): "she's pregnant she needs it more than you"; even though I had a higher physical training score, better weapons qualification, and had won the Soldier of the Quarter Board

[svwashout]

When I first hired in I heard that the security checkpoint at our plantsite entrance was put in years ago when we had a booming factory on site. Apparently many of our well-paid assembly line workers had drug problems so our parking lot became a hotbed for dealers from all over town.

Early in my career I worked with some of the "hourlies" as our factory operations were shifting overseas, and I would have to say that I do not believe this story. Many chain smokers among them, but drugs, I don't think so.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Rumors started circulating someone got fired/quit when they'd randomly change the door code on us.  They would not send an email till after the code change went into affect, my guess is it was to prevent the ex-employee from finding it out.  If you were outside the doors when the code change went into effect you'd have to find someone on the inside to let you in.


My boss got locked out for 15 minutes because he didn't know the new code and forgot what the lab phone # was so he couldn't call us to let him in.  He had to stand outside till a random person walked by and could let him in.  I teased him mercilessly for that.

[lynnerself]

Just a small story, but it made me smile.
A friend of mine that was our IT person quit work here.
It was rumored that she got a great new job working for a company that provides our software. Everyone was jealous.
Later I found out she started the rumor herself. She just quit because she got fed up with stuff here.

[whoisjohngalt]

At one company I worked at, director of IT got fired for downloading porn on his work computer during work hours

Another company.  We had an assistant controller, a 40 yr old mother of 3, who was married for 20 yrs.
We hired a guy to be in charge of SOX thing.  He wasn't married at the time, but was divorced 3 times.  They started having an affair.  The guy was a creep, he tried hooking up with a few women in the office before her.  She left her husband and moved in with this guy.  The guy proposed to her in front of people at the office one night.  Due to their job responsibilities it was a HUGE conflict of interest, but no one did anything.   Then he quit and was suppose to be moving to FL.  She was going to move with him so she quit her job at our company.  Yes, she left her 3 kids with her ex-husband.   At the last minute she decided not to move to FL, but she didn't have a job or family anymore.  Thankfully, the guy didn't leave her and stayed with her. 

But her DD didn't talk to her for YEARS.  I have no idea where they are all now, but it was really sad. 

[Abby Normal]

Not sure if this is quite what you're looking for but here are two I can think of from my office.  We are a manufacturing company.


1. Our business is seasonal and every time the business slows, or something bad happens in the industry,  the rumor mill in production starts up that we are shutting down.  It's so bad that the President has started scheduling a meeting three weeks after the slow season is expected, to tell everyone that we are still good and it's just routine.  It's almost to the point of being comical. But it happens every single year.    

2.  A few years back,  we hired a new receptionist.  This woman was hired on the recommendation of the VP, but she reported to me.  A few months in, things started getting weird.  She started making comments about meeting the VP for drinks, and continually talked about him. She would also flat out lie about certain things, then deny saying it when confronted.  

I asked the VP about particular comments she had made, and he would always brush it off.  For instance, she commented that she had coffee with him over the weekend.  I asked him about it (I knew him well enough to ask) and he said he was at the mall and ran into her, and yes he happened to be drinking coffee.  Things progressed from there, with her implying that there was more to their relationship than a professional one and all the staff believing there was something going on.

Things finally came to a head when he asked me one day about her hours for the pay period.  This was after she had left for the day. I told him I would talk with her in the morning. She reported in after I had arrived for the morning and came straight to my office to explain her time. I asked her how she knew of the issue and she says " VP told me last night". I went straight to his office and blew a gasket.and used the phrase " One of you is lying and it stops now if this office is going to function".  Turns out she had called him at home- he said it was weird, but he had told her of the problem while trying to be polite.  I went on to tell him all about the things she was saying and he freaked out.  There really was nothing going on and he had no idea.   We ended up firing her.  We found out months later from someone who knew her well, that she was a pathological liar. 

Vp had only recommended her because he knew her through church and she always seemed so together.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Lena's post reminded me that at DH's former workplace a supervisor got arrested by the FBI for running an online child porn ring in his office.  
 
DH said it was just like the movies, this big van comes rolling up and a bunch of guys in suits come out.  They grab the supervisor and his computer, shove him in the van and drive off.

Company had a meeting about it afterwards and that's how DH found out what happened.  FBI had apparently been investigating the guy for a long time before they made their move.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Politics at my last job....

We got a new chair to the department, the chair who brought together our lab group decided to go on and form his own company.  After an extensive search (where there were 2 internal candidates) they brought in a new guy who was relatively inexperienced.  Because we were an established lab group (and we did take up most of the lab space in the department), new chair decided he wanted us gone.

When he came in, our department was the #1 department in the nation.  We produced the greatest number of publications in the entire school each year, the 3 PIs brought in millions of both federal and industrial grant funding, we produced a LOT and all of us worked well together.  We had visiting scientists clamoring from all over the world to take a sabbatical with us.  We had one of the few esteemed dentist-scientist programs in the US (I think that they were only at 7 institutions at the time).  We had enough money that we had all the good expensive toys that are normally shared equipment BETWEEN departments and we had our own.

First thing the new chair did was to block tenure of one of the PIs (other 2 had already been granted it).  As that was a kiss of death, he took his toys and went to another institution.  Second PI went into the hospital to have surgery and while he was out, the chair booted him out of his lab.  To retaliate, PI did not submit his non-competing renewal for the DSA so the school lost it (and the $$ and prestige that went along with it).  We lost our administrative support, so hired our own.  After enough of this battle, second PI decided he didn't need the grief anymore and retired.

That left my boss.  He kept as many of the second PI's lab staff as he could and we continued on for a year or so while he looked for a place to land.  When he found a place, we took ALL our toys (electron microscopes, ultra centrifuges, robots,  various readers/counters....all of which to replace would cost a MINIMUM of $50K each) and went elsewhere.

Department is still stumbling along.  Research that does come out of it is piss poor.  No one wants to go there, either for the research or the program. Department (and school) lost millions of $$ since they get a cut of our funding.

[Deleted]

Not as juicy as some of the above, but I used to work for a company headquartered in Newark, NJ. At one point they put in water coolers with bottled water. Word got around that something toxic had been discovered in the municipal water supply so they were bringing in drinking water.

The President would have quarterly meetings in which you could send up anonymous questions and someone asked about this. He laughed sand said, "you try to do something nice for people..." Turns out his daughter was dating a guy who owned a bottled water business and he gave him a contract to supply water in our offices.

I also worked for a GE sub from 2003-2006 where supposedly the "rank and yank" procedure was in effect. (Forced ranking of employees every year and the bottom 10% gets fired.) I never saw it happen.

[sesfw]

One of the inside sales people suddenly turned his computer screen around so no one else could see what was on it.  About 6 months later he was told to clean out his area and was escorted out of the building.  His computer was filled with various porn sites and he was doing just enough in sales to barely hang on.

Another company our plant CEO was long time married with several older children.  He gets a new young chick as a secretary and a year later he leaves his wife and family and marries the secretary.  Six months later she has a baby.  Last I heard they were still together and still having children.

I'm sure other things have happened but I'm so naïve I never hear anything until long after it's ancient news.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Department is still stumbling along. Research that does come out of it is piss poor. No one wants to go there, either for the research or the program. Department (and school) lost millions of $$ since they get a cut of our funding

Same thing happened when my former boss left Creighton.  I wasn't going with him and was considering my options. 

When I voiced the idea of staying at Creighton he told me run and don't look back staying would destroy my career. 

He was tired of being the college's bank and they refused his application for dean of biomedical research every year. 

University of Iowa offered him a bigger lab, more control and Dean of the Biology department so he took his toys and went home.

Some decent research comes out of a couple of labs but it SUCKS over there, even more than it did before.

[cronewitch]

I was told we don't pay women less than men it just seems that way. We pay based on height paying short people less.

One company everyone knew someone was tattling to the boss and thought they knew who. Two women went to the basement to work on some files when the tattle tale as down there. They started a rumor that one women and man were caught in the closet upstairs kissing. When they got upstairs the rumor had gotten there first. It was a total lie to test the rumor mill.

[Deleted]

When I was teaching the Lower Elementary Science teacher, who had gotten divorced, started seeing the upper elementary science teacher... He then got divorced and they got together... Lots of gossip about that throughout the affair/ process, etc.

one of the 4th grade teachers, his grown son owned a pharmacy and teacher would 'deliver drugs' on weekends... That got misunderstood once and a rumor circulated. 

Is that the kind of stuff you want?

[The Captain]

Oct 3, 2013 11:42:29 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

We produced the greatest number of publications in the entire school each year, the 3 PIs brought in millions of both federal and industrial grant funding, we produced a LOT and all of us worked well together.  

Mich - what is a PI?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Primary Investigator.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Oct 3, 2013 12:50:03 GMT -5 The Captain said:

Oct 3, 2013 11:42:29 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

We produced the greatest number of publications in the entire school each year, the 3 PIs brought in millions of both federal and industrial grant funding, we produced a LOT and all of us worked well together.  

Mich - what is a PI?

Principal Investigator.....

Usually the scientist who writes the grants and brings in the $$.  If they're a young investigator, they'll work in the lab too.  But my (former) boss was last in the lab in Boston, so around 1984ish.  Now, he wouldn't know how to open the lab door!

[Deleted]

Wow my workplace is so boring compared to all of yours LOL. 

The only think I can think of is this. I am a university adjunct. Some staff and / or faculty get private English lessons. 

When I was interviewed (3 years ago) my two bosses asked me if I would be willing to teach Adult Ed to staff. I said yes of course. Then they asked me if I would PREFER to teach Staff, or if I would PREFER to teach the "regular" university students. I said I'd be happy to do both but I would definitely PREFER to teach regular university students. So about 75% of my work load is the regular university students, and about 25% is Staff. 

Three years later, they have increased both my regular classes, and my Staff classes, but the percentages are the same. 

Last year Big Boss said there were budget cuts and he needed us to accept less than the (very generous hourly rate) for the Staff classes in order for them to continue. One teacher, apparently somebody he has known for many years, went TOTALLY MENTAL. She was crying and screaming and arguing that it was much more work to prep a Staff class for one person than to prep a regular university class for 20. (Which is total bullshit IMO.) She ended up telling Big Boss that he knew it wasn't right, and the proof of that was that he had always been a stutterer and he had managed to get over it but here he was stuttering in front of all the teachers, and wasn't he ashamed?! It was HORRIBLE!!! He has always been very good to me and I was just mortified for him, and I know I wasn't alone.

He backed down, very diplomatically. A few weeks later the Staff teachers got a memo that upon consideration, Staff hours were to be paid at the same (generous) rate but instead of doing 40h per Staff member per school year, we could only do 32.  

On the same subject, at the same time they hired me, they hired somebody else, ONLY for Staff lessons. NOBODY can stand this Staff teacher. Apparently he doesn't prep ANYTHING, and all he talks about is football. 

Last year a record number of Staff that had him as their English teacher decided "they were too busy for English lessons" that year. 

So his wife, a very important tenured prof, called somebody (not sure who, either Big Boss or the woman who basically runs the Paris campus). Apparently, if you cancel a class with her husband (the staff teacher) she will come looking for you, calendar in hand, and make you reschedule on the spot. 

My Big Boss has never struck me as being without cajones, but after hearing all that, I can't help but wonder. All of this Staff teacher's Staff students stop me in the hall and ask if they can take classes with me instead. I tell them diplomatically that I'd be very happy to teach them, but I don't decide which Staff lessons I teach, Big Boss does, and that for now my schedule is full.

Also, in the three years this has been going on, they have recruited several "regular" (ie university student) teachers. One colleague has always pushed for this Staff guy to "move up" to the university students, but Big Boss has always refused. So the bottom line is this guy only teaches a "captive audience" of Staff who are not paying for their lessons. 

My only conclusion is that his wife is so valuable to the school, they "fob him off" on the Staff, who are not paying for their lessons, so it's either English classes with him or no English classes at all.

[Deleted]

Sorry Ava, for not having said this before ... I'm so glad it's all going well and that you are enjoying it!

[Ava]

Thanks for all the answers and the good wishes.
Things are going better, but it's still a work-in-progress. I have more support now (psychological), I go to school (and I love my classes), and I'm doing well at work.
The class that needs this homework is Organizational Behavior and it's very interesting and a lot of fun. That's because the professor is dedicated, enthusiastic, and brings excellent materials for class. We also have assignments that are difficult but in a good way; they make you reach out and make an effort.
It's funny because I took the same class at the undergraduate level, and it was dry and boring. I even resented having to enroll for the same class again for the MBA. And here I am, looking forward to it every week.
The stories you have offered are great. Some of them are urban legends, which are the most difficult to find.
I'm in the process of writing my paper now, but we can continue the thread if you want, since it's fun to swap tales of stories in the workplace.
I will post an update as soon as my paper gets graded.

[Apple]

My workplace is a cesspool of rumors and gossip.  But of course, I'm having a hard time of coming up with specifics.

I work in a blue-collar job.  I'm the only female in my area, so things can get interesting sometimes.

I've worn a ring forever.  After my divorce, I just wore a simple plain ring, for a while I even pulled out my class ring, but still on my left hand.  It was obvious it was "just a ring".  Sometimes I would also wear one on my right hand.  My favorite one is a little tight right now, so I've been wearing various rings.  For a long time, I would wear it on one hand, then I'd swap it to the other hand--usually this was after washing my hands or after doing a dirty job--it just kept my finger from getting "raw" under the ring.  Again, I've done this for a LONG time, and no one really seemed to notice.

One day, I walk into the mechanics shop, and one of the guys ("Jake") asked me if I got engaged.  I told him "no", and he said "well, then what is that on your finger?".  Apparently, when I cleaned one of my rings (a silver band with a small oval amethyst), it made it shiny enough that one of the guys on my crew noticed ("Ralph").  "Ralph" didn't have the guts to ask me, so he asked another coworker, "Don".  "Don" asked another coworker, "Bob".  "Don" also asked "Roy", and "Mike", and "Dave".  "Dave", is one of those guys who has no problem asking me whatever (or saying whatever to me--he's one I really trust because he speaks his mind, I know if I messed up, he'd tell me what he thought instead of talk about me behind my back, fortunately I haven't messed up!)

I had no idea about the rumor/gossip though, until I get on the elevator with "Dave" and he sees "Don" walk by.  He yelled to "Don" and said "Nope, she's not engaged, still single!"  That's when I found out "Don" had been going around asking everyone.  Funny thing is, "Don" KNOWS I hadn't been dating anyone.  He just decided I wouldn't tell him about it, but apparently I'd tell other guys.

[Apple]

Another rumor...

We have a "big boss", "Sam".  I used to work with Sam's wife, "Mary", at another location when I was just starting and taking classes in college.  "Mary" was put in charge of me and some other people in this school/work program.  I ended up at my current location, and she transferred here a couple years later.

My foreman was asking me about something to do with Sam and Mary.  I told him I didn't know.  Later he told me "I know Mary used to be your babysitter, so you can't pretend you don't know them.  We all know you know them better than you let on."  I thought he was talking about the time I spend kind of working for her at the other location.  But, no, there was an actual rumor that she was my babysitter when I was a little kid.  I had to explain that I didn't HAVE a babysitter as a kid because my mom WAS "the babysitter"--she used to babysit at different locations and there were always kids at the house that she watched during summer or after school.

When I was sick with my thyroid stuff, I had someone start a rumor I was pregnant (I wasn't dating anyone and couldn't get pregnant even if I was).  There are constant rumors about me sleeping with *someone*. 

And we have a saying, similar to "a rumor will get to the other side of the 'building' before the crane does".  It's true too.

[Jake 48]

This is true,but I am being vague about the location

In my 20's I worked in facilities maintenance for a large complex in Boston. You could buy your cocaine out of one dept. within the maintenance section. This is where I learned all about drug dealing trade; cutting it, distributing etc.. You would have been amazed at who was using cocaine while at work. I got quite the education, kept my mouth shut and never had a problem with these guys. They would always offer a taste, trying to get a new customer, just wasn't my thing.

[Tennesseer]

This rumor involved work and city.  I was working in Manhattan, NY.

It was April 29, 1992 and a California jury had decided 4 police officers were innocent of assaulting and using excessive force against Rodney King.

Rumors were circulating (which turned out to be true) there were riots beginning in L.A.  There were also rumors flying in Manhattan rioting was taking place at Penn Station, in front of Macys on 34th Street and other locations.  Nothing could be verified as it was all word of mouth.  But it was enough to scare the crap out of city residents and commuters.

I worked over by 53rd and Third streets and the streets were practically empty at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.  We commuters who lived in NJ avoided taking any trains or subways that ran through midtown Manhattan (where the rioting was supposedly taking place). Instead, we walked down to the WTC (skirting the alleged rioting area) to catch the PATH trains back to NJ.

That evening, there was zero news on television about rioting in NYC.  Rumors simply spooked hundreds of thousands of city residents and workers.