Personal and Nonpersonal Rumors

We could fill pages with examples and descriptions of the various kinds of rumors that travel along the grapevine. It will serve our purpose best, however, to place them all into the following two broad classifications.

Many on-the-job rumors involve people’s personal lives and are not related to job situations. Some of these fall into the back-fence category. Some are little more than coffee-break gossip. Although there is considerable intrigue in such rumors, the new employee would be wise to keep working relationships strictly that—intrigue—and stay a safe distance from such rumors.

Rumors of the second kind concern the organization. They pertain to things that may or may not happen to the company. Although ...

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