A rule I’m working on following more lately is that if I can’t/won’t say it to their face, then it doesn’t need to be said at all.
It’s a work in progress.
Only if we define “nice” in this context to mean “duplicitous.”
No. He’s just being honest! 
I used to be just like that. Of course, I don’t have any friends left. Going off on others behind their back is a great way to relieve steam, but, nobody wants to hear it. If they do want to hear it, they think you’re amusing at the time, but they think you are a rat further down the pike.
So, I think ‘not nice’…but, not particularly evil.
Yeah, “make fun of” was not the best choice of words. I don’t think that’s an accurate description, but I don’t know exactly how to describe it. It is a lot more like blowing off steam, and I do try to do it quietly and discreetly. Maybe not quietly enough, and maybe too often.
And, for the record, folks, only one person has ever said anything to me about this, and that’s only because I asked her directly.
However, I still thank you for your various perspectives.
Roddy
I’m pretty surprised with everyone’s reaction to this. If someone is being a tool, and you talk to your friends/coworkers how much of a tool this guy/girl is, so what? No good is going to come from telling them what you think, especially at work where you have to deal with said person regularly. I’m assuming the OP isn’t randomly talking shit about perfectly fine nice competent people, I could be wrong. It really boils down to the context and who you’re talking about, which I don’t think anyone on these boards can judge with the given information.
No.
*Not talking shit about them at all would be nice and good. * Talking shit about them to their face would not be nice and good either, but it would be honest. What you are is Not Nice and Not Good and Not Honest.
Now, let’s be clear here - I’m not passing myself off as nice or good. I do talk about people, but I tend to try to never say anything behind their backs that I wouldn’t or haven’t said (even if in a milder form) to their face. I think the obsession with needing to think of ourselves as nice people isn’t really conducive to self-reflection and making ourselves better people. People will write off a multitude of sins in themselves if they tell themselves, “but I’m a nice person!!!”. Just like you have here. If you are really concerned about being a better person, then don’t mock your co-workers behind their backs. If you want to keep doing that, then go right on ahead, but own that it’s a dick move.
Honey, I walked around barefooted for an entire semester as a sociology experiment. I interviewed the president of the university barefoot - no comments from any of his staff, or from him! I went into SO DAMN MANY places of business with the no shirt no shoes rule - barefoot. No comments. I attended church/mosque/synagogue/mass in every representative place of worship in that county - barefoot. No comments. I attended a formal-dress scholarship reception in a beautiful dress and some really obvious barefoot jewelery. Nothing ever said.
Not a single damn person EVER SAID anything to me directly about my lack of shoes. Not once! Not when it was their business policy I was breaking, not when it was an affront to their religion that my dirty-ass feet were on their floor, not when I was speaking with the most important person in my school.
In addition, I only even had *one *second-hand complaint, when someone from the scholarship foundation sent a letter to my sponsor after the semester was over, asking why they continued to sponsor someone so “unbalanced.” My sponsor by that time knew of my experiment (it was after the term was over, so I told everyone why I had been barefoot to mend my reputation) and gave me the letter as a laugh.
What’s really funny is that boardmember? I talked to her and her husband at that reception for at least 10 minutes, and she was never anything less than splendidly kind and polite to my face.
People do not like to make waves. *No one *will tell you that you are being a douche, because it’s “not nice” to comment on other people’s bad behavior. So most people don’t do it. Even if you ASK them to, they’ll be uncomfortable, and try to avoid the subject. That doesn’t mean they don’t know of anything to say - it means they DO and they desperately wish you were self-aware enough that they didn’t have to tell you! Even then most people will deflect the question or answer with something minor so they don’t cause offense.
Please do not even try to kid yourself that it means they don’t notice your behavior, or that it means they don’t care. They do, and they really really do.
I’m sorry that you don’t understand the fundamental difference between “nice” and “good.” Good refers to your innate morality levels. Nice refers to your actual actions. You can be a very good person, but a seriously not-nice one.
That’s a funny story, Lasciel.
I work with a coworker who I believe is a snob to the nth degree, and her boss once told her this during her performance evaluation. The first thing she did afterwards was to tell me, as if waiting for me to agree that he was wrong. Here was my opportunity to speak freely–the door was swinging wide open. But I couldn’t. I told her a white lie: “You aren’t a snob. You’re just very particular and vocal about it.” What I should have said was, “Yeah, you can be a bit of a snob. But hey, we all have a personality flaw. It’s no big deal.”
To this day, she still brings up what our boss says in conversation and I continue to bite my tongue because I don’t feel like dealing with her defensiveness. Some arguments are just not worth having.
We had a barefoot guy at my university, but he did it for all 4 years! I had a class with him once. He would wear some paper-thin flip flops when there was snow on the ground, but that was it. And it was a big campus, with lots of walking required between classes. Everyone always tried not to sit next to him, because feet that have been tattered and torn by the ravages of locomotion over concrete, asphalt, and cobblestones do NOT smell good.
Totally tangential to the thread, but a fun memory. They interviewed him for the school paper and he said he did it for religious reasons. I’m not sure what religion he claimed, though.
This is an excellent way of convincing people you aren’t a nice person.
Look, we all complain about someone now and then, but I get the sense you do it quite a lot. If your frequency of bitching about other people is any greater than “once in a very great while and only with people I REALLY trust” you’re doing it way too often and convincing people you’re an asshole.
You may in fact be a kind saint, but people have to go by what information they have readily available to them, and slagging people behind their back is an absolutely classic, Grade A, huge-neon-sign indication that someone is a prick. If one of my coworkers did this I’d instantly lose some of my trust in them; if one of my softball teammates went on about someone I’d think them a blowhard; even if a close friend did this I’d be okay with it for awhile but the time would come when I’d start to wonder just what the hell the truth really was.
If you do this to the point that someone has commented on it, it’s time for you to rein it in, IMHO. This person who told you this was willign to criticize you to your face about your tendency to make fun of people. That means that to this person, making fun of people is a defining part of your personality. And while we can’t say for sure, it’s a good chance that if she feels that way many others do too. Believe me, that is a really, really bad reputation to have.
You get no further ahead in this world by bitching about people behind their backs, so why waste the goodwill you’re throwing away?
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This has been stated before, but: if you are dissing someone to someone else, that person probably thinks you are dissing her to yet another someone else. My boss gossips a lot and I love hearing it but I always make noncommittal responses. If she’s telling me things about others, she might be telling others about me.
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You can be quite certain it will get back to them. It always does. And even if it doesn’t, there is likely to be someone in your “trusted” group who thinks the above and thinks you’re not nice as a result.
Is this first hand experience? You’d prefer the smell of concrete, asphalt, and cobblestones over the toe-jam of someone who’s sweated all day in their shoes and suddenly took them off?
I call foul. I go barefoot every minute of the day when I’m not out, and in spring / summer / fall it’s sandals with neither toe nor heel, or flip flops. Mister Vigilante has never expressed any notice of the smell of my feet, only the appearance of the soles (they get black because duh they’re black sandals).
Feet smell better when not confined. Just sayin’.
No, it makes you a disingenuous dick and a phoney.
A lot of people think it is important to always be perceived as “nice” and “polite” by everyone around them. They always strive to be superficially pleasent, friendly and cheerful. However their actual actions tell a different story. They gossip. They backstab. They make promises and commitments they have no intention of ever keeping. By your own admission you sound like one of these people.
If you really want to be considered a “nice” person, you have to be “nice” even when people aren’t looking.
Everyone is someone elses “jerk”.
It’s an interesting OP because definitions do vary and most people like to think of themselves as the good guy, even if they’re rude to everyone they see.
My own behaviour is similar to the OP; I don’t criticize people to their face but occasionally do so behind their back.
However, I don’t think this is necessarily cowardice as some posters upthread have said. If it’s really vital for me to tell someone that something they’re doing is wrong, I will. I also hate to see people – anyone – embarrass themselves, and will always speak up if I can prevent that.
But in most cases it’s not necessary to criticize and I’m just going to upset someone, or start a confrontation for no reason.
So why talk about them behind their back? I dunno – just something to pass the time and/or the person I’m talking to might be in a better position to give them a nudge. But I don’t get some huge joy out of doing it.
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I think (as others have said) that there’s a difference between ‘letting off steam’ about people who irritate you and ‘making fun’ of them.
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Oh, your comments get back to them all right. :smack:
(People love to gossip, especially with “Did you hear what Roderick Femm just said?”)
I’m no podiatrist, but the guy’s feet were dirty and stinky.
I think a lot depends on the sort of criticism you’re giving. If you’re acting like someones best friend and then, as soon as their backs turned saying ‘wow, what a fat, ugly asshole’ then yeah, you’re a dick. If you’re saying ‘wow what a racist homophobe’ then you’re a coward for not saying it to their face. If you’re saying ‘I think their belief in crystal healing is really daft’ then, maybe that’s a bit disingenuous, but we all know it wouldn’t be an accusation worth confronting them with. I don’t think there’s necessarily much wrong with gently poking fun at someone behind their back, as long as it’s nothing really hurtful, or rolling your eyes serreptitionsly to a coworker when they say something particularly asinine. If you have a real problem with someone though, you should make it clear to them. Unless it’s the boss, that would just be reckless.
Thank you for your balanced view. I admit I was a little surprised how much people were willing to assume about me based on my (admittedly skimpy) OP.
I do not act like someone’s best friend to their face and then say rude things about them behind their backs.
I do not say anything about someone’s possible racist or homophobic beliefs, either behind their back or to their face, mostly because no-one here is stupid enough to vent those things in public (this is the heart of San Francisco, it would be social suicide), so I don’t know what anyone’s secret beliefs are.
I am polite to everyone at work, friendly with many. If someone has a really annoying personality, laughing all the time in an almost hysterical manner for no reason, or constantly talking to everyone in earshot about nothing, for example, I will be polite in person, and later to another person who I know is also driven crazy by these behaviors I will vent some about it.
My problem came when I was speaking freely in front of someone who I thought was of like mind, but who apparently believes one should never speak ill of anyone no matter how annoying. So I need to be more circumspect, I believe I have learned that lesson.
For the rest, who are accusing me of being a cowardly rat bastard, not surprisingly I think you are wrong. Perhaps I am not objective. Perhaps you aren’t either.
Roddy
From the conversation you gave in the OP, it doesn’t appear as much like this person had a problem with you talking about the co-worker. She had a problem with you doing that and then trying to claim the moral high ground. You can’t do both, but that’s been pointed out to you multiple times and you are not listening, so.
Lol k. I don’t know you from Adam’s off ox, brother. We were only going from what you posted.