I have a coworker who might make a foolish decision in the upcoming weeks–a decision I could probably stop if I talked to him. The decision wouldn’t be life-or-death, but it would involve him making a big financial blunder.
But, the only reason I know that he might be making that decision is that someone else, someone who shouldn’t have told me anything, told me.
It’s not my business. I shouldn’t know. But since I do, should I make an effort to talk to my coworker? Or should I essentially forget what I’ve been told, mind my own business, and only speak up if he asks me for advice (which he won’t do)?
I hope I’ve given enough information to be useful.
Can you type up your information that he needs to know to not make a big mistake anonymously and just leave it where he can find it? I would normally not interfere in something like this, but I wouldn’t want to let someone make a big mistake, either.
Can you tell the person who told you the information you have tell the co-worker who needs your information?
I was in the unfortunate position of knowing that a co-worker was going to be fired, while at the same time listening to him on the phone arranging to buy a house.
I determined that it was none of my business, and even though this guy was a former friend, the information I knew was privileged, and would get me fired if I were to share it with him, which would mean two of us up shit creek, rather than just one.
It didn’t end well, but if I’d have helped him with insider info, it would have been worse.
No. The person who told me does not have the same information I have. He was gossiping and told me about the decision the coworker might make, but he doesn’t know why the decision would be a mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for me to tell him instead of just going straight to my coworker, since the coworker would know where the information came from.
The information I have isn’t privileged. It’s personal information about the coworker, plus additional information that only I know. Does that make a difference?
And I know that I’m dancing around the kind of information I have, but I can’t come up with a reasonable fake scenario. My apologies, and I hope that the precise information isn’t necessary to the discussion.
would the bigmouthed middleman friend have some reason to be concerned about the bad-decision-making friend?
Like, is it possible that the whole thing could be spun in a way that makes it look like bigmouthed-middleman friend was worried and did a “I’m worried and don’t know what to do and thought you might be able to help my mypothetical friend” without naming names and you said, “your hypothetical friend is making a big mistake.” in which case, bigmouthed middleman could go back to bad-decision-making friend and say, “I got some information from jsgoddess that indicates that you’re about to make a big mistake.”
Either way, I think if someone could prevent me from losing a lot of money, I’d want them to.
Is there any way you could casually mention that you were planning to do something similar (taking out a loan, investing some money, have a relative hitting you up for a loan and thinking about giving in, etc.)? If he mentions he’s doing the same thing, you could ask him for details, then act horrified when he tells you his plans and try to help him out.
If you talk, the gossipper will know it was you and will be mighty peed at you. If you don’t and this guy gets in trouble, he won’t know it was you but you won’t be able to look him in the eye forever. Which one are you more comfortably living with?
Honestly, I don’t give a damn about the gossiper. What bothers me isn’t that, it’s that I have no business knowing anything about my coworker’s decision. I would be meddling in a situation that is private and isn’t my business–based on information that a tattletale told me. I’m extremely uncomfortable doing that.
I’m also uncomfortable watching someone make a mistake if it’s in my power to stop it–and it might be.
I think it’s pretty relevant, and it’s certainly tantalizing that you won’t tell us. You are probably being over-protective of the information (that is, to us, to whom you and your co-workers are pretty anonymous), but I won’t nudge you to share it just in case… (although I think you should)
For me, it would really depend on the magnitude of the mistake. If we’re talking $100, I’d just keep quiet. If we’re talking $50,000, I’d speak up. Just tell him that the gossiper mentioned whatever he mentioned to you, and then speak your piece about the mistake he’s going to make. If you’re right, he’ll be grateful you got involved. The gossiper might be mad, but fuck him. It was his secret to keep, not yours.
That’s good advice from Giraffe. You don’t own the fact that your coworker decided to share personal information with a gossiper. And if you can help him avert financial ruin by speaking up, then by all means do so. You don’t have to protect the gossiper.
This is pretty much what I was going to say. Whenever I find myself with some personal information about someone that I shouldn’t really have, I try to get the same information directly from the person in question in a natural way. It is normally pretty easy as they’ve already told someone, so it’s something that they probably want to talk about.
So can you get the gossip information directly? and then you can act accordingly.
Geez…tough situation. Maybe you could bring it up in conversation when he’s within earshot? Just enough info to get him to start asking questions. Then you can let fly with all the reasons he shouldn’t do it.
Gossiping is not something one can do on ones own. When you were given information by the tattletale you were, in fact, listening to him. So if you would talk to your friend about this, the fact that you were gossiping about your friend will be exposed. You will make this bad impression even if you were actively trying, but failed, to avoid the gossip. So it seems to me that indeed this is about protecting the gossiper: yourself. Not that that is such a bad thing, most people would be bothered by this. But if the question is wether you should be bothered by this, the answer is an obvious “no”.
There’s also the problem about giving your friend unasked advice. There’s a big stigma attached to unasked advice and rightly so. In most cases one should wait with giving advice until asked. Or else you will seem judgemental, or it will seem like you’re trying to tell your friend what to do, to make his decisions for him. In this case your friend doesn’t know that you’ve got information that’s pertinent to his situation, so he can’t ask. If you figure that he would ask you for advise if he would know, I feel the right thing to do would be to talk to him. Just make sure he feels that whatever his decision will be is still his choice.