Saturday, April 25, 2009

Tell Me Your Secret

If there is one thing that annoys me, it's the fact that some people just cannot seem to grasp the idea of privacy. Why don't they understand, if someone doesn't tell you something, then it means they don't want to tell you. Perhaps for obvious reasons.

For some unknown reason, people seem to look at me as their secret keeper. They kind of pull me aside and say something and then add "it's a secret, you know". And I nod and acknowledge the fact. That makes me feel like Post Secret at times, but I don't mind. No doubt I have been able to keep people's secrets for years without it being leaked out at all. Ask my sister, she knows.

Anyway, as I mentioned in a earlier post, my direct boss had sent in her resignation and it's official at the moment. Everyone knows she's leaving, but the reasons behind her departure and future plans are perhaps known to only a select handful, perhaps those of us who were particularly close to her. The day she submitted the letter, she informed of her resignation and her future plans. Maybe she was excited about it and needed to tell someone, and she told me. But it's meant to be a secret. Now, she is quite close with a few of us, and she might have told them the whole story, but I don't know, and I don't want to know either.

The problem is, other people seem to have been bombarding me with questions regarding her departure. If they really want to know, why don't they ask her themselves? Why need to look for the person who is supposedly closest to her to find out? (we're the only two females in our department so we are indeed pretty close) Although most of the curious people were curious in an ordinary way, one of them was the worst of the lot. His name is *Joseph, an old, fussy man who could drive the Dalai Lama up the wall with his constant blabbering and anecdotes from his previous place.

I found this man hovering near my place in the office one evening after the official working hours. I think there were only three people left in the office at that time. The rest were probably in the various areas in the factory, doing their work, or on their way home and he suddenly asked me if I knew about H's resignation. Knowing that she had already informed everyone else, I acknowledged the fact. He proceeded to ask me if I knew the reason why, but I replied that she said it's personal. Don't they get it? Should we put up a poster with the definition of personal plastered everywhere? Seeing that I wasn't going to reveal anything, he used a different approach.

(Tip: the key to keeping a secret safe is to act stupid all the time so people will get irritated and leave)

"I heard she's unhappy with the situation here" he says
" I don't know..." I say
"Another thing, I heard" he lowers his voice conspiratorially "is that her whole family is migrating"
"I really don't know. She said it's personal, and I understand that" I say...
"Her family is migrating... I know" he says and walks back to his side of the office.

I suspect he was trying to shock me into revealing her side of the story. Who does he think he is? The Secret Service?

*real name used! Ha!

14 comments:

  1. One wonders why people can't simply mind their own business. If we are meant to know something, we'll be told.

    And why bother to pass on what you "heard"? Rumors are ridiculous.

    Sheesh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hate busy bodies. They piss me off! And I try avoid people when they want to tell me a secret or something personal. My policy is the less I know the less people will bug me to tell them thing ... LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha, well at least he seemed satisfied with his own explanation!

    Well so why is she leaving then?
    :P

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really hate when people perceive you as the secret keeper, and then try to butter you up or flatter you into telling them your confidence. I always feel like saying "do you really think I'm that stupid", but then, like you, I decide playing stupid is the best route to take!

    ReplyDelete
  5. lol "drive the Dalai Lama up the wall" - wow!

    I didn't know H was resigning - wasn't it Gorbachev? (see, it's working, we have NO idea who you're talking about!)

    I'm kind of a 'secret keeper' also, and what I do to let people know they won't be getting info from me is to just answer, "hey, it's not my place to get involved in so-and-so's business," with an air that it would be disrespectful for any of us to be talking about someone elses private affairs....it usually works.

    (psst...So why is H leaving? Oh come on, you can tell me. I know she's migrating, so just tell me the rest of the story.) :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. H is leaving? Really? Why? :-P

    I guess some people have a pressing need to be always in the know. We humans can be so annoyingly weird sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Playing dumb is always the best best.

    I work in a small town and have many patients who are related to each other in one way or another. But I keep secrets for a living, so they never would know it from me.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Travis: That's something I don't get too.

    Nick: The busy bodies piss me off, as well. As much as I like your policy I can't apply that to my friends... I just can't :)

    Kartik: Oh, yeah... LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Aunty: What amazes me is how they know that we are the secret keepers... Sometimes they attempt manipulating you with "Ï thought you were close to each other and she didn't even tell you"

    Mike: Ha! Make 'em feel bad about being busybodies... I like that one!

    Lizza: Yeah... if they want to know, they should just ask the person involved.

    Citizen: I agree...

    ReplyDelete
  10. What bothers me is what is so secretive about most of the secrets that I were told .Some secrets can be as trivial as the colour of the shirt.For the secrets that are worth keeping , I will keep it.For others I will just tell them beforehand that I am not good at keeping secrets,saves me from a lot trouble.It puts off people who don't really know me well from telling me their secrets :).

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sigh, I know these patterns and dealt with them all the time at my last job. Regarding being the keeper of secrets, I find that people wind up wanting to tell me their life stories and every intimate detail possible. They don't claim it's a secret but why me? I think we are marked or something.

    ReplyDelete
  12. pssssst .... so, what's the reson for her to leave? :P

    ReplyDelete
  13. Jai: I think trivial secrets if terbocor also should be fine... but some people might get very annoyed about it.

    Ricardo: Maybe we are... in fact my sister suspects it might have something to do with us being good listeners, hence people start telling things...

    zewt: ha... this is something you should be able to guess :D

    ReplyDelete

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...