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!