The power of gossip

Rotorua is a hotbed of gossip. But no one gossips about you, right? Wrong! Of course people gossip about you. If you sneeze in Ngongotaha, they know about it half an hour later in Owhata! Okay, so that’s a bit exaggerated. Let’s say you drive into your own mailbox on your way to work, they’ll know about that all over town by lunchtime.

The point is that your life is the subject of discussion and gossip, and Rotorua is a small community in which most people have heaps of contacts, so gossip travels fast, and the juicier it is, the faster it travels.

So you have a respectable job, you dress up well, you work hard at your job, looking and acting the part. What do you think happens if you do something not in keeping with your respectable position. That’s juicy gossip! Your reputation will be dragged through the mud, and probably no one will ever tell you what’s being said about you behind your back. For example, there are people who go to noisy drug parties, which badly upset entire neighbourhoods, in their work vehicles! And the decent neighbours all around are saying to themselves, I don’t want to deal with that firm, now I’ve seen how their employees behave. Then that goes out on the gossip round, as in ‘Don’t deal with that firm, you can’t trust junkies to do a decent job’.

So think twice before you give others some juicy gossip to spread about you. The only certain way to have a decent reputation is to live a decent life, at home as well as at work, because your neighbours know far more about you than you think. There are many perks to living a decent life, it’s better for your health, it’s better for your employment prospects and your finances, and you will also find it’s better for your emotional states. And the decent people all around you at home and at work, will like you better, respect you more, and trust you more.