Traveling at the Speed of Gossip

So my life is so interesting these days that apparently people come out of the woodwork when I do things.  Or rather, when I do things wrong.

*sarcasm*  My life is FAR from interesting.

Who hasn’t had something happen that they’ve just had to vent about?  It has nothing to with anyone else, just a crappy thing that happens.  And something crappy did happen.

So me, being human, posted about said crappy thing on Facebook.

You see, I can’t actually go into detail about the crappy thing, because later on I got called out for it.  I don’t want anymore hurt feelings or people thinking that I’m attacking their good name or anything like that.  BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED!

I was simply venting about something that happened.  And later on told the tale of how it was resolved.  And my life went on.

But apparently other people’s lives stopped in their tracks.  They had to be sure to tell my tale of woe.  I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had written a sonnet about it.  Something happened, because a couple of weeks later I was told that if I posted negative things about my place of employment that I needed to follow it up with something positive.

I made sure I told this person I did indeed tell how the situation was resolved.  She said she didn’t see that part, and the damage was already done.

Huh?

Naturally I had to go back and read my post… and then I deleted it.  I felt bad.  This had nothing to do with anything or anyone else, just a crappy day.

And then I started to overthink, because that’s what I’m very good at.  If people are watching my page, waiting for me to post the wrong thing so they can run and tell the person that they think I’m talking about the things that I’m actually not talking about, then maybe I need to not post anything remotely work oriented on my page at all.

So I simply announced that I wouldn’t be sharing work related items on my personal page anymore, and politely directed people to my organization’s work page where they can see all of the wonderful things going on.

By the way, I’m reiterating here that this is on MY PERSONAL PAGE.  My place of work has their own page.

Remember that episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon and Amy conduct an experiment to see how fast gossip spreads?  This literally took minutes to reach my place of work.  Apparently I pissed some people off?  One person called my boss to tell her the shocking thing I had posted.  Another person took a screen shot of my post and sent it to her.  She confronted me and asked what was wrong…

I tried to explain the situation to her, who by the way is not on Facebook.  And that I am still maintaining the business page, I’m just NOT SHARING WORK STUFF ON MY OWN PERSONAL PAGE!!!

It didn’t matter.  I had to take it down.  So I did.  Done, right?

The next day I issued an apology for my actions.  I explained that I had simply had a bad day and didn’t mean to offend anyone with the original post.  I did this because it was the right thing to do.  I left it up for a day, then took it down.

And people were still pissed.  I had to just move on, because life is too short to worry about this shit.  I have other things to worry about, like my son learning to walk again and an upcoming MRI to see if he has more spinal tumors.

I’m still not sharing anything work related on my page.  As a matter of fact, I took down every darn tootin thing that even referenced where I work.  Because I can, because it’s my personal page and I can post anything I want!

So what is it about social media these days?  Why is it ok to post some things and not others?  It’s nitpicky stuff like this that makes me wonder why I’m even on social media.  Yes I have to maintain the page for work, but the thought of deleting my Facebook account at times makes me feel awesome.

I’m a social wreck.  I can pass as a normal person as long as I don’t open my mouth. So maybe that’s the ticket-I shouldn’t say anything?

Here’s the thing-I quit blogging because of stuff like this.  Either someone was constantly telling me how to phrase things differently, or didn’t get my weird humor, or something like that.  My husband poked a lot of fun at me.  And I was falling into a deep depression.

I started seeing a therapist recently.  I needed it-between the cancer stuff and the work stuff and my son’s rehab and doctor’s appointments I was going bonkers.  And as we’ve been working through things it came back to writing.  She thinks I need to start writing again.  Just anything, anonymous if I’d like.

So tonight I did.  And it felt pretty damn good.

When you live in a small town where everyone knows everyone it’s hard to escape from the gossip.  But gosh darn it I’m going to try to my best!

Do you work in a small town?  Do you have to deal with the fall out over people overreacting to something you might have posted online? This is just the tip of the iceberg for me these days, but I’m dying to hear who else deals with this bullcrap too!

So if you’re easily offended and read this post and think that I may have written it about you, trust me, I didn’t.  It’s not you, it’s me.  The end.