SPILLING TEA…The New Gossip

 

You can’t go anywhere or watch any type of reality show without hearing the phrase “Spill the Tea”.  In fact, the reality shows we watch today (yes, I watch reality shows) are built on the premise of spilling the tea.  Spill the Tea simply means to “gossip”. Everyone has spilled some.  At times, I have been guilty of it myself.  I thought about the circumstances in which I found myself spilling tea, and I also thought about what I needed to do to stop it:

Girlfriend Tea
Danger, danger, danger…because tea is being spilled all over the place!  Whether it is two individuals or in a group, women have a tendency to tell each other about their lives AND the lives of others.  When I am with girlfriends, I realize that if I am not careful, I would be putting my two cents in on something that has absolutely has nothing to do with me and mines.  Consider this so as not to feed into the fury of talking about others.

1.       Take the high road – let your comments begin and end on positive note.

2.       Shut Up – say nothing; let others say what they want.  In time, they will see that you are not partaking in the conversation and the conversation will soon change.

3.       Tell them about it – simply be bold enough to say “we are getting ready to talk about something we know nothing about so let’s just nip it right now”.

Water Cooler Tea
Coworkers can be viewed as extended family members.  Think about it, we see them almost every day and in addition to working together they partake in celebrating the milestone in our lives such as birthdays, births, and promotions.  Coworkers grieve and sympathize with us during bad times such as in the times of sickness and even death.  Believe it or not, coworkers share our lives one way or another.

Water cooler tea is the worst type of tea because  information received usually does not come directly from the source.  It has been passed around the office by several individuals and by the time it gets to you it’s only a version of the truth. STAY CLEAR of water cooler tea!  Do not participate in it, it often leads to bad reputations and strained employee relationships.  It could also hinder promotion within the company.

Family Tea
 There is nothing like hearing all the latest news about the family.  Every family has a particular family member who knows everything about anyone in the family.  Most times, this person has good intentions and has the family’s best interest at heart.  If through the spilling of tea you find that a family member is in trouble, do what you can to offer assistance in the matter and if this is done, let it be in confidence.  Don’t feed into spilling of family tea.

Our relationships with family, friends and coworkers are some bonds that we want to make sure remain healthy.  Our conversations should be up lifting, positive and encouraging, and should anyone tell us anything in confidence we should honor them by keeping the conversation private.  So the next time you are tempted to spill the tea, ask yourself “would I like it if someone was talking about me like that?” When you look at it like that “spilling the tea” is a big mess you would want to avoid.

Peace and blessings,

Phaedra