2 yrs ago I was part of the Presidential Fellowship program, where you get rotated into various gov offices. My first rotation was a miserable rotation---Equal Employment Office. The most morally repugnant and sexually crass place one could work....I was the only white person in the office. And one would think that in a office that fights for gender, racial, and work-place equality...the employees would uphold these values, but nevertheless--sexual jokes were common, discussing the details of sexual harassment lawsuits(which should have remained private) was common....employees would bring black erotic fiction to work and leave it on their desks or discuss the details of their sex lives and one guy even discussed details of his prostate exam with the female employees...

Since the morale in the office was floundering...the boss organized a team building retreat to a luxuary resort in the mountains...During this retreat I opted not to have dinner with my colleagues every night because of how crass they were and wanted to stay out of their tawdry gossip... So one day when one of the motivational speakers asked me if I wanted to have dinner I agreed. We had dinner at the hotel and nothing sexual happened. It was a friendly dinner.

I guess one of the women on the team saw us and right after I left my rotation a male friend told me she told everyone in the office that I had slept with the motivational speaker. I put this behind me, since I was on my second rotation. It's been 2 yrs since this incident and I was having dinner with another colleague this weekend and he mentioned that two of the new interns(who don't know me) brought up the topic of "the girl who slept with the instructor during the team building retreat". I'm enraged at this 50 yr old woman who is still spreading malacious rumors about me 2 yrs after leaving that rotation. What should I do? I'm so pissed that my integrity has been sullied and I'm thinking about filing a EEO complaint myself, since I'm a permanent federal employee. This is so disgusting, that a young woman in her 20s has to put up with this...I've never been a whore, never will be a whore...and yet this is the behavior that a honest working woman has to put up with...Why does everything in today's culture have to be sexualized...When does having dinner with a man constitute sex?

How should I handle this?

Sorry for the long post....

Sorry to say this.... but you really can't stop "gossip". It's one of those things that people around you have to make up their own mind (to believe it or not). What "evidence" you have is mearly 2nd hand at best.

Other than having someone putting it into writing & signing it , you would need 2+ wittinesses who heard said individual say it.... preferably on multiple occasions.

Having said this.... you can see your Employee / Human Relations Office about this. They should be able to draft-up a memo to this individual , giving them warning about saying things about fellow employees without having concrete evidence.

Sometimes.... this works , sometimes it backfires.

I'd suggest to avoid this next time.... go as a couple.

Welcome, angel. I'm very sorry you work with a vicious woman. :(

I would confront her but I am not sure that would be good advice for you.

Ouch!

Personally, unless I'm confronted by the person who started the rumor, I just let it swirl.  I'll tell my side of the story if asked, but otherwise pay it no mind.  I don't give it my energy -- it's not worth it to me, because there's always going to be another rumor, and another one after that, and so and so and so on.  I can spend my life chasing my tail and stomping out these fires, or I can do what I want and let people who are dumb enough to believe them stay out of my life.

But that's just me.  :)

I'm assuming the speaker you had dinner with worked at the lodge / was not a part of the EEO dept.?

((angel)) I'm sorry you are having to deal with this! I hate to say it but this is just the way it is when there are three or more women in an office. They probably felt rejected by you, so they struck out at you. I won't join in with talk like that either, so I am a target as well.

There was rumor that I was having an affair once and I just let them show their ass.

Another time I was supposed to be engaged, so I went out and bought the most beautiful $15 diamond ring you have ever seen. They almost snapped their necks off looking at it. LOL

Bottom line you can't control them.  Anything that you can do to learn to handle this with humor or class, will help you the rest of your life.

Good luck!

I also feel like I should say that when you or I eat in public with someone like that, we open ourselves up to this. We have "fed the trolls". My number one rule is "Don't feed the trolls!".

Maybe you could write her a memo and give a copy to your Employee / Human Relations Officer? Maybe you can get her called to a meeting with a supervisor, and put your case?  Can you also get a letter from the original man concerned?

What a horrible situation, that this rumour is still sticking and being circulated

I sympathise as I was often the target of this kind of gossip as I used to go out with a lot of men for dinner or drinks - I rarely went to bed with them! Sadly, Glenn is correct - people will believe what they want to believe and there is nothing you can do to change that. Certain kinds of people think that if you have dinner with a man, you are 'obviously' sleeping with him - it's pathetic in this day and age (and was even in the 70s!) but that is human nature.

I think you are being 'punished' for rejecting the company of your colleagues. I'm not from your culture so I can't advise what procedure you can use to tackle this. My guess is this woman took your rejection as 'racist' and is getting back at your for that perceived slight. 

I also feel like I should say that when you or I eat in public with someone like that, we open ourselves up to this.

I totally reject the notion I can't have dinner with whom I choose, esp since it involves 50% of the human race, just because a few bitter people have prurient minds! Why do some people think the rest of the world is gagging for sex 24/7?

I'm curious Angel..do you have Libra? Your repulsion to this makes me think Libra and I totally agree with ya.

hmmm..what would I do...

First, I would probably be sad..because at 50 yrs old, this chic should be more evolved than that. Confront her? Maybe..but probably not because it wouldn't do any good. As far as your reputation..all these people know of you is that you avoided them like the plague and then took off with the speaker. I'm betting they are projecting "high and mighty" onto you because no one has ever addressed their raunchy behavior the way you did. Be high and mighty..you are too good for that crap. The only way you are going to thwart this rumor and "ID tag" is by letting them see what you are really about.

Ok, here is what I would do if it really bothered me and it probably wouldn't because I don't give a flip about what people say. But, I'd connect with the chic. I'd get to know her and let her get to know me. I'd smile at her...a lot..drives people that don't like you nuts really. I mean, you are at work right? And when dealing with difficult people at work you have to be the smart one that foregoes lopping off heads and taking the alternate route. To me, the alternate routes are 1) take her power away by discounting what she says within you or 2) make her your frenemy (friend-enemy) She is probably one of those types that likes to throw around outrageous rumors to offset attention to what she is doing in her personal life.

((angel))

This might sound silly, but laugh it off.

I've had rumors like that follow me around for a long time (yep, a Venus conjunct Pluto side effect), even if the rumors were grossly exaggerated or out and out lies.  One time, a woman who was sleeping with her married supervisor made up a rumor about me and one of the field guys to deflect from what SHE was doing.

Writing them up rarely stops them, from what I've seen.  It only makes them worse.

Act classy and graceful and nothing can knock you down.  I had to do that a few months ago, walking into a room full of women who believe I'm a "dirty slut" and a "filthy homewrecker" (again, nothing based in fact).  It was difficult, but I held my head high and mingled with the people who like me.  I didn't feed into their bullshit and left the thing almost literally smelling like a rose.

Here is what I think people where I work would probably handle this (we are canadian govenment and military);

Hold a meeting. At the meeting bring it up. Say something like "Although this is a work environment and my personal life is my private business, a rumour about me has come to my attention that may affect the work environment which I feel needs to be addressed. Especially since our work deals with sexual harrassment etc. Two years ago xxx and I discussed blahblahblah while at a work dinner. This apparently was witnessed and misinterpreted. It is very embarrassing to have to bring this up but I hope that my track record of working fairly and professionally with men in the work environment will hold itself higher than a rumour that simply does not fit who I am or what I stand for." And anything else that you can think of that is a blend of defense, assertiveness and fairness on the matter. Keep it short though. Possibly ask that people help stop the rumour? I'm not sure who you should hold the meeting with.. but don't take it too high up at this stage.   But NOT address it? I don't think that's a good idea considering that these are people you have to work with long term. This sets the stage for if you do have to go up without being too agressive about it etc.

It's important in any work environment to look like you are protecting the work environment firstmost.. that that is where your allegiance/priorities lie.

Pluto is transiting my 3rd while itching to sextile my jupiter and mercury, saturn is sitting on my libra sun/mars, and jupiter is in my 6th/7th.

So I hope this is helpful.

I have experiences this same kind of abhorrent gossip in the work place. Although, mine was not of the sexual nature. I just left. It was a temporary position and the rumors started just before it ended. I have a tendency to leave unpleasant situations anyway. But the thing is, I was there for 6 months. I worked there because it would've looked awesome on my resume. The office was extremely small and the gossip spread so quickly - it was not true at all, I don't even know where it came from - but even spread to their Los Angeles office. It was so embarressing that I won't even mention my time there on my resume. It's awful.

Had I stayed, or had it been a permanant position, I think that every time I heard anything about it, I probably would've have gone to each and every person whose name came up as spreading it and, not so much have a confrontation, but walked right up to the person and asked them why they would say such a thing. I would ask them how it is that they "know" this and what evidence they had regarding the matter that would justify them spreading such a viscious lie. I wouldn't hesitate to bring it up EVERY time. I would act as though they were petty and hurtful. Not only will they likely feel ashamed of themselves, but your willingness to defend yourself would probably make it seem more like a lie to them, and in the future, no one would dare say anything about it with word spreading that you will immediately bring it up to them. So long as you are consistant and maintain a policy of open and immediate confrontation of the situation. I mean, what's the alternative?

Angel,  I'm so sorry this is happening to you.  My virgo says that it sounds like you actually have a couple of problems (feel free to ignore if this doesn't feel/sound right or useful to you).

Problem 1: You're bothered by the work environment itself.  The pettiness of the people and the fact that the office environment seems to be fairly hypocritical.  You *seem* to be having a reaction of "why is it this way" "I didn't/don't want to be with/see my work environment this way"  ie the nasty reality is coming around to bite you.

The solution to that problem may be leaving or may be a longer term re-adjustment of your career goals and work environment to something you're more comfortable with.  Just identifying that it's not maybe for you in the long run can be helpful to distancing yourself from the daily "yuck" and can help you take steps to find a better/healthier work environment. 

Problem 2: The particular bad rumor going around about you.  Personally I don't have good ideas here and others above seem to have covered the smart, mature, honorable options.  I have pluto heavily tied up in my chart and so my methods of dealing with it have been, well, probably not constructive but have made me feel better.  To wit: starting another rumor about myself related to the first rumor that is much much much worse to the point of shocking and impossible.

When that rumor gets back around to me I laugh so hard the whole office/group etc. hears and then I say "you don't actually BELIEVE that" and stop and stare at the people.  I find that gossip about myself disappears overnight.  I've only done that once in a very nasty environment but it saved my sanity until I got out of there.  I do NOT believe that is a mature or responsible method for dealing with it but I share it in hopes that you can have a giggle at the inappropriateness that can come about when someone is stressed to the max and pull yourself forward to a better/healthier option in the long run.

Best of luck!  I hope you have some supportive friends you can share your troubles with.  Sometimes that release can be the bridge to something new.

I think Glenn's advice is the best so far.

I've worked in offices my entire career - some are better than others that's true.  Frankly, I think it's best to just let it lie. You know what the truth of the matter is and other people's innuendoes are their own problem.  However, if you feel that it has hindered your own career (which I'm not sure that has happened yet), then you should do as Glenn suggested.  And even though you're pissed and upset about people's possible opinions of you, there is not much you can do to change it.  You'll waste alot of time and energy doing so. Take the high road.  Prove your capabilities through your work.

"Take the high road.  Prove your capabilities through your work."

In mismanaging my own career and then reading books on why women don't advance, this raised a red flag to me. In the career area it's important for women to not just hide away and "let things blow over" unless it's a woman on woman dynamic that you CAN manipulate successfully.. and the reason is that in the male world of career it's open competition that it's about.

I worked for 5 years at a job where I figured my work ethics should speak louder than my interviewing skills. Not so. I was passed over for 7 full time positions doing the same work I had been doing for contract because I could not gather my energies enough to form a direct professional line to convince them in an interview. There was no expressed understanding of my priorities.

So no more. There is a formula, a structure that is important for women to grasp and learn to use effectively to shape their own career or workplace. Then they can gossip, be social etc. knowing they can protect their own back from other ppl interested in getting ahead, or holding position through gossip. It can sound ugly but unless you work in a female controlled work environment, playing a bit of the male game on feminine issues/areas is highly respected from what I can see. And women gossipping and not addressing it is seen as a weak thing. Men don't tend to let other men talk shit.

i have a coworker man who gossips to beat the band.. but at a meeting it's all proper language and above board. So one can always hold him to that and hence his gossip power is short lived. This is how they play it. I don't gossip much at work as a rule and avoid the ppl that due.. mostly due they think i'm their ally when i very much am not and others thinking we are allies and they bring a negative has hurt me in the past. Also they may use something i say to promote themselves at a later date.. ie take credit. Projection, neptune and game players. HEY that's all in my chart lol and i have leo on the 10th.