05.02.05 The 3rd Consequence of Participating in Negative Gossip

3. Risk of Unemployment

Involving oneself in negative gossip can cost a gossiper his or her job, such as what happened to Miriam in the desert; and Lulu at JuaLink.

As already hinted above, Miriam’s narrative portrays a woman who was on a God-given ‘prophetic’ and ‘worship-leading’ assignment amongst the children of Israel, which we could regard as a form of ‘divine employment’. However, we are not certain whether she continued ministering in that role after the ‘leprosy incident’. The bible does not mention such a thing anywhere, apart from reporting Miriam’s death in Numbers 20:1.

In the JuaLink story, the board declined to renew Lulu’s contract after discovering that her gossiping habits had been instrumental in sending away many star performers. The new board was worried that keeping her at the Agency could further fuel the exodus of JuaLink’s best team members to Bidacom and other competitors. Therefore, negative gossip can render you ‘unemployed if the discomfort and toxicity associated with your gossipmongering causes excellent performers to leave the organisation or entity; wherefore, policies could prefer that the gossiper exits rather than losing talent.

Another way that negative gossip could render an individual unemployable is when potential employers link a gossiper’s behaviour to the closure of units, departments or even organisations of past employers. To put it simply, no sober employer would want such a person to work in one’s institution. In that regard, it is worth noting that after the termination of Lulu’s employment at JuaLink, all her efforts to look for employment did not yield any fruit since background checks would reveal that her former employer had not renewed her contract due to her ‘negative gossip’ tendencies.