Out of the loop? It could be you

A 2 million Lottery winner says she won't give up work because she'd miss the office gossip. Too late, says Mark Jones.

No one will want to swap tittle-tattle with a millionaire

NIKI Otterburn is one of those very British Lottery winners. She has banked 2.2 million, and her first thought is to get straight back to work at her fitness club in Leeds.

She is not a selfless public servant in the vein of sterilising technician Tom Webb (1.6 million), who went back to his Scottish hospital because he feared operations would be postponed without him. Niki (with all that money, you'd think she could afford an extra "k") wants to return because "the members of staff are really nice and I like gossip too much".

But will anyone want to gossip with Niki? After all, she can now afford to buy the club outright - and still keep herself in a new leotard every day until she's as old as Jane Fonda.

What's the betting the directors suddenly see what an immense talent they've been missing in Niki and put her straight on the board?

If so, she will never get her wish. The gossip machine will be out of bounds to her for ever. As she descends in her executive, pinstriped ankle-warmers, the conversation around the water cooler will suddenly cease and conscientious work faces will appear all around.

For office gossip is the revenge of the people on the bigwigs. The higher you go, the less you get to hear the information that really matters: what Gary did with Claire after the pub on Friday night, what Steve keeps in his bottom drawer (and whose catalogue it came from), who's pregnant, who wishes they were, who's off the drink or on the coke and what that interesting stain next to the photocopier is.

Your MD will preach at length about "transparency" and "encouraging a corporate culture where we all share information and common objectives".

The assembled faces at the staff meeting will nod in earnest unison.

Afterwards, they'll say: "Maybe he'll tell us where he's playing golf on Friday, then."

Email has been a great boon to the life of the office gossip. Every company now has a permanent underground press spreading sedition and vile rumour.

Sooner or later, you are bound to send that message saying "Anyone notice that Donna looks exactly like William Hague with hair?" to Donna herself by mistake.

But you won't be deterred, however many times the IT manager sends round dire warnings about private emails being closely monitored. In any case, you happen to know what is in the IT manager's bottom drawer, so who cares anyway?

Every office is a racy celebrity magazine in miniature. The only people who hate what's said are those who find themselves the subject of the big stories.

THE person who says she hates office gossip and can't understand what satisfaction small-minded people can possibly derive from it will usually be the person who was seen buying underwear at Ann Summers when she was meant to be in a client meeting (three children too!). Then everyone clusters around sympathetically saying "Yes, people can be so cruel, can't they?" It's exactly like those celebrity interviews where the journalist asks questions like: "How did you cope with the terrible media intrusion after you were caught on camera, with witnesses, having an orgy with a dairy herd in Derbyshire?

It must have been unbearable." Still, you have to admire Niki for re-entering the fray. But she should be very careful what she wears, or there will be an awful lot of "ooooohh, catch her!!"-ings behind the filing cabinets.

And if Robbie Williams rings for a date, she should say no.

Nun-like aloofness is her only option now.

Mark Jones is editor of High Life. No one tells him anything.

Copyright 2001
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