The reason I ask is because someone at my job is doing this. Literally, one day she was talking so much garbage about a female coworker and giving her a hard time. The next day, when she found out that the female had been considered for a promotion (not above or on the same level as hers), she was so nice to her. Not only was she actually talking to the female coworker and not being short with her as before, she was actually laughing with her and telling her personal stories.

It sickened me. I called her out on it right after the female coworker left. Actually, everyone in our office was wondering why they were talking. Someone even mocked the situation and called the coworker her best friend. The brown-noser then said something to the effect of, "Well, we have to work together, now." She went on to say that you shouldn't burn your bridges, because you never know when you'll need to cross them again.

I don't see it that way at all. I refuse to kiss ass, especially at work. Ass-kissers are ass-kissers because they think that being fake and kissing ass is the only way that they can get whatever it is that they're trying to get. Therefore, I find it absolutely useless for me to kiss ass. Even if I didn't have the smarts to get what I want, I still wouldn't kiss ass. I have my dignity.

Someone brought up this topic at a site that I visit. I wrote a lengthy response and just decided to reblog it.

I've noticed that the backstabbing, gossip, and manipulation gets worse as you go down our company hierarchy.

I swear, you could put the data on a chart and would be amazed at the correlation between a group of employees' position in our company and the amount of gossip and backstabbing that goes on within it.

It's so bad with our lower-level employees (I hate to call them "lower-level," especially in this context, but that's where they are in our company) there's so much gossip and lies. They spend so much time bitching and complaining and gossiping. It's annoying.

With our supervisors, there's still gossip, but it's tolerable for me. What I hate is actually seeing people gossip and our supervisors don't do that...as much. But, on the other hand, it's almost as bad as the lower-level employees, because our supervisors are more sneaky about it, because they know that upper management frowns on gossip. So, that's where the backstabbing and manipulation comes in. They try to get other supervisors to turn on other supervisors. They forget to tell other supervisors about important meetings. It's crazy. If they would just focus on their jobs.

That's what upper management does. Our upper management team does have older employees, with the exception of three, whose personalities aren't that of the type of people who spend their days gossiping. So, maybe it's not the level of the employee, it's the employee's character and ethics.

I was watching a repeat of One Life To Live early this morning on soapNet and at the end of the episode, they paid tribute to Clint Ritchie, who played Clint Buchanan. I had no idea that he had died. He actually died a month ago, on January 31st. That is just so sad. I found it a bit eerie watching the repeats with him after finding that out. I'll miss him.

I wonder if he'll be replaced. I can't say that I'll miss his character, though. Over the past year or so, since Asa died, the writers have written him into a really nasty guy. Now, I liked the nasty, vindictive Asa Buchanan, but to see Clint turn into his own father was just unsettling. We'll see what happens, I guess.