Gossip from the Manager?

[KarmaComesAround]

our manager was out on medical leave, and when she returned she called us into her office to ask how things have been going, any suggestions, improvements, etc... well, stuff that was said by some people has got around. what was supposed to be a confidential behind closed doors with the boss has become gossip on the floor. one particular charge nurse is being rude and making sarcastic comments to another nurse i work with b/c of some of the complaints. it is obvious she knows what was said by the comments, but she is not directly coming out and saying it. she is being very unprofessional. and what was said about this charge nurse was not mean...this particular nurse has nothing against the charge nurse...she actually likes her. it was just some objective observations made, and she felt the need to speak up when asked (do not forget that we were asked about things, we did not go in to complain to the manager and we did not just volunteer info). the manager even stated there had been several complaints regarding the same thing. well, it is obvious the manager has repeated these things to coworkers, apparently she has mentioned names...and yeah, the floor i work on is very gossipy with cliques and lots of backstabbing--it is very high school. the nurse manager is apparently having a hard time drawing the line between being a manager and being a friend or participator in the gossip. and the only reason i know what was said about this charge nurse was because i was there (some of us talked to manager individually, some went in pairs at the end of a shift). i have noticed the rudeness from the charge nurse as well...any suggestions? i am not sure if the manager told someone else who told someone else, etc... or if it was directly told to the charge nurse. is this right??

[caliotter3]

I've had a manager pull this one on me. Gossiped to people who had no need to hear anything about the subject they talked about and to make it worse, said untrue things about me to prospective employers. The clincher here is that the person had previously stated that they would act as a reference so I was listing this person's name as a professional reference based on their statement to me. Little did I know what was going on behind my back until a person who interviewed me told me flat out. My view is if you despise a person so much, then you should at least be enough of a man (or woman) to be able to say something to their face. Or do the professional thing: tell someone you can't be a reference for them and why. Managers have no business talking trash about their subordinates and they have no business lying about a person's job performance. Nor do they have any business depriving someone of their livelihood, unless justified. A friend of mine who was formerly my supervisor said that she would never keep someone from getting a job. If something was that bad, she, too, would tell them that she couldn't be a reference. To think what I did to help this former manager and how I would defend the person whenever I heard someone denigrating them. I don't expect any rewards in heaven for having been so foolish and such a poor judge of character.