Gossip, Gossip, and Bitterness

I actually have no idea what I want to say, but I just have the urge to write a post about a little story about my husband at work.

Let's just hope this is short.

John rides his bike to work everyday and wears a helmet, so when he rides up to work, he puts his helmet on the back counter and does his nerdy banking stuff.  He has done this for well over a year.  The other day, a coworker said, "John, if would be nice if you could find a place to hang up your helmet".  John said, "yeah, that would be nice", thinking that it really would be nice, but there really wasn't any other place to put it.  Over the next few days he noticed that someone kept putting it on the floor.  Then finally John asked another coworker why his helmet kept being placed on the floor.  She said that there were complaints about his helmet being on the counter and she also added that he had been asked several times by the assistant manager to put the helmet somewhere else.Well, that's not exactly how it went down.  He was told once, and it wasn't even direct, it seemed as more of a suggestion.

The point of this story is wouldn't it have been easier the first time that it grosses someone out to say "yo Johnny, put your helmet somewhere else, it's gross on the counter"?  Did they think that John would have been offended or had his feelings hurt if someone said it directly?  The sad thing about this story is that I'm almost positive all of his coworkers were complaining about it for months before anyone told John.  That's just a lot of bitterness building up before the breaking point.

That story sounds pretty lame.  Hopefully you can read it with my intonation so it doesn't sounds so bland.

What's the point of talking behind someone's back about something that bugs you?  If it is something that can easily be fixed with a suggestion, why do people wait so long to say something about it?  Doesn't that just build up anger?

Oh, and please people, just be direct.  My sister reminds me constantly that I'm fat instead of saying, "have you ever thought about eating more veggies?  How is that Zumba going?"  No.  From those phrases I don't understand that I'm fat.  Just tell me.  Get it?  First of all, I know it and if there is something that might hurt my feelings in the beginning, that's okay.  I'll get over it within the hour.