Are you a storm starter?

Sally 'Storm' Starter

You know when I was in high school I was looking forward to graduating because then I could get away.  Well it wasn't all a nightmare, I actually loved most of high school and made some really great lifelong friends, but I did have to deal with the cliques; the jocks, the preps, cheerleaders, the grunges etc.  I was a band/chorus nerd and was proud of it.

from the cliques and the drama always associated with high school.  The people talking behind everyone's back, the people judging you by what clothes you wore, the way you wore your hair, the activities you did, didn't do, it was a nightmare.  Ok, it wasn't

After I graduated I was looking forward to the new experience that would be college. I saw movies where the college kids gathered on the lawn of the college and played guitar and read and had lunch and everything was sunshine and rainbows.  I couldn't wait to go to college and get into one of those groups!  Until I got there, and I didn't know a soul and there wasn't a guitar player on the lawn.  There wasn't girls holding posters waiting for me to arrive to complete their group.  Looking back now I think this is one of the signs of my social anxiety.  I couldn't bring myself to talk to anyone.  I was so excited when someone would actually talk to me, and in that only semester I had at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa I only met a handful of people and alas I ended up flunking out of UNI anyhow and bounced for major to major...that's another drawn out story for another time. I thought working HAD to be better.  I had watched all of these movies about lunch meetings and after work gatherings.

Stirring the pot causing disaster in its wake

So I started working, I had my my fair share of jobs but most of them were working in offices.  I have to admit it was somewhat better than high school...but not much.  There were the "cool" kids that everyone wanted to hang out with which...normally didn't include me.  I vividly remember a woman for the third floor at The Courier (the local newspaper in Waterloo, Iowa) coming down stairs with a box of cookies and giving one to her two friends in my department as well as the Circulation Director.  The cookies were to announce she was pregnant, I will never forget what a loser I felt like sitting at my desk while the other women were screaming and hugging each other at her news.  There were, of course, people at every place I worked at that were storm starters.  They live for trying to find out and exploit information.  You know what I am talking, about the conversation starts out normal;
Sally Stormer Starter "Hi! How are you? Oh my gosh what's with this weather we are having"
Me "I'm good, went shopping for the kids and got my new shoes covered in snow" then the conversation takes a turn...
Sally "Oh that's crazy! You know I was talking to Barb the other day and did you notice her hair?  She colored it..."
Me "I did notice that"
Sally "What do you think of it, you know I love Barb but I seriously think she is trying to hard with her hair style"
Me "Well, maybe the color is a little dark for her skin tone but if she likes it that is up to her"

Next thing you know, there is drama going around that I said that Barb looks and acts like a teenage girl with her hair cut and the color is far too dark and she look like Elvira Princess of Darkness.  WHAT?! I didn't say anything like that. So not only do I have to spend the next six hours saying what I actually DID say but defending what I didn't say.  And we all know that once something is out there already having been said whether it is true or not...people listen.

Within all of these stages in my life there has always been that one person that is a Sally Storm Starter.  They like to be in the center of the drama.  To be that person that like to tell people when they have been talked about, even if they have to over dramatize so they can be there to counsel the person AND gather more information.  It like I discussed in my blog yesterday about cutting people down you can read it by clicking here. By feeding into the circle of drama and not watching our words it ends up being an endless cycle.

It's hard to spot a storm starter and you will quite possibly get burned. But my advice to you, from my own personal experience, is to mind you word.  Don't say anything about another person you wouldn't say if they were standing right in front of you.  And when a storm does get started, remain calm, turn the other cheek and wait for the storm to pass.

Do you know a Sally Storm Starter?  How have you dealt with it?