I don’t think this is actually the rule by common practice (and not all bad things should be illegal). For example, if one of your friends/associates says something that you think is stupid, going around telling everyone that they said something stupid would generally be seen as rude. It would also be seen as crazy if you overheard someone saying something negative about their job and then going out of your way to tell their boss.
In both cases there would be exceptions, like if if the person’s boss is your friend or safety reasons like you mentioned, but I think by default sharing negative information about people is seen as bad, even if it’s sometimes considered low-levels of bad (like with gossip).
There’s definitely a fair expectation against gossiping and bad-mouthing. I don’t think that’s quite what the OP is talking about, though. I believe the relevant distinction is that (generally speaking) those behaviors don’t do any good to anyone, including the person spreading the gossip. But consider how murkier the situation becomes if you’re competing for a promotion with the person here:
if you overheard someone saying something negative about their job and then going out of your way to tell their boss.
I don’t think this is actually the rule by common practice (and not all bad things should be illegal). For example, if one of your friends/associates says something that you think is stupid, going around telling everyone that they said something stupid would generally be seen as rude. It would also be seen as crazy if you overheard someone saying something negative about their job and then going out of your way to tell their boss.
In both cases there would be exceptions, like if if the person’s boss is your friend or safety reasons like you mentioned, but I think by default sharing negative information about people is seen as bad, even if it’s sometimes considered low-levels of bad (like with gossip).
There’s definitely a fair expectation against gossiping and bad-mouthing. I don’t think that’s quite what the OP is talking about, though. I believe the relevant distinction is that (generally speaking) those behaviors don’t do any good to anyone, including the person spreading the gossip. But consider how murkier the situation becomes if you’re competing for a promotion with the person here: