Invertebrates

Next week I have a job interview with another school here in Bogota. The school is a British-run and British-operated school with a British curriculum. If a job is offered to me, I would be inclined to think that it would be a relief from the invertebrates I've been working with and for for the past few years. God forbid if I should make a mistake or if I make an error in judgment or make some cultural faux pas, I would actually hear about it from a supervisor shortly afterward but no. I have to hear it from a coworker weeks later after the incident has gone through the entire staff. To give you a good example, in my current school of employment, it has come to the point where my immediate supervisor is afraid (literally afraid) of talking to me. If she has something to say to me directly, it is usually in the form of short bursts of well-rehearsed sentences without making eye-contact. What kind of a boss is that?

Speaking of invertebrates, I had a very bizarre conversation with a coworker a couple of weeks ago. Now keep in mind, this coworker woman and I haven't said 10 words to each other since August aside from the occasional 'good morning', mostly because she and I are in different departments and have different schedules. It was the end of the workday on a Thursday and the conversation was very brief but disturbing and went something like this (in Spanish, of course):
her: "So I heard you juggle, or you are a juggler."
me (after a few confusing moments to see if she was actually speaking to me). "Yes, that's right."
her: "So is that the reason why you feel so superior to everyone?"
me (after a few more confusing moments processing what she had just said): "Um, what?"
her: "Yeah, is that the reason why you feel so superior to everyone?" (she repeated it in case I didn't understand because of the language when in fact I didn't understand how she could make the leap from such a benign question to such a malignant one).
another female coworker from behind me: "Yeah, and so hateful, too."

Rather than defend myself or get into some heated discussion, I simply shook my head in disbelief, chuckled a bit, turned to my friend Charlie as I was slinging my backpack over my shoulder and said, "Well, it's good to know that everyone feels so positive on having me around. It makes me feel so good about myself." I wished him a good evening and promptly left.

My point is that there will be gossip no matter where I work, I've learned that from experience. But when gossip prevents someone of authority from doing their job is where I have a problem. Of course all the women get along with each other and along with most of the men, too. Charlie is like Switzerland, he pleases everyone and has everyone's trust but, in truth, simply has a high tolerance for bullshit. I don't. This phenomenon of gossip was common in the last school I worked at, too, but it wasn't as bad. I have my own theories about why it's worse at this current school compared to the last one but whatever. It doesn't matter. I didn't know what to do about it then and I still don't other than to ignore it and focus on doing a good job. One can only hope that the British school doesn't function like this.