Knowing a secret at work before it is officially announced is just like knowing, as a kid, that Santa isn't real. You don't know who else knows and who doesn't, and so you're afraid to say anything to anyone. Because, having been sworn to secrecy, nobody wants to be the one to tell the news to someone who doesn't know. And yet if you knew that others knew, everyone could stop pretending not to know.

In kindergarten this meant saying to my friend Sara, "Do you think Santa comes down the chimney?" And then she said slyly, "I don't know...Do you know?" And then I said, "I don't know....Do you know?" Back and forth we went, both knowing but not knowing for sure if the other knew, until finally we just gave up without ever knowing.

At work what happens is that everyone who knows does a little dance around each other in which they try to ascertain if the others know, without outright asking. Suddenly, "Hey, how are things?" becomes more than a simple greeting. It could mean how are things but it could just as likely mean how are THINGS? As in, how are you feeling about the THINGS that we both know but can't say we know? And one's response to this is critical because it needs to be a reply that is appropriate both to how things are and how THINGS are, just in case the person is asking about THINGS and not things. Suddenly you're speaking in code without being sure the other person even knows how to decipher.