One of my coworkers, E, likes to talk. She’s blonde with big hair and in her mid-20s. And, usually, she’ll just walk into my office and start talking at me. It’s generally friendly in tone, but she just rambles on and on, jumping from one subject to the next — whatever pops in her head.
Each time, it’s a completely one-sided conversation, as I just end up nodding and saying “uh-huh, uh-huh” every couple sentences. Today, I timed it by looking at my PC’s clock as she began a ramble-session: she ended up wasting 20 minutes of my time as I sat there and listened with the occasional “uh-huh, uh-huh”.
I need to find some way of politely letting her know that I don’t have time to listen to her ramble on, especially not for 20 minutes at a time :-/.
There are a few techniques for dealing with ‘E’ here:
http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail37.html
Enjoy.
Projectile vomit. Nothing stops a conversation like projectile vomit.
Start squirming in your seat, hunching forward, etc. Stand up all of a sudden and say “I’ve gotta go!!!” The great bathroom escape.
I have coworkers like this too. People just need to learn to have a social life outside of work. I come to work to work not to socialize.
Erica: Well, yeah, but how do I politely tell her that I’m not interested in all her talking?
Sounds like someone has a crush on you buddy
Oh God. I don’t know…maybe my whole damn office is like this. I feel like I’m in an old folks’ home and my job is to allow them to bust in my office and ramble on while not getting upset. It’s like a test from the evil spirits to see if I can hold my temper without wanting to cut someone. I even had two individuals come into my office, I turned my back on them and started doing something similar to http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail37.html.. and I swear, they carried on the conversation without me IN MY OFFICE… WHAT MORONS!
I’ve got the same problem, if not worse, at my work; the op. manager couldn’t make a point in under five minutes to save her life, plus she must complete douse herself in some God-awful cologne (and I do mean cologne) that gads me to no end! So I’ve got to sit there and listen her go on and on and on about why something didn’t get delivered somewhere, and smell that horrible smell– that does not go away when she does!
I won’t even mention the guy with the BO and the inordinate amount of missing teeth who decides to come hang out in my office every time I eat in at lunch… I’ve stopped doing that. I had too. I was becoming bulimic.
I have a coworker with big, frizzy blonde hair, a high-pitched voice, and the need to talk to everyone for so long she actually repeats things. When she tries to show me how to do something, she confuses me, and other coworkers actually come by and show me again after she’s gone. She also says, “you know” constantly. She’s extremely sweet, so it’s hard to get rid of her. I feel your pain.
We just hired a new broad and she will not shut the fuck up. I can deal with my manager most of the time, but this other woman in addition is just too much. She makes me want to not live. I am not Mike and I do not work in the central NJ area.
I want to know how to please everybody all the time at a new job? I try to work hard as possible while everyone stands and talks but yet some have issues with me not staying overtime. Also when I defend myself I’m just to sensitive!!!!!!!!!! HELP ME PLEASE.
I had one of these, and I was patient with him for an entire year. I could stand the long sessions of being trapped in my cube for hours to some extent, bobbing my head up and down the whole time, but I couldn’t take the negativity of my coworkers comments. Everything that happened was due to someone’s incompetence, or stupidity or because the company sucked. Finally, after the health care reform bill passed, he was following the news closely and went into an uproar, and started to rant about how someone should just blow up Obama. That was it. I complained, but of course, corporate HR being what it is, their policy is to shoot the messenger for bothering them. So nothing was done, and now he’s just perpetually pissed off at me, but at least he doesn’t run his mouth anymore.
I had one of these, and I was patient with him for three years. I could stand the long sessions of being trapped in my cube for hours to some extent, bobbing my head up and down the whole time, but I couldn’t take the negativity of my coworkers comments. Everything that happened was due to someone’s incompetence, or stupidity or because the company sucked. Finally, after the health care reform bill passed, he was following the news closely and went into an uproar, and started to rant about how someone should just blow up Obama. That was it. I complained, but of course, corporate HR being what it is, their policy is to shoot the messenger for bothering them. So nothing was done, and now he’s just perpetually pissed off at me, but at least he doesn’t run his mouth anymore.