Just point your imaginary remote control at them and continuely keep pressing the mute button like your remote is broke. When they finnaly stop talking to ask you what the hell you’re doing; just say: “It’s this damn remote of mine, the mute button seems to be broke…”
Or my personal favorite, just tell them: “Hey, whoa, buddy, not a lot’a time here. How 'bout the readers digest version…” Then if they still continue to talk I just start waving my hand at them (like a real asshole myself) like yeah, yeah, come on hurry up… And if they’re STILL not going fast enough I just let out a couple of sighs and a couple of :rolleyes: Which always seems to work for me.
Ech, don’t be like people you hate. It’s perfectly possible to keep a good level of control on how a conversation is going without being rude. Just keep pulling it back on track, and when you gotta go, just politely say so, then turn away to do what you gotta do.
No need to be cutting. Also, it seems sort of sad to think that someone who wants to talk to you when you don’t want to talk to them is doing it out of some power play where they have a right to talk, and you’re the weak person who just has to take it.
IMO, it’s a compliment. They want to talk to you and share the minutae of their day. Just cause someone’s socially oblivious doesn’t mean they’re trying to walk all over you, some people just need more than a hint that you’ve got to go. Just smile, say “hey, good to see you, but I’ve got to get back to it”. If you honestly don’t have anything to do, then keep something handy you can fake it with.
If you’re a receptionist or some other kind of assistant type thing where you can’t even fake an urgent task, then chatting it up and being friendly w/ clients and so on is kinda part of the job…
I have a similar problem at work, in that we schedule 300 pilots, and any given time there’s 2 of us on my shift to do everything plus deal with lots of (necessary) incoming calls. The problem is, we know these guys well, they’re often bored on layover or somewhere overseas and they can get really chatty.
Depends on the individual guy, but if I can’t spare the time, I chat for just a bit, and as soon as I can reasonably get a word in edgewise, segue a response into some sort of exit line.
Something like “I hate to cut you off, but I’ve got to get back to work pretty quick. Anything else I can do for you before I let you go?”
That’s both polite to their desire to chat, and clearly says “hey, gotta go now!”
Which works too as long as you’re friendly about it.
I’m another non-assertive person who will be watching this thread. My problem is that I have a horror of seeing another person embarrassed. I don’t hear other people fart, I don’t see them stumble, and I don’t want to have to tell them they’re boring me.
I like to say, “Dude, there’s nothing I like more than to waste time on the boss’s dime, but so-and-so will come unglued if I don’t finish this. I’ll catch up with you later and you can fill me in.”
If that doesn’t work, you really have no choice but to ignore the person and continue what you were doing.