Coworker asks me to urgently do something for him/her
We agree that I’ll get to it at once.
Coworker continues talking. Gets exasperated that task does not get done. I wait for him/her to stop/go away/preferably jump out of the window. Get exasperated that I cannot start thinking.
How do you deal with that situation?
Also, a related problem: Coworker wants for me to look something up, hovering over me, waiting. I sit there, seething because I need to log in to something first, he/she does not get the broadest hint (“wait a moment, I need to log in”) that he/she needs to look away (isn’t that the most basic computer etiquette?), and I am too chicken to explicitly ask for it.
You can’t expect people to read your mind, even when it seems perfectly obvious what you expect of them. Tell them “I need to put in my password please look away” and “Hey please stop talking and let me do X.”
You can also say “I find it distracting to have anyone next to me while I do this sort of thing. [Or: I can do it best and fastest when I’m not distracted by having anyone next to me while I do this.] Let me be alone for a moment [Or: for a few minutes] and I’ll have this for you very shortly.”
You can get away with sounding something that you might worry is a bit rude, if you say it in a joking way. For example, ‘Yes, I’ll do that task for you, once you stop yapping at me and leave me to get on with it,’ said with a grin on your face.
Another approach, if she’s talking, is to say, ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I’d better get onto this task now. I’ll give you a call/yell when it’s done, okay?’
I’m not so sure about the looking away thing. Thinking of situations when I’ve been at someone else’s desk, I’ve just taken care to be looking at the monitor, not the keyboard, when they type in their password.
I do start with the “Ok, I’ll get to work on it right now, and I’ll come over to you when it’s done,” and immediately start working on it. As in, take out the materials needed, open up the files, and get right to work. If she continues yapping at me, I’lll distractedly say “uh-huh” until she finds no answer to her conversation. 99% of the time they get the hint. For the other 1% I use sandra’s way, saying a rude thing with a smile on my face.
As for the password, I will just say it. “Hey, can you look away for a second, I’ve got to type my password in.” If they make fun of you or complain, just explain it away as an eccentricity of yours. “I’m a real stickler for password protection, had my password stolen once, and it’s just a habit now, you know.” If you can get away with it, you can also say, “the bosses are real anal about password protection.”
Combine the above with ignoring them. In other words, “I need to put in my password here, so please look away.” Then ignore them. “It will take me a couple of minutes to find the right file and print it out. I’ll bering it to you.” Then ignore them.
Remember, there’s no sense in expecting good manners from people who have no sense of good manners.
I use, “I’ll let you know when it’s done,” or some variation on that. Even the completely-clueless, no-social-skills guy I worked with understood that and went away.
I have a hoverer - I just can’t STAND to work when somebody’s looking over my shoulder, and here I have this woman who’s watching me do nitchy little stuff like fixing the formatting on a document, clicking a bunch of little boxes, etc. I’ve asked her not to hover, but I think I hurt her feelings. I feel bad, but I can’t deal with it.
If it’s someone I really can’t be rude to, I suggest they “go get a cup of coffee” while I do the task.
I have a really hard time typing while someone is standing over me, so I really sympathize. It should be legal to whack people who do that with a ruler (the measuring sort, not the Queen).
Everyone here is really polite, bar one. It’s not even that she isn’t polite, she doesn’t come to look at your screen until you ask, but when you do ask “Ok, come look at this”, she gets right in your personal space. She’ll come stand so close to you that she is actually touching you. Once she was resting her breast on my shoulder, lightly. Ick. It really makes me squirm and not a good way.
“Hon, I’m sorry, but I’m just so easily distracted by anyone being next to me when I do this. If you’d be a dear and let me work alone for a bit I’ll have it for you pronto. Thanks ever so much.” You can be sweet as pie, blame it on your idiosyncracy, apologize for being that way, thank them for understanding, but still insist on some space while you work.
I move my hands over the keyboard so as to block the view of keystrokes. I also give my boss my passwords in case someone needs access to something. A good work protocol is to save every iteration of a project with a time stamp and include it in the footer on printouts. When looking at a printout you have a fingerprint of when it was worked on and the last time it was printed out.
And if someone is hovering I say “you’re hovering, go awaaaay”. I’ll bring it ASAP. Now if it’s a favor to someone I’ll point out that I have other work to do and will be happy to help but “go awaaaaay”.
