Ahhh yesss, the cousin of the interrupter is definitely the sentence-finisher. And while we’re on the subject I’d like to introduce you to another relative in the family… The answerer-of-questions-asked-of-other-people.
My most recent example of this…
I got home from work and noticed that someone had brought the trash bin back up from the curb. My wife wasn’t home from work yet, so I knew one of my two daughters actually did something proactive, and I was pleased.
A few hours later my wife and I are in living room watching television and my older daughter passes through. I ask her “Did you move the trash bin up from the curb?” My wife answers the question for her saying “Yes she did.” I was immediately frustrated because knew I was now going to have to explain that she couldn’t possibly know the answer as she got home after I did. She saw the trash bin, assumed I was asking “did you bring the trash bin up from the curb like I told you?” Instead I was trying to find out “Who brought the trash bin up from the curb? You, or your sister?”
Ultimately the wife got irritated with me for calling her out on it; when I still feel like if she had not bothered to answer a question asked of someone else. Also she has only recently become a sentence finisher.
Have a talking stick, or stapler, or whatever. Only people who holds it can speak. In order to speak, you must have hold of the stick
I guess I get impatient and you’d probably call me an interrupter too…but I find that most of the time people want to go on and on.
The type of people I interrupt all use the same strategy of communication that causes me to interrupt them; they use an opening phrase “um”, "well’, “so”…and then stall on that word while they gather their thoughts. I don’t do it on purpose, I just don’t see that as a legitimate method of communicating. If you jump in line at the chance to speak, then don’t know what you want to say, you are being just as rude.
All that being said, you need to “Chris Langen” it; crisp polished sentences that go marching on to infinity. You don’t interrupt that guy. He is too efficient.
Gather your thoughts before you speak, and be more conservative with your words.
mMOOOOOO!
First and foremost, I applaud you for refusing to allow him to steamroll over you. You absolutely had to do that. If you hadn’t done that, you would have lost all control of your dealings with him.
Next, I want to tell you about some incidents from my past that are somewhat related to your experience.
I have often read or heard about the problem of dealing with someone who has really terrible bad breath (or some other similar kind of problem) and I’m guessing that you have too. Just yesterday, I had to deal with a friend who came to visit me and wore so much cheap cologne that I was forced to saute a huge onion for 30 minutes after he left to get rid of the stench.
What do you do about that? What do you do when you need to work in close proximity with someone for more than just a few minutes and they have breath that is so terrible, it absolutely leaves you gasping?
Many experts or “so-called” experts lay out a strategy that begins by your telling these people that you truly do respect them and you need to tell them something that you hope they will be able to accept in good faith …
At any rate, I’m sure you’ve seen this kind thing before. The upshot is that in almost all cases - especially when you are the boss and they are an employee (or something similar) - they thank you profusely and tell you how much they appreciate hearing that truth from you.
However, it has been my experience that although an overwhelming percentage of these people react that way to your face, a similar percentage will have terrible nasty things to say about you behind your back - especially at some later date.
In most cases, what they have to say will not have anything to do with the quality of their breath or with what you had to say to them. It will be completely unrelated. They will call you an “asshole” for some other reasons that have essentially nothing to do with your conversation.
So, although my first reaction would be to encourage you to take this person aside, maybe to go to a cafeteria and have a private conversation with them about their tendency to interrupt and its ramifications, I’m very sad to say that no matter how you handle that conversation … the odds are they will never accept what you have to say at face value and, instead, will twist your words into some kind of nasty personal attack and many months or years later, you will eventually hear that they had to say (behind your back) that you were extremely nasty to them.
I’m very sorry for having to express this opinion to you. I just wish I knew of some way to handle this kind of problem that would have a more positive result. But try as I might, I have never found a satisfactory solution - despite having tried to follow the experts’ advice.
LOL! Excellent! I have no idea if this will actually work. But it’s a very funny post!
To the OP, I suggest you confront the guy on his interrupting tendencies right when it happens, especially if it’s just the two of you and a scene is unlikely because the subject matter is non-touchy.
It doesn’t have to be confrontational, though. I’m thinking something like this:
Him: “When did the order get shipped and has the lab been notified?”
You: “Well, the last time I checked, the order was–”
Him: “We need to log into the system, right?”
You: “Look, John. I’ve noticed you have the habit of interrupting me. I know you’re not doing it maliciously and that speech comes a little slow for me, so I’m not mad at you or anything like that. But could you please try not to do this? It really throws me off kilter and increases the odds of me telling you the wrong thing.”
By acknowledging how your style of speech may be contributing to the problem (even if it’s not), it’ll save the interrupter some face and keep them from getting defensive. And by telling him how his behavior goes against his own interests, it’ll make him more invested in stopping the behavior.
No one has called me out as interrupter (except my sis, but she doesn’t count), but I do sometimes find it difficult to sit silent if someone is talking a lot without saying anything significant (not saying this what the OP is doing). People in my office will sometimes express whole paragraphs when a sentence would suffice, and then get peeved if someone butts in. Then other folks seemingly can’t distinguish extraneous information from non-extraneous, and then on top of that, will grapple for words mid-sentence. Wrongly or rightly, these quirks will test the patience of people and make it less likely they will listen without interrupting.
After thinking things over a little more, I visited ASK.COM and entered “how to tell someone to stop interrupting”? and I found the following link:
Five ways to shut up a chronic interrupter
The first thing to understand in dealing with someone who repeatedly interrupts you or others is that it’s probably not personal. Particularly if someone cuts everyone off, he or she just might have a lot to say. “A chronic interrupter is often someone who is super-smart and whose brain is working much faster than the other people in the room. They want to keep everything moving at a faster clip, so often they will interrupt to make that happen,” says executive coach Beth Banks Cohn.
Interrupters might also just be excited or eager to make their point. “Sometimes they have gotten enough information from the speaker and want to engage in debate or conversation by saying what they are thinking. Sometimes they [may even] think you are done talking – so you consider it interrupting but they don’t,” says Banks Cohn.
Or they could just have bad manners. Whatever the cause, try these tips for getting a word in edgewise:
1 Ask to finish what you’re saying. When you start to speak, make sure that the person knows you intend to finish. Workplace consultant Laura Rose suggests saying, “‘There are a lot of different pieces to this explanation, so please bear with me. I want to tell you the entire story. Then I want us to wrap around and get your thoughts on specific details.’” That may stop the interrupter before he or she starts.
2 Keep right on talking. Fight fire with fire, suggests Kevin Sensenig, vice president of learning and development with Dale Carnegie Training. But lower your voice first. “By lowering your voice slightly, keeping an even pace, and confidently continuing to make your statement, you can disarm the interrupter and cause them to either stop talking so they can hear you, or cause others to stop them, and ask you to repeat your statement.” The key is to not stop. “Be ready to continue speaking until the other person stops, and move directly to your main point when they stop so that they hear the key part of your communication,” says Sensenig.
3 Ask for input from others. If someone keeps interrupting in a group setting, ask others to weigh in. “Anyone, not only the boss, can ask for the input of others. One way to invite such feedback: ‘We’ve heard a lot from Joe, what do others think about …’” suggests Peter Smyth, co-author of “Reflective Leaders and High-Performance Organizations.” This may naturally solve the issue.
4 Talk to the whole group. If you’re the manager, consider first talking to your team without pointing fingers at an individual to avoid embarrassing that person. “Introduce a discussion of how we are communicating as a group and how this might be improved. Awareness is everything,” says Smyth.
5 Speak to the person privately. If speaking to your team doesn’t change anything, you’ll have to meet with the person to indicate that there is a chronic issue. “Set up a private meeting with just the two of you. Tell them what you’ve observed and how long you’ve been observing it… [and] the effect it has on you (and others if appropriate),” says Banks Cohn. The person may not have realized what they’ve been doing. Finally, listen to their response. She adds: “If they give a reason… take it to heart and see if you can change your behavior as well.”
My conclusion?
You may try any or all of the above techniques. I just wish to conclude by saying that my experience is that these techniques rarely work. If you criticize someone because of a personal habit, they will likely just hate you. It may well have little to do with you. You may have spoken with them in a very respectful and kindly manner. But they may well just have a problem with taking any kind of criticism. So, best of luck to you!
I then went to ASK.COM and entered “how to tell someone they have bad breath”?
I found the following list of five items: How to Deal With a Co-Worker’s Bad Breath
1 Have a private conversation with the person, if she is your friend. A true friend will discretely tell you have spinach in your teeth or that your zipper is down, saving you from embarrassment. Keep the conversation brief and direct. Your goal is to solve the problem, not embarrass her
2 Tell a close friend of the person. Letting a person know that he has bad breath can be an uncomfortable experience. This is probably why the person still has bad breath. If you do not have a close relationship with the person, find someone who does. Let them know about the problem and leave the dirty work to them.
3 Use hints to send a message. Get her to think about her own breath. If you notice someone has bad breath, ask her if she had garlic for lunch. Or, ask her if you have bad breath. Be ready to give an honest answer if she asks you if her breath is bad.
4 Offer him gum, mints or other breath freshener anytime you see him. He may think that you are paranoid about having bad breath or he might get the hint that he needs to freshen his breath.
5 Send an anonymous email to the person, if you find no other way to tell her about her bad breath. Badbreathogram allows you to create an anonymous email that will be sent to the person. This way you still let the person know she has bad breath without having to endure any discomfort yourself.
If you wonder whether people can handle being told they have bad breath or they interrupt others or some other kind of personal problem, just try to think back to any of the times in your life when a friend or co-worker told you that you had a personal problem - like bad breath or bad body odor or that you interrupted people, etc.
Then try to remember how you felt about this later on.
Did you thank the person who told you about this? How did you react to them?
I wish you the best of luck when you decided how to handle this problem.
Great topic, OP. I’m wondering what folks do when someone interrupts by coughing or clearing their throat? I find it very rude in a passive aggressive way.
Well, isn’t Miss Beth Banks Cohn the up-sucking interrupter apologist?