Get a bigg as fan to create white noise. I have a fan on my desk and I can’t even hear the woman in the next cube over.
How many Buckeye Newshawk awards do you have on display in your office?
Please update us on the giant lizzard that ravaged New Jersey.
My high age students are awful about coming up to me and interrupting when I’m in a conversation with another student. Sometimes the convo is private and it’s never okay to just cut in the way they do.
Over the years I’ve learned a very effective trick. I stop what I’m saying, look at the interrupter and make my eyes go wide with a combination of disgust and utter shock. My mouth drops in sheer horror or is stretched back in a rictus of revulsion at such a horrendous breach of etiquette. Occasionally I’ll even bring my hand up to cover my chest right below my neck, in a sort of horrified and simultaneously protective gesture.
Then I just hold that pose for a few seconds. The student inevitably takes no more than five seconds to realize what they’ve done, that it is wrong and they should stop. They never interrupt again. Sure it’s melodramatic, but that’s what it takes-- subtlety does not work at all.
This woman isn’t interrupting you really, she’s eavesdropping, but I think this technique could work with her. She knows she shouldn’t be listening in, but somewhere along the lines she’s gotten the idea it was okay. Time to remind her of the manners her Momma taught her.
Gah! High school age students. I don’t teach at the senior center or anything.