So there’s this guy at work. A co-worker or I, will be very involved in work or some leisurely reading and this other guy comes right out of the blue wanting to chit-chat. Now this is not any normal kind of talk. No, this guy gets you on a general topic and then turns the conversation on to himself. And then about his ex-wife, his kids, jobs he’s worked at and just everything you can imagine that is personal in this guy’s life. And anything you say doesn’t matter either. To me, it is very rude to inturrupt someone who’s is SO obviously interesting in something. And I just sit there answering, “yeah”, “ok”, “um, ok.” And it’s very hard to get away from someone like this because they want to talk all the time. It’s like they weren’t hugged as a child or something. Now I ask you is this a Personality Disorder and if so which one. And why would a person do this. Doesn’t he see the body language, I am clearly not interested in your family, job, your JCL, DB2, Cobalt programming language. I can care less about your son-in-law and his 20 god damn kids, and how they went through college. I mean he talks about some shit I can really give a shit about. Have any of you dealt with a person like this, and what have you done about it? Thank you for any information you might have.
Have you tried putting your fingers in your ears, and saying “Yak” “Yak” “Yak” “Yak” “Yak” real loud? I’ve always found that that works quite well.
I have the same problem with a co-worker of mine. Only with her it’s her sex life. Remember that one character in the beauty shop from the 2nd or 3rd season of “Rosanne” who would start talking about her husband being blown up by a grenade or whatever whenever anyone started bitching or whining? Try that. Whatever story this guy tells you, top it. Get those creative juices flowing and eventually he’ll leave you alone. I hope this is coherent, I’m on my second half-quart of Bud.
Having recently (~1 month) switched back to corporate life, I’ve had a re-immersion experience in this regard. Manny Peoples come by to just suck down an hour, and it won’t stop until you stop it. Develop a little repertoire of sign-offs: “well, I need to wrap this up today…”, “I’d like to talk to you more, but I can’t right now…”, “let me give you some time when I can…”, “I only had a few minutes, and there gone, so I’ll have to take your leave now…”, etc.
Or whatever works for you. But, put a plug in it.
Phone calls work well.
a co-worker of mine just picks up the phone when she hears certain people coming down the hall, and talks into it until they leave, without calling anyone. (Mind you, I’ve just heard this as a rumour. She’s always on the phone when I come by her office.)
This thread is off to MPSIMS.
Who says you have to do anything? Just ignore
him. Keep on with what you’re doing, and don’t
say a word. He can’t make you pay attention,
or answer him.