Shut up! Shut Up!! SHUT UP!!! Morocco?!?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve got this coworker. Let’s call him Mort. He talks too much.

Okay, that’s not too uncommon.

Mort absolutely hates silence. Or even just music playing. He can’t seem to tolerate a situation where someone’s not actively talking. Preferably him.

That’s not too uncommon, either.

What’s uncommon is the desperate lengths to which Mort will go in order to shanghai one of us, any of us, into having a conversation with him.

We work in a flooring store. There are four of us. Dave, Henry, Mort, and I. Mort is the new guy. He was transferred in from another store because nobody there could stand him. We quickly found out why. The guy never shuts up. And he’s unbelievably lazy when it comes to doing anything but (surprise surprise) talking at customers. The laziness is a problem. There’s always plenty of stuff to do. But the bigger problem is that his obsessive need to flap his gums keeps the rest of us from getting our work done. Or even from goofing off in peace. He just won’t shut up.

Unfortunately for Mort, none of us want to converse with him. In fact, none of us are usually looking to converse at all. Oh, don’t get me wrong. We like each other just fine. But it’s a ten hour day and there’s only four of us. If we talked all the time, we’d get mighty sick of each other. Never mind that if we talked all the time, we wouldn’t have any time left to, you know, work. But I digress…

Here is an example of Mort’s technique:

Today was a rainy Saturday, and the store was uncharacteristically dead. All four of us were sitting at our desks. Dave was drawing up a floor plan. Henry was pricing out a complicated job for a customer who was coming in later. I was updating the hardwood flooring price lists, trying to sort out some seemingly contradictory information. We were all concentrating on what we were doing. Except, apparently, Mort.

I heard him say my name. “Elizabeth?”

This pulled me out of my concentration, but I kept my head down, hoping he’d think I didn’t hear him.

“Hey, Elizabeth!”

I turned and said “yes?”

“Do you know where Morocco is?”

What the holy hopping fuck? Morocco? MOROCCO?!? Talk about “apropos of nothing…”

“It’s in northwest Africa,” I said, turning back to my work.

“Oh.”

I started with the price lists again.

“Henry? Henry!”

Henry kept his head over his papers. “uh huh?”

“Did you know where Morocco was?”

Henry slowly turned to look at Mort with utter disbelief. “Yes, I knew where Morocco was.”

You see, Henry is a smart guy. He knows about all sorts of stuff. But the salient point is that Henry is from Ghana. Western Africa. Not that close to Morocco, really, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that he knows where Morocco is.

Mort said, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Where’s Morocco?”

“The northwest coast of Africa.”

“You knew that?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Henry turned his back to Mort, pointedly going back to his work.

I just knew that Mort was about to ask Dave about Morocco. I guess he thought better of it. Smart. Dave would have torn his head off, chewed it up, spit it out, and then calmly gone outside to have a smoke.

I still don’t know what Morocco had to do with anything.

I do know that if this continues, I’m going to have to asphyxiate him under a pile of area rugs.

2

Whenever he tries to get your attention, ask, “Is this work related?” If it is, hear him out. If it isn’t, walk away without speaking. Repeat until he either gets the message and shuts up, quits or comes to the store with automatic weaponry. It takes two to have a conversation, even one as ridiculous as that one. Don’t be the other half of the conversation. Ever.

3

Belgium! He is so unhoopy!

4

Oh yes, I feel for ya.

For I, also, have a non-stop gum-flapper in my office. We call her The Princess. She is constantly in trouble for being lazy, talking too much, causing problems with co-workers, but she is the pet of our immediate supervisor, therefore the nickname. The office manager hates her, and it shows, but no matter what she does, she’ll never get fired.

I get so very sick of her mouth- day in and day out. She’s like a puppy, constantly nipping and playing, and I’m like the momma dog. I’ll put up with her and be very patient, but once in a while I have to snap at her to let her know she’s going too far. She must have the attention of the whole office at all times, if she doesn’t, she will push it, to the point of saying controversial things to piss people off, because at least then she’ll get the attention she so craves. The other day she bounces up humming the theme to Inspector Gadget. Silence on my part- I don’t feel like playing today. She turns to someone else, hums the same thing. They’re also silent- the rest of us are busy, as you should be! She runs up to yet another, does her little hum- that person buys into her game, and says, “Inspector Gadget! Hehehe!” They become engrossed in a conversation about it. The Princess has won her bid for attention by being utterly inane.
When you figure out how to deal with yours, let me know. Smacking the shit out of her isn’t really an option for me.

5

Admittedly, people like this can be annoying. Has anyone tried to inform him that he’s annoying you guys when he does that? Don’t attack, inform.

Of course, he could just be a maroon, in which case, fuck him.

6

I’ve dealt with Morts before. Walking away - no help. They’ll follow you. Pointedly ignoring or answering every statement with a terse “Mmm-hmm” - no help. He doesn’t care if you’re actually listening. Telling them they’re interupting you and making it hard to work - no help.

I used to work with a Mort. Unfortunately, the only way I ever got him to STOP. FUCKING. TALKING. TO. ME. was to reply to everything he said with a snide comment. Yes I felt bad, and came across as a total bitch, and sometimes he wasn’t that bad. But I just could not listen to one more pointless story or stupid question while I was trying to work.

Good luck, Green Bean.

7

The best way I’ve dealt with people like this is to say, “Sorry, I’m busy with some work that I have to concentrate on so I can’t talk.” And then pointedly go back to it and, no matter what he says, ignore him. Pretty soon he goes to play somewhere else if he gets no reaction. Even walking away is a reaction; the only way to survive is to pretend to be so engrossed in what you’re doing that he can’t break your concentration. After a while, the babble just flows over you like background noise and you can totally tune it out.

8

Mort must be related to the woman who lives next door. I have been late to work before because I’ve spotted her out one of my windows and had to wait until she went back into the house before dashing to my car.

She is desperate to talk, but has nothing interesting to say. She won’t let you leave politely. You are forced to be rude to get away, because she will corner you when you’re loaded with heavy bags of groceries, or a dog dancing to get out to pee, and will follow you if you try to walk away. (She once cornered my husband while he was carrying a load of landscaping blocks, and he stood there sweating and staggering under their weight as she yapped on, oblivious to all but her need to gab.)

She knows everyone avoids her, so when she gets you cornered, she talks in lightning speed, one step below an auctioneer, trying to get as much out as possible before her victim escapes. I could tell her that my house was on fire and I was running for help and she’d still stand there yapping about her yardwork, her kids’ dull activities, what errands she ran that day . . .ad nauseum.

My husband works with her ex-husband. Once, he asked the guy why they had gotten divorced. He said that she was a good person but she just *would not shut up. * After fifteen years, he just couldn’t take it any more and left her so he could get some peace.

9

This is an I=read-it-somewhere moment. Appologies.

I read somewhere that the Amish were being studied by geneticists for what looked like two inhertiable, very non-Amish traits. One was the motor-mouthing being described here.

I don’t know if the heredibility was ever proved. That would be just hell to be born with such a disability.

10

Mama Tiger is right on target. Explain that to him once a day (at first) and then, unless his comment is work related, don’t respond to him. Don’t give him positive or negative attention.

If he ever learns to moderate his jabbering, that might be a different story.

11

Ha! The ads - they do nothing!

If I knew how I get people to leave me alone, I would tell you, but it might be a pheromone or something I give off because annoying people rarely pester me, and I don’t really know why.

Yeah, you need to go the blunt route (and you all probably will, sooner or later). I have a sister who talks a lot, and I have to interrupt her mid-sentence sometimes when I have to go do something else - if I wait to get a word in edge-wise, I can wait a long time.

12

Can you wear headphones and listen to music while sitting at your desk, or would doing this only make Mort become even more of an annoying ass by trying to talk over your music to get your attention?

Does Mort have access to a computer? Tell him there’s this wonderful web site called Google that will give him quick answers to all his insipid little questions.

13

I have one of these at my job too, and this does not work - nothing works. We are all hoping he retires this year like he said he would. If you don’t engage in his inane bullshit, he hovers over your desk liie some sort of undead thing.

14

I have an airman in my class who does this, in an almost unintelligible Southern accent. She screeches on endlessly, usually about how put upon she is by a world who doesn’t appriciate her piercing intelligence. Sometimes she makes unflattering generalizations about Mexicans, blacks, and/or women.

I pointedly don’t talk to or look at her, meanwhile recalling the thread here asking whether howler monkeys like her suffer from a mild form of mental illness.

And I smile on the inside.

15

Let him hover. After a while he’ll find a better target instead of talking to your unresponsive back. Especially if your unresponsive back is topped by a head wearing a set of headphones. If you’re not allowed to wear headphones, well, just let the noise drone on. It’s my experience that people like this are generally so enamored of the sound of their own voice that they require no input from outside sources.

16

The problem is, sometimes, some of us require silence or at least a low noise level to do our job. I have to read and understand contracts, government specs, and engineering and test data. I also do some work in the guts of an Access database. I need concentration. I do not need some attention starved moron hovering or jabbering or anything. If it was an occasional thing, then alright. But it isn’t; it is a constant every day situation. If he has to, he will start pushing buttons trying to provoke a fight - and then backpedal and play the victim when one of us finally blows up.

I am busy - does not work.
I can’t talk right now - does not work.
I am on a short time limit and need to get this done - does not work.
Go away - does not work.
Leave me alone - does not work.
Stone silence - does not work.
Fuck you I’ll kill you and your family, eat your dog and burn your house down - probably wouldn’t work.

NOTHING WORKS.

It’s telling that on the occasions that this turd is out, EVERYONE in the office, during the course of the day, will comment on how pleasant it is for a change.

I’m at a loss.

17

Well, how about every time he starts hovering to the point you can’t concentrate to get your work done, you get up and walk immediately to the boss’s office and say, “You know, I’ve asked Babblemouth politely to go away and let me work, but he won’t; will you make him leave me the fuck alone so I can do the work you pay me to do?”

And if he won’t do anything, go to HIS boss. And on up the chain, till you get to someone with the authority to make Babblemouth sit in his own cube and leave everyone else the fuck alone.

Either that or noise reduction headphones. I kid you not, with my noise reduction headphones on, I can sit at my desk and someone can walk up behind me and say something and I will barely even know they’re there. And that’s without any music playing or anything. They just tune outside noise down to the level of a muted hum, easily ignored. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

18

I will again offer my two Universal Solutions for Interpersonal Problems. Duct tape and/or a cattle prod. Apply duct tape to the Motor Mouth’s mouth. Apply the cattle prod to whatever part of Motor Mouth is handy. Repeat as needed.

19

Some of this behavior sounds a bit like OCD. I wonder if there are meds they could take?

20

Well, any parent will tell you that if you make threats and don’t follow through, you’re just asking for trouble. Clearly, you need to actually kill him and his family, eat his dog, and burn his house down. It’s for his own good in the long run.