When you're in the middle of a conversation and don't know it.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

There’s a woman who sits behind me at work who is constantly interrupting whatever I’m doing - whether I’m on a call, working on a document, talking with someone who’s at my desk or whatever. And she always starts talking to me as though we had been in the middle of a conversation and I just interrupted her to talk to someone else.

For example, a few minutes ago, I’m on a fairly important external call working out a positioning statement for one of our products. I’m in mid-sentence when I hear from behind me, “So, anyway, overly, I don’t get what blah blah blah blah. Can you tell me how to do it?” I ignore her and continue with my presentation. She persists with another question. “How do you spell Sarbanes-Oxley? Where would I find information on it by googling (I’m not even going to go into why that question was more than a bit silly)?” I try to ignore her, then she says, “Overly? Overly? I need you to answer me.”

I turn around, indicating my headset and mouth the words, “I’m on the phone.” She gets up, comes to my cube, stands over me and types the question on my screen, waiting for me to type a response back. I get up and leave (thank you, wireless headset). Rude person follows me, still talking. Finally after having this person trail me throughout the halls, I excuse myself, put myself on mute, say “I’m on an important call. Please leave me a post-it note or send me an e-mail and I can answer your question then. And I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t interrupt me on a call again. I shouldn’t have to excuse myself while I’m giving a presentation.” “But it’s really important,” she whines. “What’s important is me finishing this call.” I unmute myself and take questions while rude person stomps off in a huff.

I get back to my desk. Rude person starts talking at me as though we’d still been involved in this conversation. “So anyway, overly, what do you know about Sarbanes-Oxley? Where did you find what you know? Can I use it?”

All this time I’m fantasizing about putting a large piece of duct tape over her mouth to maker her quit talking to me.

I hate to do it, but I think I’m going to have to talk to her supervisor. This is the third time she’s done this. Now, how to do it tactfully…

2

Absolutely unprofessional. You need to talk to her supervisor. Nothing short of a life-threatening emergency (or a meeting :D) is more important than an external call to a client or vendor. Period.

3

No “thinking” about it, sweetheart. That was completely beyond the pale. My boss wears headphones, and I wouldn’t dare interrupt her while she’s wearing them, much less shove her over so I could type my question on her computer!

Yikes!

As for tactfully, just outline what happened. Just the facts, which by themselves, are very damning.

4

I just typed the most incorrect spelling of Sarbanes Oxley I could concoct and it still returned “Did you mean Sarbanes Oxley?”

I’m just baffled by the whole thing. My mom frequently talked to us while we were on the phone with other people, but A) it was not in a professional setting and B) she was inserting herself in the conversations we were having, not simply rudely oblivious, but still damned annoying.

The OP just has me shaking my head. I agree with jayjay and everyone else who will be arriving shortly to say “talk to her supervisor.”

How to do it tactfully? I don’t see why you need to. I’m not advocating being a jerk. Maybe my perception of tact is different. In a business situation you need to be straightforward and direct. It’s not as if it’s a sensitive personal issue. If you want to be sure it doesn’t come across as a personal attack on Rude Cube Neighbor you can make it all about you. “I cannot give a client my full attention when RCN talks to me while I’m on a call. I need RCN to communicate with me be email rather than talking. This would help ME and in turn the clients/company”

Still shaking my head. I’m completely baffled that people who act like this. If it’s any consolation you’ve made me glad that I work alone. Sometimes it’s a drag, but no one ever types me a question on my computer.

5

Once upon a time, a cow-orker actually followed me into the bathroom in order to ask a question that could have waited until the next day, even though she knew I was on my way home.

She lasted a month with the writing group, but because of her contract had to be kept on for another two. Luckily, they put her on another floor so neither the writers nor the developers (who specifically asked that she not be allowed to work with them) had to deal with her.

6

At one job I had years ago, people would constantly come up to me to ask me questions while I was on the phone. I would usually just point to the phone and they’d stop talking. They’d hover, of course, but they’d stop talking.

The owner of the place, however, would march right up and tell me to hang up, no matter who I was talking to. And it was pretty clear that if I was on the phone, I was either trying to get money in or prevent money from going out. This was a company that was constantly stuggling to pay its own employees.

He didn’t like it if would say “Sorry, can I call you back in five minutes?” Nope. Just hang up mid-sentence.

It sucks working for a jerk.

7

You’ve just described my brother, who insists that I answer any of his questions no matter what I am doing. My home isn’t a professional setting so I actually did put some kind of adhesive tape on his mouth once.

8

“Don’t talk while I’m interrupting.” (I forget who originally said that.)

“I’m sorry, there’s a street person badgering me.” “Get away from me, you guttersnipe! I gave you five bucks this morning!” “Now, as you were saying…”

9

I not only already know about Sarbanes-Oxley, but I know I can do her job (possibly for less) with much less office irritation.

Go to her supervisor. Please!

10

This is in MPSIMS, overlyverbose, and not in the Pit?

What are you, some kind of perfected buddha, or something?

If this happened to me, there would be headlines the next day. Headlines about the gruesome mechanical pencil murder.

11

AHAHAHAHAHAH!!! I actually considered putting it in the Pit, but watching this woman trail me all morning while I was on my headset ignoring her amused me to the point where it was only extremely annoying and I couldn’t get enough vitriol together to get truly pissed. I was on the cusp, but after I heard her ask someone how to create a workplan, I almost giggled.

12

Interruptitus is a common malady at my place of employment. It occurs daily in every department. I frequently find myself being interrupted, then I see in my mind’s eye a nice open-handed slap being applied to the face of the interruptor.

rhythmonly, talking to Co-worker I: “Well, I didn’t get those widgets back yet, but-”

Co-worker II, stepping between us: “Did the new parts for the widgets ship yet?”

Co-worker I, noting the dreamy look on rhytmonly’s face: “What are you thinking about?”

rhythmonly, picturing a large red hand print on Co-worker II’s mug: “Why nothing…nothing at all…”