{"id":100683,"date":"2019-01-10T19:57:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T01:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=100683"},"modified":"2021-05-30T17:01:43","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T22:01:43","slug":"how-to-deal-with-a-talkative-coworker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/money-wealth\/career\/how-to-deal-with-a-talkative-coworker\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Deal With a Talkative Coworker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019re in your cubicle, minding your own business, when a coworker walking by stops to talk. Seems innocuous enough . . . except they do this multiple times a day. Most every day. While you don\u2019t mind a little chit-chat with your officemates, the interruptions from this coworker go on too long, are banal, and\/or are hindering your workflow and productivity.<\/span><\/p>\n

What can you do about this kind of overly talkative coworker? Below we walk you through some options. <\/span><\/p>\n

6 Tips for Dealing With an Overly Talkative Coworker<\/h3>\n

1. Small talk at work IS important; don\u2019t shrug it off entirely. <\/b>While small talk at work can sometimes seem dull and entirely unimportant, it\u2019s actually a big piece of building a good office culture and bonding with your coworkers. You want to have rapport with them. How do you do that? Many times it\u2019s through the small conversations you have throughout the day. Be open to them, at least some of the time. You don\u2019t want to be so standoffish that you become known as the surly office grump who doesn\u2019t ever talk to anyone except for official business matters. <\/span><\/p>\n

If someone is talkative at work, use your practical wisdom<\/a> to figure out if you just need to deal with it and make some small talk now and then, or if it\u2019s truly disturbing your workday. If it\u2019s the latter, consider the options below. <\/span><\/p>\n

2. Wear headphones and\/or make yourself look busy, but don\u2019t do it unrelentingly. <\/b>In the world we live in, wearing headphones is a common tactic for putting off an unapproachable, \u201cdo not disturb\u201d vibe. If you\u2019re actively typing away, if you have a focused look on your face while studying a report, if you have headphones in\/on \u2014 you\u2019re less likely to be interrupted by a chatty coworker. (If you have a private office, cutting down on disturbances is often as easy as closing the door; an open door generally invites some amount of chit-chat.) <\/span><\/p>\n

That said, heed the above point: Small talk and general sociability is an important part of being a team player, so don\u2019t <\/span>always<\/span><\/i> have your headphones in. It\u2019s fine for a few blocks of focused work time during the day, but make a point to have them off at other times to make yourself a little more approachable. <\/span><\/p>\n

3. Politely let them know you need to get back to work.<\/b> If simply looking busy doesn\u2019t do the trick, and you\u2019re still interrupted on the regular, utilize any number of excuses that signify your need to get back to work; start with the preface, \u201cI\u2019d really love to chat more, but . . .\u201d and then add something like \u201cI\u2019m on a deadline for this memo\u201d or \u201cI have a phone call later that I need to prepare for.\u201d The rub, of course, is that these excuses can\u2019t always be white lies; if you say you have a phone call in 10 minutes, and 10 minutes later you clearly don\u2019t, what\u2019s going on will be fairly obvious.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t really have a decent excuse, you can say something like \u201cI wish I could talk more, but I\u2019m really trying to be more focused with work, so I need to get back to it. We\u2019ll catch up later at happy hour or something.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

At this stage, be sure to use friendly tones to soften the blow \u2014 no need to be an ass here. Know that your coworker probably has good intentions \u2014 they\u2019re not chatting with you to intentionally get you off track. It\u2019s likely they\u2019re just a talkative person and are trying to build some sort of connection, or they\u2019re bored and they maybe don\u2019t quite have enough to do with themselves. <\/span><\/p>\n

4. If it\u2019s work-related, schedule a meeting. <\/b>If you\u2019re regularly being interrupted, but about work-related chit-chat and questions, schedule a meeting to talk about it at length in a more focused manner. In some cases, the solution is really that simple. If the coworker comes back with something like, \u201cOh, it\u2019s alright. No need for a meeting \u2014 I\u2019ll just figure it out myself,\u201d then it\u2019s likely that their conversation wasn\u2019t actually important, and you also just got out of it. Winning!  <\/span><\/p>\n

5. Confront them more directly about the inappropriate amounts of chit-chat. <\/b>If the chattiness is becoming a chronic problem, and your friendly excuses or general \u201cdo not disturb\u201d look haven\u2019t been landing, your best recourse will be to have a more direct, slightly sterner conversation about it. It\u2019s uncomfortable, of course, but sometimes necessary. Sure, you might get the silent treatment, but isn\u2019t that what you\u2019ve actually sort of been hoping for?  <\/span><\/p>\n

6. Speak to a supervisor. <\/b>As a very last resort (that part is important), you can bring the issue up with a supervisor or with HR. If you\u2019re having a big enough problem that you\u2019re considering raising the issue with your superiors, chances are good that other people are being affected as well. A supervisor may be able to bring up the problem in less personal terms: \u201cI\u2019ve been hearing that your chattiness is hindering the productivity of others in the office.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

With these tips, you\u2019ll be able to mitigate the chatty interruptions and get back down to doing the work at hand. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re in your cubicle, minding your own business, when a coworker walking by stops to talk. Seems innocuous enough . . . except they do this multiple times a day. Most every day. While you don\u2019t mind a little chit-chat with your officemates, the interruptions from this coworker go on too long, are banal, and\/or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":100701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[424,6,42279],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-100683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career","category-featured","category-money-wealth"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/01\/talk-feat-538x280.png","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/01\/talk-feat-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/01\/talk-feat-320x222.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/01\/talk-feat-640x445.png"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100683"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123063,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100683\/revisions\/123063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100683"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=100683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}