I’ve got a gripe!
What is it about people walking away from their own desk areas and having a full-blown meeting right next to someone else’s? It doesn’t seem to matter how many evils ‘shots’ you give them, or ‘subtle’ throat-clearing and ‘uhums’, they just don’t seem to get it.
Do I want to know about your weekend, or how you are going to deal with a client, or your end-of-year projections? No! I don’t even know you, and as far as I’m concerned, if it’s not a juicy piece of gossip, then find somewhere else to have your loud and boring conversations – period.
I’ve been inclined to ask people to move away from my desk in the past. I thought for a long time about how it would look, but when I looked around, there were other people in my team fuming and deep-breathing, but no-one did anything about it.
I don’t actually think it’s rude anymore. Maybe that’s just me being harsh, but I’d rather take a second to tell them to politely bugger off, then spend half and hour fuming, listening to something that has no bearing on me. And the worst is that most of these people tend to attract more people around them – they know and have something to say to everyone that passes them, and before you know if there’s an entire department around your desk…leaning on your monitor, nudging your phone so they can perch on your desk…
You could be wearing bright pink earmuffs and they’d still not see you, so it leaves little choice really. I certainly feel much better for being assertive….
