To wonder why people pander to attention seekers?

“Attention needs” 🤨

If someone “needs” attention and cannot moderate their behaviour then they can go see a therapist. I am not a psychologist and it’s not my job to deal with this kind of behaviour in the workplace. Pandering just makes it worse.

You don’t like her OP and I agree she sounds annoying. But it doesn’t make her flawed in some way. It’s unfortunate she’s a colleague as otherwise you could just distance yourself.

You would LOVE Colin Robinson

Today, for example, after telling the whole office loudly about her Botox, she started shrieking that she'd 'lost a contact lense'. Cue half hour of men crawling around on the floor looking for it only for her to start giggling and saying how silly she is as it's still in her eye.

She sounds like a man HATER to me. I love it

I agree with this. You will only get away with consistent attention seeking if you are likeable, entertaining and being attractive helps too. It makes it easy for people to engage with you (but they have to basically want to engage with you).

This is why we are less tolerant of it in our own gender, because the element of attraction isn't there for us, and in fact attention we enjoy may be drawn away from us by the person creating drama.

Attention needs? If a job requires you to pander to attention seeking fuckwits then I'd like to find out up front.
Sadly, the moment you don't join in and pander, in my experience they complain about you not being helpful and being mean to them.

In the example op gave ' bees just carried on working whilst everyone else looked for my contact lenses. She is horrible to me, and I don't know why, would you say something for me?' And so it begins. Instead of boss saying ' wtf are you talking about, wear glasses if you can't manage lenses. I don't pay everyone to fuck about all day and listen to this bollocks' I'd be warned about being mean to ditsy and how she has attention needs.

All the attention-seekers I know had far too much indulgence and attention from their parents growing up- it’s their normal and they need it to function.

Attention seeking has a bad reputation but I've found in real life people aren't put off by it, and in fact enjoy it up to a point. I think people enjoy the drama and like being around dramatic people, especially if they are attractive and/or fun. They enjoy fussing over them.

Some people do generally find it amusing in small doses, a bit of light relief from the boredom of work. Others are trying to be helpful/polite and just want her to find the bloody thing so she'll get back to work. Or some might think she's flirting.
There was one guy at my work so desperate to impress my mate ( she was not an attention seeker by any means) but very popular with men. She dropped her phone in the filthy canal and this bloke jumped in to get it. A ten quid dumb phone. Which of course didn't work when he retrieved it. He sat there soaked and reeking of rat piss. Thinking 'yeah, I'm getting some tonight'.
But 'the only thing he got was probably weils disease. Lol

I'd go. Ok yeah. How bad is that?
And ignore

Attention needs? Ffs 😂
I missed the leaflet through the door on this new terminology

I've never signed a contract which includes fixing emotionally broken adults as part of my job.

I love this quote, FOJN.

One woman I worked with springs to mind.

Some of the men used to wind up/ tease the women. We'd mostly say leave off. She'd completely engage. And say things to make them keep going.

I said to her tell them piss off, she said she loved it. She also used to spray loads of perfume on herself at her desk

She must be lying, if you bought the entire Shein site I bet it wouldn’t cost £200!!

Because they don’t want to look mean spirited or a fun sponge for ignoring the attention seeker.

This, this is why people pander. Some people like to think they are so compassionate that they'll willingly turn annoying behaviour into victimhood and wait to be congratulated on their tolerance.

What if another colleague has childhood trauma which is triggered by attention seeking behaviour?

I've never signed a contract which includes fixing emotionally broken adults as part of my job.

Lots of people have faced significant challenges in their life but they manage to avoid it manifesting as a disruptive, attention seeking performance at work.

Can you not understand that while this is absolutely true for some, everyone is different and it isn’t true for all, and some people are just self-absorbed, narcissistic or drama queens?

There doesn’t always have to be an underlying reason to excuse shitty behaviour, just like some people are born arseholes or inherently nasty for no reason other than they just are.

The sooner people stop looking for labels and reasons for ‘it’s not their fault’ and stop enabling, the less shitty behaviour happens.

Maybe she likes to make people/men do what she wants them to do. She says jump and they ask how high.

I worked with a girl like this.

And that is how she behaved - like a girl.

she was once speaking to a client on the phone and used the “telephonic alphabet” and said W for Willie - and the whole office burst into fits.

She would constantly talk about her teeth whitening home kit which would make everyone laugh.

she would have so many ditsy moments. And you could never have a normal conversation with her. Everything was a joke.

she wasn’t that great at the job because she would constantly ask for my help - usually about the same thing and she was like a kid when she finally got it.

Honestly I think it was her personality but everyone - men and women fell head over heels for her.

She had a boyfriend at home and I think he was controlling in the end (she was never allowed to stay behind and always had to be home).

Indont want to talk badly of her, but these characters do exist. I haven’t come across anyone like that for over a decade - since switching companies.

Some people just like attention, they just do, and especially male attention. There's lots of self absorbed reasons behind it, not every display of poor behaviour is because of trauma or mental health. Some people are just like that and many will laugh about it to their friends outside of work, trust me.

You can call it what you like, the rest of us who think it is exactly attention-seeking will call it that.

Do people really not understand people to the extent that a need for attention is laughable? You can't see that if you never got any as a child, for example, your "personality" might be to seek it?

Is she attractive?

I agree that her behaviour seems disordered and that attention seeking behaviour might be a product of childhood trauma. She is fulfilling some kind of need there

🙄🙄🙄