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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How can I tell my colleague I am not interested in what is going on in the lives of people I've never met.

113 replies

angelos02 · 19/05/2015 10:05

Without upsetting her?

For example, 'my friend x's daughter is starting her new course today'.

I am really busy so if something isn't funny or interesting, shut up.

OP posts:
Original poster
angelos02 · 19/05/2015 11:27

I think the problem is that at work, I'm quiet. She seems to feel the need to talk a lot. It is just a clash of personalities.

OP posts:
pluCaChange · 19/05/2015 11:29

Why the hell do people do this sort of thing at "work"? Don't they have anything else to do? And what the hell are the bosses doing?

(I've worked with people like this, too, but I still don't understand it!)

reni1 · 19/05/2015 11:33

Fire right back, OP, but go even more mundane than "x's daughter starting a course today".

Come in bright and cheerful and announce you've bought 3kg of Persil non-bio yesterday on special offer and it took you ages to decide between quiche and omelette for dinner, but went for chicken instead! Go into great detail about your plans for the herbaceous borders and how your cleaner just won't ever vacuum under the furniture.

JoanHickson · 19/05/2015 11:37

Even better, repeat everything that passed your lips the past week that should get rid of her, if you can't tell her she shouldn't be using work time to gossip.

OnlyLovers · 19/05/2015 11:54

Fenella, I didn't mean that as an insult Grin
I just see it fitting more naturally into the ITV schedules ...

Original poster
angelos02 · 19/05/2015 11:54

Come in bright and cheerful and announce you've bought 3kg of Persil non-bio yesterday on special offer and it took you ages to decide between quiche and omelette for dinner, but went for chicken instead! Go into great detail about your plans for the herbaceous borders and how your cleaner just won't ever vacuum under the furniture.

She wouldn't bat an eyelid as this is the kind of stuff she comes out with.

OP posts:
Dogseggs · 19/05/2015 12:10

I sympathise - I would love to know the answer to this too. Our office bore is the boss, so that's awkward. I've sat through the story about her washing machine purchase from ebay (30 minutes that took), the one about her auntie and uncle, complete with street maps of where they live (kill me now), a list of meals she is planning for the weekend, with shopping lists. I've tried wandering off to make a cup of tea, hiding behind a cupboard, going to the toilet mid-story, yawning, staring intently at the screen and ignoring her: nothing stops her. We are in an open plan office too, so I can hear her telling the same stories - word for word - to people on the other side of the room. It's exhausting.

JoffreyBaratheonFirstofHisName · 19/05/2015 12:11

I once was at the receiving end of a conversation where the person told me every single item they had bought at Supermarket X, it's price and how many pence cheaper it was than item at Supermarket Y. It went on for ten minutes, I swear. Look, you have double my income - I'm scrabbling about for every penny and I don't give a flying feck, so why should you?

The worst thing was when I was a teacher, those staffroom conversations about "I'm going ski-ing to blah blah in the holidays", reply: "Well I'm going to Exotic Island...." I was having a week in a tent if I was lucky, as my husband gave up work to look after our disabled baby, as all the childminders wanted more than my entire week's wage packet to look after him - we were on my pittance of an income (the pay has improved since then) and all my colleagues were married to headteachers, doctors, or architects and had the extra bonus money you got for working in an inner city sink school which the government stopped the year before I started teaching... Joy.

I lived in the US for a while and the office conversations that bored me were like: "Have you seen Saturday Night Live?" (Yes, I had. It was unfunny and boring) I said I hadn't, to be tactful. Followed by six hours of "Oh it's so funny! Remember when.... blah blah... you must watch it!" (I'd rather watch a scab heal over).

Original poster
angelos02 · 19/05/2015 12:20

Some people really can't read body language can they. I once worked with someone that actually followed someone out of the office so they could finish telling them their tedious story.

OP posts:
maudpringles · 19/05/2015 12:34

There was a thread on similar lines a little while ago and the OP's friend had recently got a new puppy so would
GO SPANIEL with the witter-er on-ers Grin Grin
Just talked incessantly about her dog and I believe it worked.
Worth a try Smile

TwilightSparkle · 19/05/2015 12:35

I colleague of mine insists on showing me the photos on her phone of her friend's baby. I have never met her friend, and whilst I like babies, I find 50 photos of a random newborn quite dull.

Another colleague used to talk about "our baby" all the time which confused me because she had no children of her own. It turns out it was her niece who was actually 7 Confused

HellKitty · 19/05/2015 12:51

My colleague was like this. My boss apologised to me one day that all my shifts were with 'K', I asked what she meant and she just said, 'you'll find out...!'

'K' never stopped talking, constantly, about everything. Her mums cats, her FIANCÉ (said in bold), her ex, her house, her upcoming wedding (2017), her diet, her Facebook, everything. After I'd known her better, that took one shift, I was then treated to her abortion, her FIANCÉs debts, her sexual history, her periods. I would come home after work at 10pm and just sit in my kitchen, in the dark and in silence for an hour Grin

She's left now and gone to work in a call centre. I feel sorry for her customers now!

Ragwort · 19/05/2015 13:04

I've got the same situation with a male colleague constantly talking about his FIANCE - yes, said in bold Grin.

How can some people just not realise that they are completely boring every one they work with? Confused.

pinkisthenewpink · 19/05/2015 13:06

My MIL does this too, but the thing that irks is mostly that it is assumed that I should already know these people (as she mentioned them once before, or
more usually by telepathy). Then I'm left wondering whether I should know these people or not.

MumSnotBU · 19/05/2015 13:10

For me it depends how well it is told. I have friend who tells great stories about people I've never met and I genuinely want to know what happened next when I see her again. I suppose it's like a good novel or a film.

It would be annoying though if you are trying to work though.

WalterMittyish · 19/05/2015 13:26

I feel your pain. I've worked eith s few of these people.

I find it quite arrogant, to be honest - the assumption that everything about them and everyone rose they know is so fascinating that people are honoured to hear eight hours of detailed annecdotes per day.

I actually found it very stressful. I'm an introvert so being bombarded with mindless chatter every day is unbearable for me.

balletnotlacrosse · 19/05/2015 13:32

A colleague of mine was at a wedding last weekend. We were subjected to about 40 photographs of people we didn't know.

"That's my cousin and she's married to the guy in the last picture who was holding the pint glass"

"She went to school with the bride but she lives in New Zealand now and she travelled all the way for the wedding even though she has two toddlers....." Sad

GoodbyeToAllOfThat · 19/05/2015 13:38

It is arrogant, and completely lacking in self-awareness.

There's a woman whose son plays on the same Friday league as mine, it's the same thing every fucking Friday evening, I get to listen to her tell me incredibly tedious stories about her children. To the point where I can't even watch my own kid play football.

ahbollocks · 19/05/2015 13:39

Exmil used to do this..
'Oh you no joan?'
No
'Joan joan, married to Victor'
Nnnno?
'She's got a green garage door, you know joan'
Ah nope dont think so
'WELL her cousin won a years supply of persil!'
Thats nice mil

GoodbyeToAllOfThat · 19/05/2015 13:39

'She's got a green garage door, you know joan'
PMSL.

ahbollocks · 19/05/2015 13:41

*know ;)

JoffreyBaratheonFirstofHisName · 19/05/2015 13:43

Same person as itemised her entire shopping list to me, once tried to show me her holiday snaps. It was on a computer so I thought "Brilliant! I'll take charge of this situation - whizz through em in 30 seconds, say how great it looked and bam! Onto someone else!" But she actually stood over me and made me scroll through them slowly. Really slowly. Whilst giving a commentary. You will think I am exaggerating but am not - she actually had taken photos of the her hotel room's fecking toilet and bathroom. FFS.

JoanHickson · 19/05/2015 13:44

Married to a Victor? Shock

GoodbyeToAllOfThat · 19/05/2015 13:47

OK, pissing myself again. You all are too funny. I need to close this thread and get something done already.

Mintyy · 19/05/2015 13:59

Op, I would simply plug in my i-pod.

I don't know how you can stand it Flowers for you!

One day I might snap and say "I'm sorry Betty, you might think I'm being rude and I honestly don't mean to be, but I'm not interested in your friend or her daughter or her daughter's course."

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