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AIBU?

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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:
gooeycookie · 19/05/2015 14:25

I sympathise, I've had a few colleagues like this.
I've once had to spend a lot of time in the company of one colleague, and was treated to a 20 minute reminisce of when she bought her shoes, which London branch of a certain shoe-shop they came from (not familiar with London so meant nothing to me), and the goings-on in her life at the time. This then segued into a myriad of off-tangent stories... Confused

Like a pp, when we were done for the day I sat in silence at home. I couldn't even turn the TV/radio on.

pictish · 19/05/2015 14:56

Not quite the same as a boring colleague, but I do have a friend who feels compelled to fill me in on all the (absolutely trivial and workaday) comings and goings of her six year old daughter since the last time I saw her. This can be quite an extended chat in which she goes into great detail. None of it is remarkable or interesting...it's all bog standard, dull as shit kid stuff. I know this because I have a six year old daughter of my own that she never asks after.
I don't respond much beyond "oh right" or "mm hmm" as I don't want to encourage her but she takes no notice of my obvious lack of enthusiasm for the topic and never has. After she has got all the 'news' out of her system she becomes conversationally normal.
She's a kiddy bore of the worst kind. My dh can't stand her.

pictish · 19/05/2015 14:58

Oh and I once worked with someone who talked about Coronation Street all the fucking time, as though it were real and the characters were her friends.
I left that job after three shifts with her - I could only say, "I don't watch it so I don't know what or who your are talking about." so many times. Fuck that.

Dontunderstand01 · 19/05/2015 15:33

My DStep-MIL is glued to her tablet from dusk til dawn, and shows me literally dozens of babies on facebook who are all, apparently far more advanced from my ds. 'This is johnny, he is 5 weeks younger than DS but he can walk, and he's got 6 teeth' 'this is jane. She's only a year old but hasbeen walking for two months, and can say lots of words. It's funny that she is so far ahead of DS'. The most recent one 'this is tom, he is only 11 months old but so cuddly and affectionate, not like DS, but thne his mum is at home with him all day, and he's not in nursery'.

No idea who tom, jane or johnny are. Cue DH 'erm, am I missing something, but who's babies are they and why do I need to know if they can walk? '.

And yet, she continues.

1hamwich4 · 19/05/2015 16:11

Turn it into a game- do a Groundhog Day on her. Simply treat everything she tells you as brand new information and ask her for clarification as to who Julia is every single time Julia is mentioned. The aim is to see how long it takes for her to notice that absolutely nothing is going in.

Original poster
angelos02 · 19/05/2015 16:44

1hamwich this is the approach I have started to take.

OP posts:
Original poster
angelos02 · 19/05/2015 16:44

1hamwich this is the approach I have started to take.

OP posts:
OnlyLovers · 19/05/2015 16:55

'this is tom, he is only 11 months old but so cuddly and affectionate, not like DS, but thne his mum is at home with him all day, and he's not in nursery'.

Shock I'd hang her out to dry for that.
GoodbyeToAllOfThat · 19/05/2015 16:57

Jeez don'tunderstand, is your MIL so toxic in all ways or just this one?

AlternativeTentacles · 19/05/2015 16:58

You can really have some fun and say for everyone 'is that Joan in the X dept?' 'No, Joan doesn't work here.' 'Oh. Right.' Is that Sally in the Y dept. No Sally doesn't work here'. Oh, right. Is that [yada yada yada]'

sillylily · 19/05/2015 17:05

My mum does this. I find that just nod/humming then replying with a totally unrelated piece of info about someone she doesn't know or plot of a soap she doesn't watch does the trick and she's not apparently offended.

Fluffyears · 19/05/2015 18:22

'Really sorry but I don't have time for chat, maybe we can catch up later?' Then later never comes.

MIL talks constant drivel about folk I don't know and conversations are always all about her with the same anecdote over and over and over. If I have to hear about the time she accidentally hit another car with her car door via the wind grabbed it from her hand I'll scream! You can say one thing like 'oh I got a pay rise' and straight away she says 'oh Muriel's son he got a pay rise but he needs to go to Coventry to take up new post .....blah blah blah blah' she picks anything you say to tell you about her self and her boring friends who I don't know.

Andylion · 19/05/2015 18:52

I have a friend at work like this. I do my best to keep on working while she stands by and chatters. I find going to the ladies' room helps. Of course, she follows me in and continues talking to me from the other stall, but after, it's easier to part. Once, to my horror, I found myself waving my hand in her face, saying, "You don't have to tell me the whole thing!". I felt so bad but she just stopped for a second, then started right in again. (She been giving me a play-by-play of an episode of Corrie.)

BettyCatKitten · 19/05/2015 19:19

I love my mil but she does this all the time. "You know x" no I don'tGrin

pictish · 19/05/2015 21:24

Agh what's with the Corrie fans and their patter?! Confused

Esmereldada · 19/05/2015 22:40

Ha! I'm a beautician and 90% of my clients do this. Or bring me up to date on their own lives in excruciating detail.

Now I think about it, quite a few friends do the same.

Its just crap interpersonal skills isn't it?

How can they possibly possibly imagine that I'm interested?

Onedayinthesun · 19/05/2015 22:44

Actually have this same problem at work OP and the constant interruptions make me want to scream. All about what tat she bought in Tesco, how many days until she goes on holiday, what she's having for dinner and on and on....I've resorted to shutting my office door to block her coming in Confused

CamelHump · 19/05/2015 22:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CamelHump · 19/05/2015 22:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsFrisbyMouse · 19/05/2015 23:38

You could regale her with stories of what people you've never met off the internet have been up to.

GiddyOnZackHunt · 19/05/2015 23:46

You need the small talk equivalent of Janet and Roy's round robin. Someone imaginative needs to create Janet and Roy's life to give everyone something to blather about.
Or just put arsenic in her coffee. That's what Janet's great aunty Doris did to her husband Bill.

mynameisvivienne · 20/05/2015 00:36

Sorry OP but I can beat you there. My colleague used to ask me almost every other day if I'd watched Eastenders. Despite repeatedly saying "No I don't watch it," he would still tell me what had happened Confused

Better to be bored about real life people than fictional ones.

derxa · 20/05/2015 02:18

Esmereldada
Ha! I'm a beautician and 90% of my clients do this. Or bring me up to date on their own lives in excruciating detail.
I once asked my hairdresser how he managed to cope with all of this and he said that he just responded with enthusiasm but lets all the info flow from one ear and out of the other. I try to have some interesting convos about sport and politics with him and make him laugh with my witty repartee. He's a master at making everyone feel that they are the most interesting person he's ever met.
OP you are fulfilling a vital social role in that boring colleague's life.

HellKitty · 20/05/2015 08:11

I tried fighting fire with fire with 'K'. I decided to go in one day and talk non stop, after the first five minutes she said 'yeah, you've told me that' and looked disinterested - crushed and gobsmacked! Towards the end of my time there I'd perfected switching off and thinking about what to have for tea while she prattled on. Her FIANCÉ would occasionally come in when he's finished to pick her up from work which was worse. I'd be cashing up my till, she be on one side telling him about some funny text her mum had sent about the cats and he'd be talking to her over my head about what he's got in Jacamo or what the special was at Spud-u-like. Stereo shite.

pictish · 20/05/2015 08:22

vivienne - that's what my colleague was like. I told her that I had never watched Coronation Street (or indeed any soaps) multiple times but rather than take the hint and shut up about it, she would talk me through the storylines anyway, while I stood there like a rabbit in the headlights wondering what the fuck was wrong with her.

I found her foisting bloody Coronation Street on me like that extremely rude. Why on earth would I give a shit about the plot of a soap opera I don't watch and have zero interest in? Why did she feel it was ok to drone on about it anyway? If she wasn't talking about the story lines, she was telling me tit bits about the real lives of the actors in it.
Fuck off!

As I said, three shifts of her drivel was enough for me. It was a crappy job anyway and I decided it wasn't worth putting up with her for.

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