To think colleague should give it a rest?

[Magicra84]

My colleague doesn't shut up all day. She's full of self-importance and talks about herself. She'll just sometimes do a really loud, exagerated noise like a yawn and if I don't look over or react to it, she will do something else to get my attention.

If I have visitors, she constantly does stupid things to get their attention.

The talk is mostly about her and she is forever giving me a run down of her work, even stuff that doesn't concern my area of work. I'm so sick of it. Eight hours of dross. I try to ignore her but it doesn't work.

She is always saying for me to 'look at this', whether it be a photo, her own work, any fucking thing she can get my attention with and I'm so sick of it. If I ignore her, she'll say that she was talking to herself but then question if she was talking to me, like she can't fucking decide. I have spoken to management who had a friendly word with her, and occasionally she'll say she'll shut up now, but then carries on! What can I do? It's really wearing me down and I'm going through some hardships at the moment. I feel exhausted with it all.

Obviously noise cancelling headphones

Is your job one you can do with headphones on?

Or if you can't afford them

Any cheap headphones that you pretend are noise cancelling

Just headphones and ignore her.

What is she doing that she can chat all day?

Is there maybe another desk that you could move to?

Is she Catherine Tate 🤣x

Moving desks sounds like a good idea.

I work with young kids. Generally, I ignore any attention seeking behavior unless it crosses a line and then they get a telling off. Give her extra attention when she’s been good!

Options:
Say you need to move desks away from her, and move.
Work from a meeting room or ask to work from home if possible.
Wear noise cancelling headphones if you really can't move.
Shout "Shut the fuck up before I go fucking postal on you" and see if that fixes it.

I had a colleague this. Made me want to fling myself out of the window. Nothing helped, nothing. If I used headphones she'd sulk all day and the atmosphere was awful. If I politely told her I needed to concentrate for half an hour with no interruptions she'd get huffy too. Or she'd interrupt me anyway and then say 'oh sorry, I know I shouldn't be talking, whoops silly me.'

I told her I needed silence to concentrate, but then instead of talking to me, she would wheel over in her wheely chair, sit behind me and sheepishly wait for me to turn around and notice her. God it was the most irritating thing ever.

I tried everything. My boss talked to her. I even went on assertiveness training because I was worried I wasn't telling her to shut up assertively enough.

Eventually I just begged my boss to let me work in a different office.

It was hellish. You have my sympathy.

I had to move offices ones due to a collegue, not sure what can be done other than asking to move or complaining about her but if she is not crossing and lines about behaviour then not sure you can complain really as it could be considered having to put up with it like any colleague. I could not work with headphones all day as much as the idea is tempting they would be annoying to me but a great idea if you can wear them though

Thanks for your replies. I'll try with the polite, "I need to concentrate" a few more times before I go mad on her.

Raise it with management again. Tell them your work is suffering through her disturbing you and that their "having a word" isn't cutting it and something else really needs to be done.

Can you clear with management that you can work with headphones on?

If she's affecting your ability to concentrate I don't see how they can refuse.

To start with I thought you were talking about your DC and working from home OP 🤣

This makes me think of the 'Not now Bernard' story he eventually gets eaten by a monster and parents don't notice . I'm on his parents side and would have ignored the annoying whining too.

Say her name is Marge, every single time she interrupts just say 'Not now Marge'. In the afternoon ypu could switch to a large sign with the same message.

There's something wrong with her - she has issues. Find a way to move or block out her sound, I don't think polite requests will work.

I feel for you op. There's a guy at my work who is absolutely unbearable. I've never met anybody like him before. Luckily he works in another dept but I see him in the canteen or by the coffee machine

He has to announce his presence by either whistling extremely loud or sometimes he'll shout across the canteen to somebody. He'll but into other people's conversations and within seconds he'll either turn it around so it's about him or he'll refer to his "mate" and that his experience will trump what you were talking about in every possible way

When he comes in the canteen I leave. There's absolutely no way in the world I could work anywhere near him. I would either have to be moved or get another job. I guess those are you're two options too

I think you have to be clear and proactive.

We have very different work styles. You chat a lot and I would prefer to work in siilence. The chatting is really distracting me and I'm getting frustrated. We should schedule more organised catch ups and I would prefer to be quiet. I'll also be wearing headphones when I really need to concentrate.

I might also say "I would prefer if you didn't talk to me about non work related matters". I had to do this when someone wanted to talk about soaps at the start of the day, every fecking day. Things escalated from things like:
I don't watch / am not interested in soaps
I'm really busy and need to meet a deadline.

I get to work turn on my PC and start work immediately. Can't be arsed with faffing about.

I'm lucky that my team is lovely. I've made loads of friends in work. There are always dull people that think they are more entertaining than they are. I'd like to be on friendly terms with everyone. Even annoying people but I'd have to say something.

.

So, today has been as bad as ever. As I didn't want to be aggressive and tell her to shut the fuck up, when she was talking day, I carried on working, didn't look at her and didn't acknowledge her but it didn't stop her. The conversation revolved around her and her work (even stuff that doesn't involve me at all). She literally doesnt stop for breath. For eight hours and I'm exhausted by it. I dread work because of her.

Sometimes she will say something and roar with laughter and I look a dick but I'm so worn down by her I just don't laugh with her.

Now, anything I have to say to her regarding work, I don't say because I know she'll talk for an hour about it or whatever. So even ignoring her completely doesn't work. I'm so, so tired by it. I'm suffering massively with depression and worries at home at the moment and this adds so much to it, I'm really struggling. Oh, and she knows she's talking too much because she says so and that she's going to shut up, but the silence lasts no longer than a minute.

Unfortunately it sounds like you are going to have to get very blunt with her. She knows she's being a pita but doesn't care. Management have been ineffective and she's ignoring your obvious attempts to ignore her. It's 'shut the fucking fuck up' time.

I think you need to go back to management.

Not much further constructive advice to offer here OP, just my sympathies. What an exhausting situation.

Telling her bluntly and forcefully to STFU won't work. Management telling her to shut her hole evidently didn't. Your only two options are firstly to beg management on your knees to let you change location. If that fails, noise-cancelling headphones are all that's left. White noise or relaxation sounds like falling rain etc are good for less intrusive people. For her, hard rock like Rammstein might be the only thing that helps.

But seriously, she sounds unhinged. It doesn't even seem as if all this talking even requires a response; she's been happily yaddering away practically to herself for 8 hours and apparently hasn't noticed. And if she says something and roars with laughter when everyone else is working and no one else is engaging with her then I don't imagine it's you who looks the dick.

DH has a colleague like this!
I have no helpful answers as she is so thicked skinned that hints do not work, saying he is busy lasts for about 5 minutes before she starts again and even being told by the bosses only ceases it very temporarily.
DH copes by being using occasional sarcastic 'banter' so she thinks he is joking (he isn't) and then frequent whatsapp messages to me to moan about her
She is just an admin assistant for many of the other staff but tried calling herself assistant (DH's job) on her emails until management put a stop to it after a couple of hours and she regularly tries to invent other jobs and roles for herself, management always pull her inline straight away but it never dissuades her from trying!

You need to buy yourself a massive clunky pair of ear defenders and wear them all day. Look blankly at her when she speaks to you. She is not only ignoring hints, she is intentionally overriding your needs to carry on talking so I would have little concern at this point about how she feels when she sees you.

I used to work with a woman like her. I found a snappy ' can you shut the hell up ' worked wonders.
Try that.