To complain about colleague that dominates meetings talking crap?

[palmroyale]

One colleague talks and talks and talks. He dominates every meeting, whether the meeting is on a video call or in person.

He drones on for sometimes half an hour at a time, often about non work related crap. I have tried to interrupt/stop him many a time but he'll say 'hold on, let me finish what I'm saying' and continues with another 10 minute monologue.

He also interrupts everyone, so for example if I asked a question to our managers during the meeting he would just butt in and hijack my question or hijack their answers, and his answer would just be a load of bullshit followed by a monologue.

I've spoken to my manager about him several times and he agrees that it is annoying and inappropriate behaviour but says it is just how this man is and it's not fair to expect people to change their entire personality.

To add, if on the rare chance I get to add anything in a meeting without this man butting in, I would be shut down by our managers changing the subject after maybe 30 seconds of me talking.

AIBU to raise a grievance about this behaviour?

Can you ask for a copy of the minutes to check the info that pitabloke was raising at last meeting (for some reason) - they will surely not be available so you could ?raise a complaint about lack of minutes?!
When minutes have to be kept pitabloke’s wasting of time will be visible.

think. What would a man do? He would not put up with this.

According to OP, there are 4 other men, and they are putting up with this. Despite being paid to manage it.

Putting OP unnecessarily in the firing line from the safety of your screen is not the feminist act you think it is.

People waste an inordinate amount of time in meetings.

Often the person droning on in the meeting will pale at the responsibility of buying something for a £100 without signed permission from half the business, but will quite happily waste £3k of salary keeping people tied up when not needed.

I used to have a rule in meetings that if any decision couldn't be reached in 20 minutes of discussion it could probably just as well be decided by a coin toss than 5 people discussing it for 3 hours.

If confronted with someone droning on about irrelevencies if I was the chair I would probably just interrupt in a loud voice and ask how that was relevant to the discussion and maybe it would be better if that stuff was discussed outside the meeting.

But at the end of the day, it is the manager/meeting chairs responsibility to set the meeting and the tone of it and make sure it progesses at an appropriate speed, and if they want to waste time and money talking about crap that is up to them.

You could always announce that this is a waste of your time and leave, telling them to call you back in when the pertinent discussion starts. Although not surprisingly this attitude might get you something of a reputation - and you might either get hated by everyone around you or promoted to the board pretty quickly.

Every day? He is hijacking daily meetings for an hour at a time? Who is his Manager?
I would keep raising it with my manager and asking her to escalate it. What a waste of everyone's time!
In the meantime, agree with cracking on with other work while he witters on. If on Teams/Zoom call then I would go camera off and continue with work on another screen. If in person then open up laptop and get on.
If other feel able to do the same and he doesn't have an audience maybe he will stop. Or he will complain about people not paying attention. Which may force the weak managers hand to actually acknowledge that you are there to do a job and his behaviour (and their inability to manage it) is preventing you.

Agree this "type" is very very common.

Can you zone out of the meetings and just read whilst he's droning on? What's your next goal/career move? Are you stuck in this situation at this level permanently?

This is a low value person who will always drain time and energy and attention given the opportunity. You want to steer as clear as possible.

I'd be wary to not get absorbed and caught up in "winning" against him, to the detriment of your next move.

You don't want to be caught up in dealing with his weird shit whilst others are looking for the next promotion or opportunity.

Like @Rebusmyfire says reading something quietly could work, or even skipping/shortening the meetings or turning video off where possible.

they are putting up with it because it really only affects OP. She is the only one bothered by it. If a man were bothered by it he would do something about it.

OP can listen to what i say or not, she doesn't have to put herself in the firing line which is why i have suggested a) more than one action and b) a book that might help.

You actively tried to set her on a course of action ending with "at some point a male manger will tell you that your behaviour is unacceptable."

That's borderline sabotage.

Yes, I would formally complain. It's not an unchangeable part of his personality at all, that's ridiculous. He lacks self awareness, professionalism and clearly overvalues his own opinion. It's rude and I would keep complaining.

I would also keep using the phrases "Sorry Ben, I feel we're diverting away from the purpose of the call". "Sorry Ben, can we park that and come back to it in our own time?". "Sorry guys, I have work to do to meet a deadline and the meeting has overrun by XXX minutes so I'll need to log off now". "Would it be possible if we could share the meeting for equitably? I don't feel I'm getting a fair chance to contribute". "Sorry Ben, that question was for Manager on this occasion".

FFS. I have the power through my keyboard to force people to do stuff.

I'm wasted working where i am.

Get a grip.

Sit back and have some shut eye.

Even better if you all agree to do it beforehand.

If there are four managers witnessing this daily, then you saying you don't like it isn't going to make them suddenly take action.

Either keep your head down and look for another job while he's wittering on, or state before the meeting that you have to leave at x time so can the points that involve you be addressed before you leave.

He won't change, the culture is supporting his nonsense and that's a bigger issue than you.

We all have one of these. I quickly shut it down with, thanks for the update but we are not going to have time to solve it in this meeting. Let’s schedule a separate call , send me an invite. Now moving onto ….

Is there some form of chat function to the online session?

If so maybe just pop a message along the lines of "it seems we have finished the actual meeting now and are having a general chitchat. As such I am going to leave the session as rather busy here but let me know if anything of further relevance to the agenda is going to be discussed further and I will rejoin".

Buzzword Bingo is fun in these situations. At least until it’s sorted.

I agree but this does depend somewhat on how senior you are.

If very junior you might not be able to say this to someone more senior.

Also consider whether your managers are keeping this individual happy for another reason? Eg he has specialist skills that cannot easily be replaced.

What an appalling waste of time. Every day?

So if you interrupt him he says "hang on let me finish"? Then why, when he interrupts you, do you not say the exact same thng? Or if he interrupts your manager answering you "sorry Tony I was asking Jeff please let him finish giving me an answer"

Just refuse to go to the meeting.

Depends on your aptitude for suffering fools. I cannot personally suffer fools for very long so I would probably lose it a little and say ‘what are you talking about? You are talking utter nonsense. These meetings should last 10 minutes not an hour and we need to tighten this up because it’s a waste of everyone’s time. manager - how are we going to improve the efficiency of these meetings because these end up being a monologue and aren’t productive.’

I was the boss though in my old career so that is different and I don’t have to get involved in office politics much. But that was also a good reason why I was the boss - I couldn’t suffer fools and if I had to, they wouldn’t last long.

Apart from being annoying, does his behaviour stop you doing your work to a good standard? Do you feel as though he is bullying you or treating you personally with disrespect? If not to any of it, I wouldn’t raise a grievance

I feel like the management are intimidated and in awe of him

I wouldn’t bother putting a grievance in. Finding someone annoying isn’t reason enough. Taking shortcuts in his work should be dealt with by his manager at performance reviews if there is any impact on his productivity/standards/efficiency. It’s not really a grievance unless it’s an issue of gross misconduct.

But if management feel the way you say, you’ll be the one left out in the cold. The reality is that HR will often side with whoever is deemed more important to the business. You get 30 seconds to speak and he gets 30 minutes. Don’t do it. Do go back to your manager and say again about how he’s wasting company time wanging on about himself. It’s irritating as fuck.

Suggest minute taking and chairing are skills everyone should develop at your next appraisal. If needed there are courses to develop these skills.

Helped us identify who the most efficient chairs were! Win for everyone.

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How many other people are in these meetings? Is it just you, 4 managers & gobshite or are there 20 other people involved as well.

How do others feel & what do they do?

Daily stand ups are supposed to be short & snappy but it sounds like your management don’t really know what they are doing.

I don’t think a grievance is the way to go as you need to have something specific that impacts you to complain about and general poor management plus someone being a gobshite in meetings wouldn’t meet that threshold. Like others I suggest you just do other work if the meetings are virtual and if you feel bold enough you can take your laptop into the f2f meetings and just do your work. If there are other colleagues who feel the same as you I’d encourage them to do similar.

DH’s company have a timer. They were all sick of droners.

They get 10 minutes before an alarm goes off. It changed everything drastically.

Self entitled men who drone on do my head in. As l said we used to play Buzzword Bingo to
padd the time on.

It’s the meeting chair who’s the issue.

The issue is the manager who is failing to effectively chair the meeting.

That's who you complain about.