Colleagues that won’t shut up in work meetings

[DaphneDahlia]

Just wanted to vent!

Unsure if it’s down to my advancing years but I seem to have lost the ability to have patience with colleagues that won’t shut up.

At work there are many meetings that have several people with separate expertise. I am finding this frequently where there is always one person who continually has an opinion on absolutely EVERYTHING!!

They just don’t pipe down and find any method to communicate their thoughts, verbally, or in the chat box or through response via symbols such as clapping hands, smiley face etc. Often they will advise/ voice opinions on something completely outside their remit. They take the time during meetings to find resolutions to things that are none of their concern, such as finding something on the internet and then posting the image in the chat, like ‘here I’ve found a solution’.

The other thing is that I only experience this with men in their 30s. Is it possible that they are trying to climb career ladder by demonstrating their usefulness or is it because they are a PITA?

No I have women and men of all ages in my team who do it. Tell your manager this chap needs telling to pipe down.

This is down to a poor chair. You should agree a meetings code of conduct otherwise you will end up with half the group sitting in silence whilst everyone else solves their operational issues.

Thanks. Just my personal experience then. It’s insufferable.

I despise people like this. My last workplace was FULL OF THEM. Meetings going on forever, side tangents, multiple conversations at once. Hated the lot of them. Which made it even worse to listen to them go on, and on, and on, and on. One woman, bored on with endless tales about all sorts of crap. And talked AT people, and OVER them. Ugh. So glad I don't have to listen to them anymore. Kissing ASS.

Vent over.

In my experience it is NOTHING to do with age or gender, just that the person is gobby and has opinions that "need" to be made (however irrelevant to the subject being discussed in the meeting).☹️

Been there, endured that.... glad I no-longer have to bother.

Interesting that it’s all ages and gender. Incidentally, these are the people that always spot the insignificant mistakes in others peoples work and self righteously point it out to ‘help’

Who is chairing these meetings?

There’s one in my team who is indeed a man but he’s under 30. He’s not an unpleasant person but having observed his behaviour I think he’s just an attention seeker. The only person in the team who insists on sharing his holiday photos and even told us which specific bits of gym equipment he likes using

Yes there's always one. Same when you attend a training session or some sort of event - there's always the one who wants to make themselves sound more clever than everyone else.

Meetings going on forever, side tangents, multiple conversations at once.

That's down to the chair, or whoever is supposed to be leading the meeting or session, to shut down side chats and insist on sticking to the point and all remarks being addressed to the chair.

I think there's a different between people who speaking frequently to suggest positive ideas/solutions or have expertise or experience.

The people who talk for the sake of talking or like to have the last word or waffle on with a stream of gabbled thought are different.

I don't have an issue with the first group.

The second group are badly managed by the chair.

"John, we've heard from you already so I want to invite other opinions/voice"

"Jane, that's outside the scope of this meeting but I'll talk to you about it later if you wish"

Or my personal favourite, give the dominant waffles more work.

"Worth considering Dave, can you draft me a 2 page document with a full cost benefit analysis and the pros & cons". This type usually never produce anything & are more considerate of their future contributions or stop the waffle. Never takes longer than 3 times for to work.

Others their manager needs to raise it in their 1:1 about communication style and opportunities for others. Ie. one well thoughtout point better than many incompete views

We have weekly meetings with about 15 people and there are about 3 or 4 (male and female) who have to have an opinion on absolutely everything. It's very tiring.

Meetings need an end time as well as a start time. And it ends at the set time, not when the gobshites have finished.

I have people in my current team & a previous team like this but they are all woman

It’s worse when there are meetings or learning events that no one speaks at. Perhaps 1 or 2 people pipe up and everyone else is totally passive. Then those 1 or 2 people get resentful as they are the only ones bothering to participate.

I'm afraid that in my experience these people have all been women.

I was at a meeting last week where I was SO close to telling someone to shut up. Middle aged woman in that case, in a meeting that was 70:30 men to women

The problem with online meetings is you can't feel the vibe. When you're physically sat together you can see people glancing at their watches, facial expressions, feel the silence in the room when others ramble on etc. It's important for the leader to keep reminding ok we've got a lot to cover, let's move on...

I have a guy like this in my team. Clearly just speaking for the sake of "being visible" - no matter what the meeting topic is, he'll pipe up. I know I'm unreasonable but I find it insufferable.

It’s hard to complain to the chair without sounding like sour grapes.

These people usually harp on during the meeting then those on the agenda to present at the end of the meeting end up having little time. Agree this is down to the chair.

@AwfullyGood

This is brilliant advice about asking the blabber mouth to write a piece on their idea. Genius

Unless I was tasked to take the minutes, it wouldn’t really bother me. I have to take minutes regularly which I’m not much good at. I’d hate to get a really verbose person prattling on whilst I was trying to take notes.

Are your colleagues Lisa Stanfield?

There is always one show-off on any committee, in any meeting, work-related or not. I avoid any sort of meeting like the plague these days.

Most meetings are a bit of a waste of time anyway.

There's one of these in the meetings my partner has every day. He likes to lord it over people and pipe up all the time, problem is that he's often incorrect and doesn't actually know what he's talking about. He also takes credit of other people's work too, insufferable prick.

He's 57.

The boss in the meetings often has to ask him to let others speak.