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?

Maybe not everyone needs to be at all of these meetings, or there for the whole meeting. If you want most of the people to just be receiving info most of the meeting time and not trying to solve a problem or contribute, you may not need a meeting, send out updates and have the conversations among the relevant people.
I agree all these things are annoying.
But... if you invite someone, or worse make them attend a meeting, you can't be all that surprised when they contribute. Or get bored and spout their inane ideas.

Who is chairing the meeting? They should be controlling this. I'm like you i cannot stsnd the talking for talkings sake, and i am happy to shut it down when im chairing with 'im conscious of time, so shall we let (the subject matter expert name) take the lead on this part' or 'thats an interesting point but lets stay on topic, and if theres time at the end you can bring that to AOB' or even 'this probably isnt the format for that, but why dont you connect with (subject matter expert) offline if you have ideas/thoughts on that'

The chairs job is literally this - staying on topic, ensuring everyone (relevant) is heard and sticking to time. I also think that persind manager should feed it back - we all benefit from helpful feedback, and the person is, probably unwittingly, damaging their own credibility. If that was me, id want to know

Was going to say this too despite the risk of triggering the MN SEN gatekeepers. It's usually a total inability to read social cues combined with a learned masking response that contributing something to a group convo is important. It's usually in high-masking ADHD or AuDHD individuals who already learned in school that answering questions from the teacher leads to a desired outcome. The kids who put their hands up for everything and always contributed were rewarded for their behaviour so they internalised this as something they must do in groups. These kids become adults who cannot shut up in work meetings because they feel obliged to contribute something for the sake of contributing. Also the sort of adults who cannot close conversations at parties or leave any social gathering at a normal time.

This is spot on. In my workplace the person who does this definitely has some neurodiversity and struggles to gauge appropropriate behaviour at the best of times but believes that "responding" and "engaging" by rote is the way to keep people happy. There's a large helping of people pleasing involved as well: believing that showing agreement all the time and being upbeat is the way to keep people on board, partly because of a lack of strong conviction about anything and also fear of being seen to do something "wrong".

Corporate environments feed into this as well because they requires constant sycophantism and "team playing" behaviour so people who hold back on contributing or express scepticism are seen as negative or insubordinate.

It's thoroughly toxic and I imagine it must be awful to be a neurodiverse person constantly having to check yourself to make sure you demonstrate the right level of positivity.

im going to go to work today and be an absolute twat to everyone because, according to mumsnet it’s ok because I probably have adhd or autism. Or dementia.

What twaddle.

🥱

Exactly this

My husband just mutes them on calls.

Omg yes its soooo annoying!!

The two (older) women that don't shut up at our meetings live alone so they want to put their verbal diaharia onto their colleagues!! Hate it!!

It's called Mansplaining. Some men like the sound of their own voice and think everyone around them wants to hear it too

Ugh you have hit my pet peeve OP!
I'm in a small team, usually half a dozen of us at a meeting. This one guy in his 60s talks and talks and talks! True hes had a long career but that just makes him think he is the expert at absolutely everything. No one can get a word in edgeways. Even when you start speaking he just speaks over you.

It was massively giving me the rage so I've had to just switch off completely. I also tell myself thank god I am not his wife, well we would be divorced already if I was! Hes not at all the meetings so I save anything I want to say for those. We had one without him the other day and it was bliss!

Age is not the issue, the big I am in our workplace is 65 and keeps saying he is going to retire. Thankfully he has been moved on to a project I have almost no involvement with.

Speak with whoever chairs a meeting and if that fails, ultimately you could consider it harassment in extreme cases, as it is definitely unwanted conduct.

Being on Teams or Zoom for a meeting does have its advantages, you can mute, or just ignore and read something else.

Sounds like a tutorial at uni where those of us who had done the reading and throught about it were the only ones with something to say. I used to make a point of being absent every third week wondering if everyone else would sit in silence. Sometimes the tutor deliberately asked someone different for their opinion and to "take us deeper in." It was quite amusing watching someone waffle when they had not done the work. Unlike meetings tutorials end after a set time.

There's a man running a significant project in my work. He's in a different but related team, and my team have delivered some of the work.

He books in 1h meetings to introduce the project to other teams - then spend the first forty fucking minutes droning on. Then asks a couple of questions. Then talks for the majority of the rest of the meeting. Then overruns the meetings by 15-30m, because he doesn't know how to wrap up and say go - the meetings ALWAYS end because someone has to go.

And also doesn't show up to these meetings at random because he's overrunning another meeting.

It's baffling how he hasn't been managed out.

Jesus christ I was waiting for the ND bingo. 😅

Oh do be quiet will you.

Every insulting post, well they must be ND.

NEWSFLASH- we know how to behave. I hate people who prolong meetings and don't know how to shut up. Some actually tend to not shut up on things that they enjoy and who the feck enjoys meetings eh?

Certainly not me, they are boring as hell and I think this could have been an email.

You do know that isn't all people who have this?

You do know that quite a few of us can read social cues? And can read the room? And know when to not butt in? It's not always an ADHD or ND person, sometimes it's an NT person who cannot read the room, who has no manners and thinks their opinion is the only right one.

Do not generalise us please.

I agree. The Chair set the toxic culture. It was chaos. The most unprofessional meetings I've ever been part of.

A bit like yourself eh...just shhhhh

This thread is so cathartic. There are 2 of these at my work - one woman who I initially thought had it in for me personally because she seemed to talk over and belittle me at every opportunity. Then I had a few whole-team meetings with her and realised, oh no, she does this to everyone and it comes from a place of deep insecurity. Literally everything that comes out of her mouth is either a humblebrag or a neg, she is usually cutting someone else off to say it, and she will not stfu unless shut down by a decent chair.

The other is my boss, who is a classic failing-upwards mediocre man. Says the same thing 5 different ways in a vain attempt to cover up the fact he's done precisely fuck all work and has nothing to add.

I'm leaving soon 😂

And when the women do it?
oh they must be the ones with adhd.

What is it called when women do exactly the same thing?

In my experience, gender has nothing to do with it. Both are as guilty as each other.☹️

People using “yourself” all over the place for no god damn reason are far more irritating. Just STOP IT!

I can be liek this nad I have adhd like symptoms from CPTSD from childhood