“Let’s not bother with the small talk today”

[Jausyn]

AIBU to find the above extremely rude? Corporate company, myself and a manager the job level above from elsewhere in the department were the first two to join. I knew they’d been off with holiday and asked how their half term was going. I think that’s such a rude reply. It became clear as the call went on they were trying to catch up with emails etc from their time off, but I felt a bit silly being told that.

Very rude. I would take them at face value and never make small talk with them again. If they didn't want to share, they could easily have just made a vague reply.

Corporate meeting personal chat discouraged I would think. If the meeting hadn't started asking about the holiday might be OK, but it might be sensitive if there are things going on you don't know about and some people just don't want to talk about their private life. It does sound a bit as though you often talk about other things so perhaps fed up with it, hence the 'today'.

It hadn’t started - we were waiting for a couple of other stakeholders who were late joining.

Personally let's not bother with small talk ever during teams calls and let's get on with business. So many of these "meetings" could have been an email.

Agree that's very rude and not good for morale. It's so awkward to sit in silence!

My boss likes to do "spreadsheets by phone". I'd much rather he just read the attachment

You are correct, it's not polite BUT no-one really knows what happening in someone's life do we? Something else may be a priority at work or home.

I would just 'let it be' this first time especially as it is out of character for it to be this way.

It's probably rude to say it but I'd secretly be thinking it. And would quietly admire anyone with the balls to actually say it. 😂

THIS.

Probably about 30% of my working hours are wasted by corporate chit chat, nonsense, and crap that I don’t have time for.

This!

I agree, so much time wasting.

Totally rude but where I work, it’s an unspoken rule that if you’re first on the call, you’re camera and microphone off til the meeting starts to avoid the awkward small talk! They could have just said they were in the middle of something tho…

Yeah, I don’t care what people are up to in their personal lives at work. Can we just get on and do the job?

There are loads of threads like this lately - another one where someone said their boss had been rude because they asked them to skip through a bunch of slides to get to the point. I didn’t see a problem with that, someone else thought it was the height of rudeness.

They asked for what they need to do their job - not chat

“shut up I’m busy”
would be rude

The meeting hadn’t started if I’m reading the posts correctly. So the wasting time excuse doesn’t really hold water.

Extremely rude, but a lot of people re these days.

The meeting hadn’t started if I’m reading the posts correctly. So the wasting time excuse doesn’t really hold water.

Extremely rude, but a lot of people re these days.

Why is it rude? They were getting on with their work.

I'd say it's abrupt rather than outright rude.

*Edited spelling

So the meeting hadn’t started - she still had work to do ?

You can turn on the call but sit and carry on quietly with your work until the meeting starts. No need to chit chat which is wasting time if one person is carrying on dealing with emails, reading or drafting something.

Of course it was phrased rudely.
I know this is Mumsnet where people fall over themselves to shout ‘NO IS A COMPLETE SENTENCE’ - but, in the real world, this is rude.

I agree in the real world people don’t speak to each other like that, only on mumsnet is it considered cool to be rude to people.

OP, don’t ever bother talking to that particular colleague again unless it’s work related.

Some people just want to get on with their work without feeling obligated to participate in small talk. It can be very tedious.

Perhaps something awful happened on the holiday, or it was a nightmare journey and he didn't want to get drawn into it. As for "How's your half term going?" Bloody hell. I hate stuff like that. What's the point? I would wonder if they wanted the truth - the shower is leaking and the bloke can't come until next week, and I want to make the Christmas cake but Sainsbury's has run out of currants - or a "Yes, great, thanks. Yours?"

I'm with your colleague.

Isn’t it rude to assume someone wants to chat though? Shouldn’t OP have begun “are you busy ?”