Talk to your manager again

Casadena · October 16

Dear Prudence,

I have a co-worker problem. My remote work ended, and I was forced back into the office. I have to share a desk with “Tania.”

Tania talks to herself not only in the third person, but like a demented toddler. Tania doesn’t get hungry; she tells her tummy it needs to wait until lunch time. Tania doesn’t say she needs to go to the bathroom; Tania needs to pee-pee before she makes a wee-wee here. Tania doesn’t ask if I want to see photos of her grandchildren or her cat; they are itty-bitties, and the cat is a floofer with tiny beans. Every single sentence out of her mouth is like this. She calls her husband “daddy” for crying out loud.

I know Tania can talk like a rational adult because she is perfectly fine with clients and our boss (who gets to stay remote), but with me, it is eight hours of baby talk every day. Most of my other coworkers just shrug and say it is “just Tania.” They don’t have to sit by her and hear this drivel. Our supervisor doesn’t care and tells me to ignore it. Headphones are not allowed, so I can’t even drown out the noise. I reminded Tania that this is a professional office and asked her to stop speaking as though she were a baby. She got offended and said God didn’t like eavesdropping. We are less than three apart.

I am honestly this close to barking and cursing under my breath just to get back at Tania. I need help here.

—Shut Up For the Love of Mike

VarunaTT · October 16

I think the only thing to do is asked to be moved or learn some breathing exercises. I would be incredibly annoyed, but I've gotten good at moving past it. I think LW is going to have to do the same.

banana468 · October 16

If her speaking is to the point of distraction tell her that you appreciate that she wants to share the details of her life with you but you do need to focus on your work activities so the conversation needs to be limited.

charlotte989875 · October 16

If an employee came to me with this problem I would ask them what they had done to try and resolve it on their own.

Oh you haven’t talked to her? Do that. You want to work with headphones on? Cool, as long as it doesn’t impact if you work with clients. You have tried those things and you’re still distracted and you’ve talked to her and she isn’t open to quieting down? Let’s talk about where there’s an open seat.

But this isn’t a manager problem until you’ve done some very reasonable problem solving first.

flantastic · October 16

LW says headphones aren't an option, so I would try one more time with Tania to say that the audible self-talk (it doesn't seem like these are always conversations) is preventing them from focusing on their work in a shared space. Doesn't matter that it's inane, the fact that it exists at all is distracting. And if she can't stop, then speak to your manager about moving.

Casadena · October 16

I definitely made the assumption that LW had taken the obvious step to ask her to reign it in, etc. If that did not happen, obviously it needs to. After that, i'd speak to the manager to request a headphone exemption or a move to an open seat. These should be reasonable requests. Otherwise the only option is to suck it up or leave.

banana468 · October 16

Casadena said:

I definitely made the assumption that LW had taken the obvious step to ask her to reign it in, etc. If that did not happen, obviously it needs to. After that, i'd speak to the manager to request a headphone exemption or a move to an open seat. These should be reasonable requests. Otherwise the only option is to suck it up or leave.

Agree. I would be clear if the coworker was not receptive to asking to stop that you say to management that the words themselves at the frequency that they are is also distracting along with the issue that she's speaking to you in a way that is infantilizing. And I'd be clear that you know she's capable of NOT talking like this to people she thinks are her equal or above and you find that her not curtailing it when asked and talking to you like a toddler is a respect issue that must be addressed in the workplace.

short+sassy · October 16

I had a huge noise problem with a coworker who used to sit in the cube across from mine. He was always either loudly slurping on soda or chewing on ice. My ONLY salvation was being able to drown out his constant loud and a bit off-putting noises was listening to music with my headphones.

Not being allowed to wear headphones would have been torture for me, so I have a lot of sympathy for the LW.

Asking to move desks sounds like the best option. But if that is not possible, I wonder if they are allowed to and could still do their work if they wore ear plugs.

Unless they knew for a fact that ear plugs were not allowed or they would affect their work, the LW should just wear them and hope no one notices. Even better if they have long hair because ears can be easily hidden that way.

Talk to your manager again

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