One of my biggest pet peeves is being interrupted: I really
hate that.
Invariably it happens this way:
I’m at work, talking to a coworker about an issue with the
job at hand. The architect walks up and immediately butts in and starts talking
about his issue at hand. He doesn't apologize, or say “Excuse me” or anything
like that. He just starts talking like I’m not even there.
Yes, it’s almost always a man. I’m sure some women do it as well; I've just never encountered it.
No, it’s not always the same man. It can be – and has been -
pretty much any man I've ever worked with.
What this tells me is either A. a woman’s conversations are
clearly unimportant and aren't worth the air it takes to voice them, or B. his
issues are way more important that anybody else’s issues and should therefore
be moved to the front of the line regardless of what else is going on.
Can it be, perhaps,
that the guys aren't even aware that they’re doing that? Can they be that
self-involved that they don’t realize that other people have things to talk
about?
Or am I just being
over sensitive?
What do you think?
I've definitely had that happen at a couple places I've worked. At Peace Corps, no one would dream of acting like that--but at the lobbyist and the office management service, the guys they hired were complete jerks.
ReplyDeleteMy supervisor at Peace Corps once told me, "People hire people like themselves." I found that to be very true in some cases--and it can be wonderful for the company culture, like at PC, or it can be poison, like at the lobbyist. There, it was definitely an issue where the guys looked down on the ladies, but at the office management company, it was more that men and women alike were oblivious and had terrible work etiquette.