my patronizing coworker interrupts meetings to explain basic things to me — Ask a Manager


update: my patronizing coworker interrupts meetings to explain basic things to me

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose patronizing coworker kept interrupting meetings to explain basic things to her? Here’s the update.

I wrote last year about my insufferable coworker “Craig” who habitually interrupted meetings to Craig-sprain basic concepts to me. I have a two-part update:

1. Your response to my letter was very helpful in making me see just how blatantly obnoxious this behavior was and that I shouldn’t just be enduring it. The reader comments were very supportive and offered a lot of great retorts to Craig’s blatherings, which I harvested and kept in a file on my phone so I could deploy them as needed. But I also finally went to upper management about the pattern. I believe somebody did bring Craig to a reckoning, as the frequency of the incidents drastically decreased, which was great — although I was slightly disappointed to never get to use most of the suggested replies.

2. Some months later, I got a repeat call from an annoying recruiter, about a position in which I had no interest. The recruiter kept telling me the position was very prestigious, would gain me a lot of respect in my field, class up my resume, etc. It was a not-great role, at a company type I avoid, in a location at which I don’t want to work … and it suddenly dawned on me who would actually be flattered by this sales pitch! I sicced the recruiter on Craig (just gave him Craig’s contact info, absolutely no praise or endorsement of any sort), and soon Craig was off to this dubiously-prestigious new job. I feel a little guilty for inflicting him on his new coworkers. Maybe I should anonymously forward them the list of Craig-diffusing meeting interruption retorts.

Thanks to you and your readers.



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