I’ve talked many times about how I am really good at getting people to talk. It’s on of my strengths, and, it’s one of my weaknesses as well. Or rather, it can do harm unto myself. There have been several letters lately to Ask A Manager about how to get someone else to shut up. But politely, of course. Got to be collegial.
One in particular was interesting to me. It was from a woman who was the only woman in her department who had to deal with the men (all men, six of them) in the database team. Things would start out normally, but then she would ask how they were doing, and they would dump on her. Or she wouldn’t even ask how they were doing and they would dump on her. She wanted to know how she could cut it off at the pass without being rude. Alison opened it up to the commentariat (which she does once a week), and there have been a wide variety of responses.
One person was really mean to the writer and said that having a dead brother as a young child can really mark you. First of all, the LW never said the dead brother was from a young childhood (it was one example she gave). Even if it had been, though, dumping that info on your coworker is not cool. Bottom line. Most people have traumatic shit in their lives. That doesn’t mean we get to dump it over our coworkers willy and, indeed, nilly.
I couldn’t help think, however, that she may have to be what she feels is rude to shut this thing down. In normal and polite society, there is an unspoken agreement that interrupting is rude (yes, I am aware that this is not true of all cultures, but for the sake of this post, I’m stating it to be true. Especially in offices).
The problem is that people who wish to keep on talking therefore are at a great advantage if they simply don’t stop. Or if they go back to the topic they want to maunder about when you try to change the subject. She even said that she felt it was her fault because she responded warmly once. Several people pointed out that she should not be hard on herself for having some empathy and reacting like a normal human being.
It helped to hear that because I get drawn into these kinds of conversations all the time. The story I tell is of the time I really tried to shut this kind of conversation down. It was with my tree guy. I called him because I needed him to take away a tree. I was conscious that people dumped their problems on me and I was resolved to keep to the issue–which was me needing a tree to get taken away.
The call started with small talk–as usual. But it quickly turned into shit because when I asked how he was, he went on a long ramble about how he was depressed and was using a light box to countermand his SAD. I tried to ask about the tree, but he simply talked over me. He said that he was in therapy, but it wasn’t helping. He added something about his daughter, but I wasn’t really listening at that point.
I told my brother about this conversation. I said something about how I had said ‘oh that was too bad’ at some point, and my brother said that it was my fault the tree guy continued because I had shown sympathy. My brother was joking, kind of, but it really stung because it’s normal human empathy to sympathize when someone is having a hard time. And I tried to move it onto the tree removal, but the tree guy simply would not let me. I did not ask any follow up questions as I normally would have, but it didn’t matter. Tree guy was going to bend my unwilling ear whether I wanted him to or not.
I got to hear about his trailer home and how he was agonizing over selling it or not. Now, I think I would have cut it all short by saying, “I have to go. Let’s talk about the tree”, but I really tried to move him along. He really was just that desperate to talk to a sympathetic person–and that happened to be me.
In the AAM post, the commentariat pointed out that women, especially young women, were often held hostage to men who had no one to listen to them. That was my case, though I’ve had women do it to me as well. But men really had the habit of just dumping, and it’s very uncomfortable.
I would have felt rude to cut tree guy off. I tried my best, but in the end, I let societal conventions get the best of me and let him ramble for much longer than I wished I had. I did not owe that to him, but that’s not what society tells women and women-shaped people.
In my case, it didn’t help that my other culture is even more into treating women as helpmeets for men. Or that my mother is very much into me being her confidante. It’s partly because I’m a female-shaped person, definitely, but it’s also because I have an innate ability to read people. And to know what to say. I have an off-the-charts EQ, which I consider a hindrance more than a help.
I think we as a society need to stop making it the responsibility of women and other minorities to cater to the egos of men. It really is that simple. And, yes, it’s more complicated than that, of course, but that’s the bottom line. Everything caters to men and they get indignant when it doesn’t. I had to explain to someone a few days ago….a man…maybe my brother? It might have been. How when women talk, men overestimate how much time they are taking. Fifty-fifty seems like the woman is talking too much to men. It’s because men are used to taking up all the space. And men expect that when they talk, women will listen with bated breath. That’s just not how I want to operate any longer.
I feel like I talk too much (and I do in certain situations), but in general, I do not talk nearly as much as a man does. But I get called out for it more because I dare to talk even half as much as a man would. This means ‘chatting’ by talking as well as talking in real life.
At this point, I don’t know how I’m going to break the cycle, but it’s something I want to focus on. I’m tired of being everyone’s therapist–especially when I’m not getting paid for it.