[Mapper]

I am so fed up with her! First off, she never shuts up and reads us out loud practically every dept. email we get even though we are all perfectly capable of reading it ourselves. It especially bothers me when we get one while she's at lunch and then she comes back an hour later and exclaims that we got this email and reads it to us. Yes we know we got it an hour ago! She Googles anything we may have a question on, like a certain restaurant we went to but can't remember the name and she will try and find it and then read us out loud it's address, what they serve, etc. Yesterday while the two others who sit by me were at a meeting she went on and on about everything the entire hour they were gone. Somehow she got on a kick about the Jetsons and looked it up and read me all of the characters names, their ages, their occupations, who voiced them, then she read me some of her Facebook posts. Finally she went back to work but then she talks out loud while she's working. She is working on some Italian stuff and she'd read certain things like churches out loud and say it with an Italian accent. OH MY GOD! And that was just an hour out of my day yesterday!

What really really annoys the crap out of me is that when we sit in little learning sessions and someone else who is knowledgeable is trying to teach us how to do something and she will not shut up! The person will tell us one thing and before they can get the entire sentence out she will go "Oh and then we do such and such right? That's what I thought." I remember when I first started here and we sat in a group learning how to do stuff and it was only for about 30 minutes but I just about slapped her! She went on the entire time!

Then yesterday 3 of us were learning how to use the "scan to email" function on our new printer. She was of course right up front next to the person showing us and she parroted everything this other person said or else would try to figure out what the other person was going to say before she said it. For example when the other person said "You go to this green bar and punch in the person's name" and then Chatty Cathy would immediately say "Do you see that? You have to go to the green bar and punch in the person's name". Then the person would say "And then you hit send and the paper gets put through the scanner and you should have an email" and Chatty would go "See that, how the paper is going through and scanning? You should have an email".

There was an accident last night in front of work where a pedestrian was killed and wouldn't you know she was just leaving work at that time. She has told every single person who has come in today if they heard about the accident and how she was here but didn't see a whole lot. It is driving me insane. I know she enjoys the fact that she was on scene when it happened and can tell EVERYONE about it. I'm sure she feels pretty important.

Nobody here ever says anything about her and maybe they all like the fact that she's so talkative. I've only been here 10 months and am not about to complain about her to someone because everyone is pretty close here and she has been here 17 years. I have to find a way to deal with her, like headphones but we have to collaborate so much that wearing those isn't worth it.

[Travelinglady]

Hey, Mapper, and welcome to Psych Central! You co-worker does sound very frustrating. Is she out for attention? Wanting people to care about her?

How does she respond if someone says, "Thanks. But I have already read it"? If need be, then can you say that and walk away for a bit--not try to exactly be rude, but if she is driving you batty.....

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

Hey, Mapper, and welcome to Psych Central! You co-worker does sound very frustrating. Is she out for attention? Wanting people to care about her?

How does she respond if someone says, "Thanks. But I have already read it"? If need be, then can you say that and walk away for a bit--not try to exactly be rude, but if she is driving you batty.....

It doesn't matter if we've read it...she still feels the need to repeat it out loud to everyone. She just needs to be constantly heard.

She is also the type to complain endlessly about how much work she has and she's never going to finish it (well probably because she's busy looking up stuff like the Jetsons!). She doesn't understand how to do one part of the process and has no desire to learn it and she ends up whining about how she'll NEVER finish it and it and ends up pawning it off on someone else. She is also the type to take the most comfortable chair at a function and not offer it to anyone else while everyone else stands, be the one to say shotgun to be in the front of the car rather than the backseat. She's just THAT kind of person. So self absorbed and making sure everyone knows just how much she knows.

Then yesterday, this was unbelievable! She got in yesterday and as usual she spends about 30 minutes looking up personal stuff, facebooking, writing personal emails, etc. I'll admit, everyone else spends work time doing some personal stuff too, but we sure as hell don't announce to everyone that that is what we are doing! Every time the Google home page has a different Google doodle rather than just the logo she will announce "Oh Google has a different thing going on today" and if it's interactive she'll have to try it and announce step by step what she is doing. If it's just a milestone, like some scientist's birthday, she will click on it and proceed to read us who it is and what they did!We have a document that shows everyone's home addresses and she started reading off people's addresses and Googling them to see where they lived and then announced to us their exact location! We have nearly 100 people at work and she seems to know where everyone lives. Even when she is describing a place she'll say "It's on Pine Street, just down from Tim's house". Does anyone else have a clue or care where Tim's house is?! Does Tim even know who you are?? If he knew you knew where he lived he'd be freaked out!

[Travelinglady]

Hmmm. Definitely sounds like she could use some therapy! But I'm sure she thinks not!

Just try to ignore when you can. However, that could make her more persistent at least for awhile.

[StrongerMan]

We don't do anything without a reason. This woman wants to be heard.. because she needs to be heard to feel validated. Validation was likely something she never got as a child. I'd bet she grew up in a home with multiple siblings who were pitted against one another for attention and love. The key is empathy... trying to understand those who differ from ourselves, however annoying they may be. We probably have more in common with them than we think.

[IceCreamKid]

I'm going to disagree with some of what has been posted here and say your chatty coworker may not "need to be heard". She may be driven to talk, with or without an audience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhea_(psychology) explains what is probably going on

For your own sanity, stop listening and stop paying attention to how much time she spends wasting time. Wear headphones or earplugs if and when you can, and in training sessions, you have every right to ask her to hold her comments because you are trying to listen to the instructor. I'd say it nicely the first time, during the training, and more tersely a second time, during the training. Trainers have an obligation to control their audience; and if your job depends on such training, you have the right to be trained properly.

[Mapper]

Chatty started her month long vacation this past Monday and I cannot tell you how much more enjoyable work is! I don't mind staying late and don't feel the need to pull my hair out on a daily basis. I can actually respond to someone's question to me without her trying to get her response in first. I literally didn't respond to someone asking me a question the other day because I was waiting for it to be answered by Chatty and then I thought "Oh wait, that's silence. I can respond!" The rest of us talk between ourselves, but not all the time and not about such inane things. I feel a lot more part of the company because people ask ME a question and I (and I alone) can respond. I can have a conversation with other coworkers without her butting in and taking over.

Her being gone just confirms that she alone is the reason I am frustrated here at work. It has been 4 days of pure bliss. 15 more days of it before pure hell returns!

[unaluna]

My sympathies. I ended up getting myself fired from a pretty darn good job because just such a person drove me insane. I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom to get away from her and she would just follow me in there and keep on talking. My brother is a therapist but her brother was a lawyer. It was torture for me. It was torture for everybody who sat near her. You know that scene in Gone With The Wind, where they show the so-called hospital during the war, and first they focus in on a small group, then the camera pulls back and back and back, then you get this super wide view of broken bodies? - thats what our work area would look like after she had a particularly wild day - we were defeated and just lying down dead.

[Vossie42]

Mapper, I can sympathize. I had a boyfriend like that. The man never had an un-uttered thought. We did not last long at all. As annoying as she is, be thankful that you do not have to live with her. I don't know what drives people to talk all the time like that. They seem to have absolutely no clue how their behavior affects others. The part of their brain that regulates social behavior is wonky.

Unless you need to converse with her on work-related matters, my advice is to ignore her. You're not being rude. She is being rude by commanding people's attention every minute of the day. You need to get work done. If she asks why you don't respond, just say "Hunh, what? I'm sorry I was concentrating so hard on my work that I didn't hear you. What do you need?" If she talks about something that's not work-related, just say, "Oh, okay. Well, I need to get back to work. Nice chatting with you." Yes, she will persist even more for awhile, so hang in there! Most likely, though, she won't change her behavior. You can only change how you respond. Not fair in this situation but you don't have many good choices. In the meantime, enjoy the respite from her.

[spondiferous]

I have to agree with IceCreamKid. You are well within your means to ask her to be quiet. Yes, nicely at first; but if she doesn't listen and continues being disruptive then perhaps it's high time someone pointed it out to her. I have never worked anywhere where the manager, or at the very least a supervisor, has not been on hand nearly every day. What does the manager think of all of this?