A reader writes:
Our team of seven has been working from home since the beginning of Covid. To keep up-to-date on projects, we have two weekly calls with the entire team, and one mid-week call to update the rest of the company on projects.
Our manager runs the two team calls each week, while I run the mid-week call on projects. This is important to note.
On the team calls, there is a coworker, Andy, who frequently interrupts whoever is talking, regardless of the topic. He talks over everyone and has something to say about everything, even when he isn’t involved. Sometimes, even most times, these things are personal in nature and not about the project we’re working on. He also likes to command the conversation talking about his pets, his house, his home projects, and his friends.
Team calls are a drag on the day anyway, but crucial to staying on point and communicating with coworkers who have different roles in each project, rather than just emailing. I’m just really tired of having a conversation about, let’s say, packaging for a new product to be interrupted and talked over with, “Oh guys! Halloween is next week!”
Our manager is far too diplomatic to say anything, but I feel even she is getting annoyed with this. It isn’t social hour. It’s work. Lately after an outburst, there is an awkward silence where everyone waits to see if it’s okay to resume the conversation we had been having. No one really responds to his interruptions, so you’d think he’d get the hint.
Andy doesn’t have much to do in our department; his job is very seasonal in nature. I know it would not go over well to suggest he no longer be invited to these conversations unless he’s directly involved in a project, but I am going to have an outburst of my own soon if he doesn’t shut up.
It’s interesting to note that on the mid-week calls (the ones I run), he barely makes a peep unless spoken to, so I know it is possible for him to do.
Lately there’s been a text thread before each team call between my coworkers and I, saying things like “Get ready for the Andy show!” … “Wonder how Andy’s weekend was, I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when we’re trying to forecast for the next year.” … etc. He’s crowding out the team and alienating us all.
At the end of the calls, we usually take turns updating anything personal if we choose to share — the key being, take turns (our manger calls us by name and asks how certain things are going, etc). Even that has stopped because when someone else chooses to share, he crowds into their conversation by trying to relate or give advice, when it’s not his turn and no one wants to be talked over during personal share time. It’s affecting team morale.
What is a good way to bring this up to my boss? I had thought of spinning it positively, maybe asking if there is a way we can help Andy wait to share his thoughts until the end or asking him to mute while we’re having project conversations and personal conversations.
I don’t want to have to talk to him myself, although I did a few times already and it made me feel bad. Once I emailed him after a call and kinda let it be known that we missed a good chunk of the conversation because he was speaking. He apologized profusely and said he didn’t mean to do that. It made me feel terrible for being rude to him about it. Another time, on a video call, he was going on and on with unsolicited advice so I raised my hand in a “stop talking” gesture and told him I didn’t want or need his advice. He said, “Oh, okay.” I felt less bad that time because it was about something personal and I chose to share with the team, and I would have said that to anyone else that I knew — sometimes we share to vent, and I didn’t ask for advice.
Ugh, Andy, why?! Not only are the off-topic interjections and monologuing rude, but he’s making meetings take longer, which some day will be an established defense for murder.
Where is your manager in all this? You describe her as “too diplomatic” to speak up, but this isn’t about diplomacy — it’s about doing her job, which includes managing the meetings she’s running so that they’re not constantly veering off-track and stepping in when she sees toxic dynamics developing on your team.
Not only is your manager doing the whole team a disservice by not managing meetings more assertively, she’s also doing Andy a disservice — because she’s allowing him to obliviously go on annoying and alienating all his team members. She’d be doing him, along with everyone else, a favor by shutting this down.
Because you run the mid-week calls with the rest of the company, I’m wondering if that means you have a leadership-ish role in your department (either formally or informally). If so, that positions you especially well to point out to your boss that Andy regularly disrupts meetings and is alienating his coworkers. But even if you don’t have that kind of role, you still have standing to talk to her about it, because you’re a team member who’s affected by it.
I would say it this way: “Would it be possible to talk to Andy about limiting his interruptions on team calls? When he interrupts people, talks over them, and interjects with off-topic remarks, it makes it hard to stay focused on the topic and makes the meeting take longer, and I can tell by people’s comments that they’re getting increasingly frustrated and wanting to participate less.”
If your manager is passive to the point that you know she won’t handle it, another option is to be more assertive during the meetings yourself. For example, at the start of the next call you could say, “I’ve got a hard stop at 10:30 so could we hold anything unrelated to the agenda for the end so I can drop off then?” or, “We’ve been getting off-topic a lot lately, and I wondered what everyone thinks about setting some meeting norms on holding interruptions or anything outside the agenda until the end of the call?” (Your coworkers are likely to chime in enthusiastically on that suggestion.) And when Andy does interrupt with something off-topic, you can say, “I really wanted to hear what Jane was saying about X” or “can you hold that until the end so we don’t lose what Jane was saying about X?”
But it might be that a pointed conversation with your boss will nudge her to step in herself.
