Quips and Questions

[blas87]

Sometimes I really cannot deal with some people.

Ya know you get those customers who think they are so funny? Well, I have friends and coworkers who think they are just so damn clever.

Sometimes, it's like moving a mountain to tell a story or have a conversation, because some people just can't NOT interject a joke or a comment or ask a stupid question.

Like M= Me D= Dumbass

M= So today I went to Ponderosa-
D= What's Ponderosa?
M=.......a restaurant. Anyway, we got really tired after lunch so we took a food nap-
D= Food nap?
M=.....when you fall asleep after you get really full after you eat. So then when I left the house I realized I forgot my keys.
D= Must not have wanted to leave, heh?
M= *struggles to not want to strangle the person* But anyway, I ran into that person we used to work with-
D= Did you hurt em when you ran into them?
M= Uh, I didn't actually run into them literally. But come to find out, they got a new job at Grizzly's-
D= Grizzly's?
M=......*seething* a sports bar. They wanted to say hi and let everyone know that what was going around about how they quit wasn't true.

Maybe I'm just losing my patience in general with some people. But I have no choice but to be around them.

The only solution I've come up with recently (my example above would have been me a month or so more ago) is that when they try to joke like that, change the subject or just start a new sentence with "But" or "Anyway" so it shows you either don't get or don't care about their joke. That way, they can quit telling stupid jokes or actually LISTEN.

The bonus point here is these people, if you ever dare interrupt them or tell a corny joke, they get irritated with you. I've honestly had one coworker start stomping his feet and shove a chair because he got so mad that I interrupted him.

[firecat88]

It's not just you. That sorta thing drives me nuts too. When I'm telling a story, let me tell it, dammit. Unless you're roughly around the age of 5, it is not cute for you to interrupt every 5 seconds.

[blas87]

Yeah. A few weeks ago, a somewhat close pal and I were out to eat, and he mumbles like freaking Val Kilmer so sometimes it's really hard to hear him (especially in public) and he was trying to tell a story, and although I was being rude and interrupting him with "Your brother was sleeping where?", he actually huffed, like HFFFFFFF (loud sigh) and asked "Can I tell the story!?!"

And it took everything I had to not raise my voice and say "Ok, this one time I interupted you. Over every time you've cut me off or forced me to stop telling a story because you didn't know what a place was or who so and so was. Over every time I start telling a story and you've interjected a stupid joke."

[HYHYBT]

I'd never heard of Ponderosa, food nap, or Grizzly's either. The first two, though, I'd have figured out unless you talked fast.

[blas87]

Ponderosa I just made up. It probably is a restaurant or something somewhere. I should have been more clear, I named a restaurant this friend never heard of.

Food nap/food coma is a pretty common term around here for people, especially like me and my brother, who have the bad habbit of over indulging and then falling asleep.

If they could wait til I finished the story, it'd be fine. But you almost feel like you're talking to a grade schooler or something. That and the jokes are almost as nerve wracking as "Hyuck hyuck must be free!" when an item doesn't scan at a store.

I guess some people aren't as clever or quick witted as others, but damn, really? I didn't literally run into that person, and that joke was stupid.

[Ginger Tea]

Like M= Me D= Dumbass

M= So today I went to Ponderosa-
D= What's Ponderosa?
M=.......a restaurant. Anyway, we got really tired after lunch so we took a food nap-

Without knowing the timing, you could have been about to say Ponderosa, that new restaurant, but the pause you took was all it can be for someone to go "new word, need clarification."

The bonus point here is these people, if you ever dare interrupt them or tell a corny joke, they get irritated with you. I've honestly had one coworker start stomping his feet and shove a chair because he got so mad that I interrupted him.

I can get a bit pissed if I'm intereupted, one of our supervisors a while back asked me a question and NEVER let me get the whole damn answer out.
If he let me say what I needed to say, he would have got the information he needed, instead he got me close to walking out for the day and it was only half hour into it.

Now I've got a password for the works PC so I can do my own lables instead of harrassing the main office, I might in future write a parargraph in stoney silence answering his question uninterupted. Print it out, wrapp it round a brick and throw it at him.

[blas87]

It irritates me because there is no mutual respect. They want everyone to hear everything they have to say, yet have no qualms about cutting in and asking questions or inserting lame jokes when I'm talking.

[DrFaroohk]

I know some people that try to finish my sentences for me, and it's especially annoying when they get it wrong.

Or they interrupt me while trying to make a point. Where they tilt their head back slightly so they can be looking down at me, and then a sharp "AH AH AH AH!" until you can't talk.

[AdminAssistant]

Heh, there's a string of buffet-style restaurants in the South called Ponderosa (some are called Bonanza, but it's the same thing.)

[ExRetailDrone]

Ponderosa is in the midwest, too. And there was a Bonanza in a town close to my hometown.

Mmm, now I want to go to Bonanza. Damnit

[AdminAssistant]

Mmm, now I want to go to Bonanza. Damnit

Me too! It was our go-to 'night out' when we were kids.

[Giggle Goose]

Good God that is so annoying...I go to lunch sometimes with a group of coworkers that are always trying to one-up each other with "zings, " to the point where it took this one guy nearly the whole lunch hour to tell a five-minute story. Like ok, we get it, you're cute and clever, just keep your mouth shut for TWO SECONDS!! It gets exhausting after a while. That's why I only go with them once a week (if ever anymore)!

[KabeRinnaul]

Reminds me of two friends who can't shut up during movies. They assume they've missed things and ask plot questions early in the movie, instead of waiting for the movie to explain it. And feel the need to add commentary throughout. Then because they're talking, they actually DO miss things, and have to ask what's going on. And while doing so, miss even more dialogue and plot.

[HYHYBT]

It irritates me because there is no mutual respect. They want everyone to hear everything they have to say, yet have no qualms about cutting in and asking questions or inserting lame jokes when I'm talking.

Depends on how long you're going to talk. If there's genuine confusion on a point, it's far better all around that they ask right away. *You* might know that it won't matter, but they don't know that the rest of the story will make sense without it... and it's unreasonable to expect that people always will put it together the right way around later.

To be clear: I don't know how much this applies in your particular example. But I've known too many people who combine "how DARE you interrupt me!" with going on and on without giving a break for the other person to speak *without* interrupting, and by that time either I've lost interest for not knowing what they're talking about, or there are too many questions to remember them all, or whatever.

(I've also all too often been the third in a conversation where the other two seem to have a sort of psychic link, where each begins speaking precisely as the other stops and it's impossible to join in, ever, without interrupting. Even though I'm supposed to be part of it.)

[blas87]

I can say quite a bit without taking a breath, but I am talking mostly short stories.

It's someone trying to be cute and funny by cutting in or throwing in their two cents before I'm done, hence the "Tehehe you didn't hurt them when you ran into them did you?" Hyuck Hyuck.