You know em'. You prolly hate em'. For all I know, you might could be em'.
Yep, I'm talking about The Office MotorMouth.
Every office has that one person who just can't stop talking. I'm not necessarily referring to gossipers (another topic for another time), rather that guy (or girl) whom you hate getting caught in the break room with, because you know there's no way of possibly avoiding the 15 minutes of pointless conversation they're about to subject you to.
My office has one such Chatty Cathy or Talkin' Tim. We'll call mine Stanley, or Stan for short. Stanley is probably one of the most technically savvy and experienced of the engineers on staff. He knows his stuff, and thankfully, he's not so conceited and selfish that he won't help you if you need some assistance. The problem is, that advice comes with a stiff pricetag. Because there's so such thing as a short answer when you're dealing with The Office MotorMouth.
A routine question about an obscure programming routine becomes a half-hour dissertation on biography of the programming language's author, the weather in Fort Wayne, and what Stan bought his stepson for Christmas back in 1998. And since you need that answer, you endure the extracurriculars, because hey, Stanley wants to talk.
Even worse is when I run into Stanley (in the copy room, the restroom, or the aforementioned break room) when he's in a talking mood (which is always). Your lunch plate cannot warm up quickly enough. Worst of all, on rare occasions I've had Stan "just drop by my office to talk", nearly always when I'm trying to ditch work early. 20 minutes later, I find myself cursing my employer for not allowing me to telecommute, and wishing I had those 20 precious minutes of my life back.
It would be easy to just tell Stanley to kick rocks, but in Corporate America, few things are so simple. For one, he's a tech guru, and you don't need him pissed off the next time you're in a bind on a client site and really need an answer. And... well, okay, that's the only answer.
So, as I try and run to the elevator without somehow crossing paths with Stanley in the hallway, I pose this query to you guys.
Question: How do you handle your fellow Office MotorMouths? What is a tactful way of telling someone to "step off" without pissing them off to the point that you won't be able to get at em' when you actually do need em'?
