The downside to being fairly knowledgeable is that people often fire questions at me and forget that I'm a person who doesn't enjoy constant interrogation. How about saying hi first, for instance, before you start firing your questions at me?
I have one friend who has been doing that online in direct messages. It's always a question that he poses.
The weekend, I had proudly mentioned that I got my vaccine shot in a public post. He congratulated me on said post and then privately asked me what vaccine I got.
I decide not to respond. It was the first time that I felt good about not replying. It's always a question. It's never how I am doing or a simple hello. I had had enough.
I am still training a new member of our team from India. Although he is good at asking me how I am doing, I find that he asks questions that are too advanced for his current understanding. It's not horrible, but it means that I have to explain the same concept twice. The first time is a basic version until we get to the actual topic in training where I need to explain it in more detail.
On Monday, I learned that his questions that he had about late last week's training sessions were off, meaning that he had either forgotten or he is the type who isn't the research-on-my-own type.
I have him working on an exercise on his own. We'll see how he does when we meet later on today.
We had a patient who would come in and ask me why I wore black as it's the colour of mourning in Chinese culture. I told her because I'm always mourning someone or other. People are dying all around me. And she promptly shut up.
ReplyDeleteAnother guy came and asked some personal questions about why I only work there part time, saying I "SHOULD" work full time.
I told him "how about I don't tell you what job you should do, and you don't tell me how many hours I should work". He went and sat down after I politely told him off.
I really hate it when people don't know how to "make polite conversation" when necessary (or just shut up, I don't need the small talk) and just shoot out personal opinions like they matter to you.
I hope you manage to "train" the Indian guy so that he figures out what he needs to get done on his own first before asking a bunch of questions.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with folks who ask the most inappropriate questions to break the ice. Why can't people just stick with the weather? Something common, neutral, and fairly safe to start small talk?
DeleteI got more questions from this new Indian guy. I actually told him to do Nike and "just do it," rather than being intimidated to figure out what would happen if he tried. Three more days and counting till I'm done training.