A poll about manners.

[baratron]

Someone at work is really getting on my nerves. After a "conversation" with her this evening, I decided to come home and write this poll. In the questions where I talk about a random co-worker, I mean someone that you have no connection with apart from working at the same place. When I talk about a friend, I mean someone that you do have some kind of interest in or connection with, someone that you care about for specific reasons, rather than just because they're another human being.


[Poll #97047]

I'll be interested in people's answers. I think some of these situations are more clear-cut than others. Feel free to explain your reasoning in comments.

Comments

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm a student again, the co-worker issue doesn't apply, so I've answered these questions based on my previous jobs (primarily the most recent one). Basically, I would normally read at lunchtime, either a book or a website. I would rather read than talk to my colleagues, but it wouldn't really annoy me if they started chatting, because I'm used to it, and I know they're trying to be sociable. If they're going to talk to me, then I'd prefer them to talk about the book I'm reading, since at least that's something I'm interested in (as opposed to "did you see the football last night?").

If it's a friend rather than a co-worker, then the situation is completely different. I'm always happy to talk to my friends, unless I'm in a real crunch situation (e.g. night before an exam).

I haven't encountered the situation where someone uses my name in every sentence. The nearest I've come to that is on IRC, where people will say "John: yes" or similar, when there are multiple conversations going on at the same time. That's sensible on practical grounds, so it doesn't bother me.

Similarly, people don't generally abbreviate my name, since it's hard to get shorter than one syllable :) The nearest I've come to that is a previous employer (up north) who used to call me "Johnny". Basically, it was ok for him to do that, because I owed him a lot (I wouldn't have got through uni without that job), but I wouldn't respond to it from anyone else (which has never been an issue).