The Interrupter
There are a few things that really annoy me.
As in, I want to throw something against the wall. Or scream. Or violently shake them.
But I don’t do any of those things because I would likely be arrested and my friends would speak in hushed tones amongst them: “Did you hear? About the Incident. Caroline just lost it. It’s over for her. Poor thing.”
These are the things that incite this internal response (but not an actualized response), which include:
- Slow walkers.
- People who crack their bones or necks or hands.
- Drivers who slow down before an intersection when it’s a green light and they are waiting for it to go yellow. Why.
- Unkind people.
- Typos and bad grammar. Especially if they know spelling and good grammar.
- When In and Out burger is out of my burger and I waited for a really long time.
- People who interrupt.
I will focus on the last in this post, and go through an incident that happened a few months ago.
I was interviewing for a great company. Amazing product. Smart people. One of the “hotter” companies in Silicon Valley.
Except when I interviewed, a guy from the company interrupted me multiple times. In fact, seven times. Seven.
I know it was seven because I started counting. As in, three times more than four. Two more times than five. One time more than six. You get the idea. It would have been more except the interview, tragically, ended.
He would ask me a question, and I would be in mid answer—
He would then cut me off. He would add something that I was about to say, or ask another question which I was in mid sentence, about to address.
It was infuriating. Frustrating. But most of all, I felt disrespected.
During this one hour conversation, I did the best I could and didn’t say anything about the interruptions or stop him. To be honest, I was more in shock. I had never in my life been interrupted so many times.
It’s like watching someone stuffing multiple hot dogs in their mouth, one after another. You can’t pay attention to your food anymore because there is someone stuffing multiple hot dogs in their mouth. It’s repulsive.
In fact, you begin to realize it’s actually impressive. You then start wondering if you could do the same thing and stuff as many hot dogs in your mouth.
So you just watch and you take notes.
When he continuously interrupted me, I was in a similar awed stupor.
Then I went home and fumed.
I concocted some elaborate revenge fantasies, one of which included me storming back into the office and going to his desk and telling him off. He would then be horrified and then immediately whisk me to the CEO and there they would promise to ship me lots of mint chip ice cream to my house after they asked me what they could do to make up for it.
This revenge involved confrontation, redemption, and mint chip ice cream.
It was fantastic, but shot down when I asked my best friend if it was a possibility.
After thinking about it, I realized it was a strange experience. I am not a slow speaker. My answers are average length. I usually respond directly to people’s questions. Maybe this guy was just really impatient? Maybe I wasn’t doing a good job with my answers?
Whatever it was, I then became more aware of my surroundings and conversations.
I was now primed for interruptions, and I noticed how often it happens. I noticed some patterns:
- It happens more to women, by men and other women.
- It happens more when people are in power over their interruptee (i.e., older, more experienced, etc.) and think it’s acceptable.
- It happens in group settings, when the interrupter is more concerned about their own image.
- Nobody ever says anything. If it is in a group, people awkwardly look away as if they are fascinated by something in the distance.
But I needed to do something about that experience on that fateful day — of being interrupted seven times.
I decided to do three things: tell him my observations, come up with a response for when it happened again, and I would tell people about my experience.
First, I sent him a note thanking him for his time, but also including my feedback of being interrrupted and feeling disrespected.
He apologized profusely. He wasn’t even aware he was doing it, and he realized it was a habit of his. I didn’t end up working there, but I’d like to think it was still a positive experience in that we both learned something.
Second, for when it happened again, I decided was going to say something. And it did. This time, it was in a professional setting and the woman was my senior.
She interrupted me when I was in mid sentence of explaining sentence. I wasn’t able to finish my thought. I turned to her and said in the most non confrontational way possible: “Excuse me, can I please finish?”
There was awkward silence. Everyone stared at me. I began calculating in my head if I had enough savings to support myself indefinitely for when I didn’t have a job.
She responded: “Sure.”
After the meeting, she had a very similar response as the first guy. She didn’t realize she was doing it and was apologetic.
Third, as we probably have already figured out, I wrote this to share my experience and observations.
The thing here I realized is that if you don’t say something, they may not even know.
If you let them, they will continue to do it to you and others.
I truly beleive that everyone deserves to have their thoughts heard, no matter their age or religion or experience. They may be wrong, but they should be able to finish their sentence.
The reason we have language and sentences and periods is that we can complete a thought and communicate to one another. A half complete sentence is very from a full one.
This is not going to save the world. It’s not even a non profit that is going to have a fundraiser. But given how many words we say and how people we speak to daily, it could be a small but powerful change.
And who knows, we may even get mint chip ice cream out of it.
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