Dealing with Diarrhea of the Mouth

[UncleImpy]

Okay, so I have a problem, something I hope others have had to deal with, and maybe have some advice on how to deal with this in a tactful manner.

I work on a team of approximately 20 people, most of whom have been here for several years (I've been here 10 and Im not the one with the most tenure). I and one other individual are the 'Team Leads', which basically means we're the point of contact if someone has a question they cant find the answer to.

We have a new face on the team, we'll call him A (not his initial). A is very young compared to the rest of the team (median age is something like 30-34, he's not old enough to drink yet), and I guess has the problem that other excitable young people of his age (Ah god, did I just say that? I'm old! Sigh), in that he WONT SHUT UP.

Every. Single. Piece. Of. Information. He. Finds. Interesting....he MUST SHARE with me and anyone else within earshot. Usually I can finally get him to chill out and focus on his own thing if I look busy enough and dont get drawn into his discussion, but Im dealing with this pretty much all the time he's here and not on a call.

On one hand, I have to be available for legitimate questions and discussion (so I cant tune out with music or the like), but on the other hand, having him nattering off one cube away constantly is seriously disturbing my calm.

Moving to another cube is not an option at the moment, and I dont want to be mean or rude to the guy, but anyone have some suggestions on how to approach telling him 'TAKE SOME VALIUM, DAMNIT!' tactfully?

[SteeleDragon78]

a nice way of starting the convo would be something like "A, i appreciate your enthusiasm in wanting to expand our knowledge base, but there is a time and place for that. ive noticed that youve been spreading the knowledge around to x and y. but we as a team need you to focus your energies on the task at hand." or something along those lines. could be he has adult add, something thats tough to deal with....trust me.

hope that helped SD

[Pedersen]

I'm going to sidetrack here momentarily, but I promise this is relevant.

I do believe I saved someone's job at a former workplace. Really great woman, lots of fun, smart, etc. She was also borderline to getting fired due to her outbursts at our common manager. And I did understand why. That manager seemed to try to push her buttons, and cause those outbursts. He seemed to enjoy it. No words I could say could get her to calm down, and the private "talks" between her and that manager became more and more frequent.

So, how did I save her job? I set up an instant messaging server, with a group chat feature, and hooked us all up to it. I told her to vent in the group chat. She could say anything she wanted, and we wouldn't be pissed.

Took a couple weeks, but the outbursts stopped going out at the boss, and went into the group chat. End result? No more "talks" about her attitude problem. She stayed working for another year or so after that, in fact.

Anyway, that's my suggestion. Get some sort of group chat room configured. Use whatever you prefer, jabber, yahoo, msn, irc, doesn't matter. Get one of them, get a majority of your group signed into it. And then tell A to share his info there, instead of verbally. Changes the dynamic of things entirely, and can make him a lot more bearable.

[UncleImpy]

Thats not a bad couple of ideas...we already use IM and Sharepoint, so maybe not so difficult to set up then. Thanks to both of you :)