How do I learn to endure my office mate's speech dysfunction?

February 16, 2006 6:19 AM

My office mate's speech dysfunction is driving me crazy -- what should I do?

My office mate appears to suffer from a speech dysfunction known as cluttering. I am emphatically not a speech pathologist; this is a diagnosis that I did myself based on a bunch of Google searches.

His job requires him to be on the phone for most of the day. Whenever he is just a bit unsure of what to say, each of his sentences is peppered with multiple occurences of filler phrases like "you know" and "I mean." Now that my ears have become sensitized to the problem, it is driving me crazy.

I don't actually know him that well, and from what I have read it doesn't seem like there are any really effective treatments. Do I just grit my teeth and endure this, should I push him out of the window, get a new job, or what?

posted by anonymous to health & fitness (21 comments total)

Noise-attenuating headphones? These have helped me in noisy and chaotic office environments. Bose makes a particularly well-marketed set of these, although I'm sure there are other manufacturers.

Of course, if you ALSO have to be on the phone for most of the day, headphones may not be a good solution for you.
posted by killdevil at 6:32 AM on February 16, 2006

"Whenever he is just a bit unsure of what to say, each of his sentences is peppered with multiple occurences of filler phrases like 'you know' and 'I mean.'"

Give him a script. Seriously. Give him a script to read s-s-s-s-so he isn't unsure of what to say.
posted by orthogonality at 6:32 AM on February 16, 2006

You could start using headphones, ask to be moved to a different office, or ask to have him moved.

Other than that you're pretty much stuck. If you weren't anonymous I'd try to find out exactly why he bothered your so much, but you are, so I won't.

Seriously though, think about why he gets on your nerves. Do other people get on your nerves in the same way? Do you just require a completely silent office? Are there other things about him that annoy you as well?

I would avoid mentally diagnosing him with a particular speech impediment. He could just have some peculiar verbal tics.
posted by bshort at 6:35 AM on February 16, 2006

Does he do this when talking to you? I'd half-jokingly ask him to slow down since he's tripping over his words. That will acknowledge that you're interested in what he's saying to you along with providing information that he's not speaking normally. It'd also open up a conversational venue for mentioning that he usually has an entire sentence trying to escape his mouth at once.
posted by mikeh at 6:44 AM on February 16, 2006

If he's saying "you know?" and "I mean" it's because he's showing his insecurity about what he's saying. If he were saying "um" then it would show he's trying to think of the next thing to say. Seems to be more of a confidence problem than a speech issue.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:16 AM on February 16, 2006

I hope this doesn't come across as being snarky, because I don't mean it that way. Are you certain that you have no similar habits? Many, many people have speech "irregularities" like this without being at all aware of it. I worked with a guy who used "sumbitch" in almost every sentence he uttered, but vehemently denied ever saying it when others chided him for it. If you ever watched one of the TV judges telling a witness, "No, I don't know!" the puzzled look on the witness's face indicates they weren't aware what they were saying.

What I am getting at is, maybe you should try to desensitize yourself, because this sort of thing is very common, you know?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:29 AM on February 16, 2006

As a lifelong stutterer, I wish there was a great answer for this. If the problem is that it bothers you and you don't want to hear it, when you're not talking to him, a pair of active silencing headphones may work wonders.

To effectively handle the situation, you may have to get to know him better. Did he know he was going to have to use the phone when he took the job? If so, this leads me to believe the guy is fairly ball-sy, taking a job that requires talking on the phone with a possible speech disorder. I avoid the phone as much as I can, because its a place that really brings out my stuttering, especially with strangers. I may be reading too much of my personal history into this.

I wouldn't be too bothered with mentioning it after you know him a bit; I've heard it all, ranging from "Are you cold? Heh." to "G-g-g-get on with it, Sonny." Your best bet, however, is probably just to get over it.

If someone came to me and let me know that overhearing my disfluencies are affecting their work, I really don't know of any solution I could come up with. I'm not going to stop talking, and our office is small enough that everyone overhears everyone.

If his problem is getting on your nerves, its probably getting on his nerves. Stuttering grates on my ears as well. The worst part, however, is when it physically *hurts* to continue speaking.

It's extremely undoubtful that, if he has a genuine speech disorder and you're not just being crazy, he isn't aware of it. However, this is a possiblity. It's also a possiblity that he is unaware of the possibilities of speech therapy. I don't really know a good way for a coworker to suggest something like that, however.
posted by adamwolf at 7:39 AM on February 16, 2006

We have an individual in our office who does exactly the same thing - in fact, I went around to my coworkers to see if any of them are the poster of this question. Nobody claimed responsibility, I'll assume you're not here in my office.

Anyway, our culprit knows full well that he does it (as we openly mimick his utterances to his face), but simply cannot stop. Instead of dwelling on it negatively, we view it as an endearment and just enjoy.
posted by daveleck at 7:52 AM on February 16, 2006

I hate whistling, poor grammar, and people who eat while walking around. But since I live and work amongst people wh are not under my direct mind control, I endure these and other habits that peeve me. Look, sorry to snark, but just tune out the guy's voice. And be glad he's not got wretched B.O.
posted by desuetude at 8:59 AM on February 16, 2006

I'm not a speech pathologist, but I am a linguist, and what you describe sounds more or less like normal speech, not at all like cluttering. Everyone peppers their speech with such filler phrases -- you may not use the same ones, but I guarantee that you do it too (almost everyone uses "um"). So one way to help endure (aside from the headphones recommended above) is to start very carefully listening to what you yourself say.
posted by advil at 9:07 AM on February 16, 2006

If he's saying "you know?" and "I mean" it's because he's showing his insecurity about what he's saying. If he were saying "um" then it would show he's trying to think of the next thing to say. Seems to be more of a confidence problem than a speech issue.

Also, this probably isn't true -- "you know?" and "I mean" are quite common filler phrases to stick into otherwise fluent utterance, entirely independent of confidence. Though they are made up of English words and appear to mean something (unlike "um"), when used in this way, they more or less don't mean anything (or at least not what the words indicate).
posted by advil at 9:09 AM on February 16, 2006

I used to have a coworker who talked on the phone a lot and spoke with really annoying corporate jargon. After seeing it in a Dilbert cartoon, several of us made bingo cards with coworker-isms on it. Every so often, when we had no choice but to listen, we'd play -- whoever got bingo first emailed the others.

It sounds meanspirited -- I guess if he'd ever found out, I would have been put in my place. As it happened, though, it made it easier for me to deal with the problem and with the coworker. In my mind, he became associated with a game rather than an annoyance.
posted by gnomeloaf at 9:23 AM on February 16, 2006

Also, this probably isn't true -- "you know?" and "I mean" are quite common filler phrases to stick into otherwise fluent utterance, entirely independent of confidence. Though they are made up of English words and appear to mean something (unlike "um"), when used in this way, they more or less don't mean anything (or at least not what the words indicate).

They do when in this context:

Whenever he is just a bit unsure of what to say, each of his sentences is peppered with multiple occurences of filler phrases like "you know" and "I mean."
posted by Pollomacho at 9:53 AM on February 16, 2006

Maybe the problem to address is your stress and boredom with your job. Develop a mantra, like "He's just trying to get through his day" that you can use to remind yourself not to take it seriously. He might just be the last straw in your annoyance with your job. Good luck
posted by theora55 at 9:55 AM on February 16, 2006

Get a pair of ER-4Ps and an iPod (or whatever). When I'm listening to music in the office people have to tap me on the shoulder because I literally cannot hear anything below a shout.
posted by ny_scotsman at 10:08 AM on February 16, 2006

ny_scotsman writes "Get a pair of ER-4Ps and an iPod (or whatever)."


I'm sure the ER-4Ps are great, but the Koss Plugs cost 1/20th as much, and are awesome. People are much less annoying with earplugs in, and I only wish I'd had the Koss Plugs years ago.
posted by orthogonality at 10:14 AM on February 16, 2006

Endure it. There's nothing you or anybody can do about it. Or you could invite him out for a night on the town, get him totally drunk and then push him in front of a train. The problem is you can only do this once or twice before the DA gets suspicious. So, yeah, you're better off just accepting it as one of the many thorns on the rose that is life and maybe treat yourself to some good food to alleviate the suffering.
posted by nixerman at 10:58 AM on February 16, 2006

Noise cancelling headphones are not an option in most jobs, especially if the poster is also expected to be on and off the phone a lot.

I used to work 5 feet from a guy who spoke the same way (you know, ummm, repeat words 5 times), was stunningly uncouth ("I have to pee, I will be back, hang on"), nearly deaf (not his fault I know but it didnt help the situation), smelled terrible, coughed continually into the phone (to the point where his mouthpiece stopped working because it was jammed with snot (and maggots)). Eventually I had to quit, there just wasn't anything I could do to stop the urge to stab out his eyes.

And I'm a pacifist.

Now I work 5 feet from a guy who talks weird, smells bad and is otherwise ok, I am in heaven.
posted by Cosine at 11:33 AM on February 16, 2006

Noise cancelling headphones don't do what you all seem to think they do. They're not like earplugs. They cancel out background noise like distant chatter and the hum of the HVAC system, while letting voices come through pretty clearly.
posted by CrayDrygu at 3:32 PM on February 16, 2006

They do when in this context:

Whenever he is just a bit unsure of what to say, each of his sentences is peppered with multiple occurences of filler phrases like "you know" and "I mean."

But this isn't a matter of confidence -- no one produces completely thought out sentences every time they say something. The only difference is what they do (e.g. "um" or "i mean" while they're figuring out what to say next. The fact that they do this indicates nothing about how confident they are, only that speaking doesn't work by first generating a complete sentence, and then uttering it. What there is, however, is a generational gap -- the older generation does not tend to use things like "I mean" in this function.
posted by advil at 5:45 PM on February 16, 2006

I knew a guy who did exactly this, but he always said "you know." It was really quick, like one word, and he used it constantly. I once counted, and it was something like 40 utterances within a minute or two of class participation. Everyone else seemed to tune it out, but it really annoyed me once I started noticing it.

I really don't think this guy knew that he did it, though. I don't know him really well, so I never brought it up, but I would've if I did. But it certainly seemed like the sort of thing that he didn't realize and that no one had ever made him aware of. So maybe you'd be doing him a favor by bringing it to his attention.
posted by ludwig_van at 3:12 PM on February 17, 2006