My Coworkers Are Always At My Desk

Dear JJ,

My workspace is in an open area on a large floor – everyone else has an office.  When the people who work in offices want a break from work they stop by my desk – no one seems to notice I have work too.   Their visiting time doesn’t jive with my schedule – all these people out rank me – what should I do?  

Signed, 

Bothered

Dear Bothered,

I have seen this situation and have even been a drop by offender, so thank you for reminding all of us that we could be the source of other co-worker’s problems.  I do have a couple of ideas for you:

1. There is probably a person in the group that you report to- let that person know of the issue. BUT ALSO have a suggested solution.
   
2. If everyone on the floor meets as a group, bring up with issue and present your solution.

Now for some possible solutions:

1. Put up a nice little sign that says “Person at Work’ or “Let’s socialize between 10-10:10 or 2:30-2:40” or something to that effect.
   
2. Feel free when folks start to chat to say “I really need to get this finished….let’s talk later”.  This will be hard at first but giving them notice in your meeting with a nicely worded reminder should work. They are just being thoughtless, not harmful.
   
3. You need to stick to the rules yourself or the entire process will fall apart.
   
4. If one or two people continue to violate the new norm, let your boss know.
   
5. If your job includes performing tasks for these other people- it will be harder but not impossible to make this work:  I bet it looks something like the conversation starts out about the task at hand and then chit chat starts – play this by ear, if you can chit chat a minute then say “back to work for me”, that shows you are friendly, cooperative, but hard working.

It is up to you with support from your boss to make this work. Best of luck … .let me know how it’s working and remember it takes about 28 days to create a new habit for you and your co-workers.  

JJ