Submitted by stewartj 437 days ago Categories: office etiquette communication

4 Rate!

In the workplace, when someone comes to you while you're at your desk you should always stop your activity, turn to face them (physically rotate your body) and make eye contact. The worst thing you can do is to continue to face your PC and type/click while they're talking, even if you're listening to them.

There's 2 main reasons why this is a good idea.

(1) For the person who comes to talk to you, you'll come across as respectful and courteous. It's a very simple thing to do, and it makes a huge difference to people's perception of you.

(2) If you don't want the interruption and want the person to go away, giving them your full focused attention will take less time than ignoring them -- if you continue to work and try and brush them off they'll hang around for longer while trying to make sure their message has got through.

If I come over to somebody's desk and they continue to type away ignoring what I say to them, I get the irresistable urge to pull the power plug from their computer and then after they're done screaming say "Now that I've got your attention, here's what I wanted to tell you..." :-)