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Reader K has a question about conversations… specifically, how to negotiate or steer conversation topics at work.
I am the newest associate in a department that is dominated by women. As someone who often laments the number of female partners and senior associates in private practice, I was initially thrilled by this fact. But my excitement turned to disappointment on the first day. At a department luncheon that was supposedly held in my honor (to welcome me to the team, etc.), the conversation consisted solely of weddings, babies and spouses. There was no discussion about work. I sat there feeling so out of place and unwelcome – as if being the only newbie isn’t awkward enough! Is it just me, or is this kind of behavior just a tad bit unprofessional? We are in the ‘burbs (the firm is in New Jersey) and there are hardly any single and/or childless people in the building, but I do not think that is an excuse. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can steer the conversation to a more neutral subject in the future while not alienating myself from my new colleagues?
I think everyone occasionally finds themselves in a conversation where they have nothing to contribute.
Personally, I hate sports (and consider myself amazingly lucky to have married a man who also doesn’t like them) — but I’ve sat in so many office conversations about them that I’ve often wished I followed the games or had an interesting tidbit or two to pull out of my hat.
Same with politics — I’m not a very political person, but I’ve sat at many a working lunch where that’s the primary topic before we get down to business. (Here are our tips on how to deal with political talk at the office…)
Yes, it stinks to sit there and not be able to contribute. And yes, some career advisers will tell you that, if you work with people who talk about these things often — politics, sports, Saturday Night Live, whatever — that you are well-advised to start following those topics if only so you can contribute to the workplace conversations.
{related: party-appropriate conversation topics}
(For my own $.02, then, the weddings/babies/spouses conversation sounds like an absolutely welcome one — even if I weren’t married, I’ve a) been to weddings, b) have friends with kiddos, and c) am interested in getting to know about my colleagues’ lives and families.)
The fact is that not every workplace conversation is going to be about work.
{related: the best icebreakers for work}
How to Steer Conversation Topics at Work
If you find yourself in this kind of “I have no idea what they’re talking about” conversation, however, you can do a few things:
a) be interested — a friend reminded me of this old piece of advice: you’re interesting if you’re interested. So true! Ask questions! Get to know the person who started the conversation in the first place. If they’re talking about their family, ask questions about the family members. If it’s about politics, ask why they like person X so much.
Although they say there are no “dumb” questions, and I would posit that isn’t entirely true in this kind of conversation — e.g., I would avoid saying something like “so there’s a QUARTERBACK? What does he do, like, kick the ball?”
At the very least, by asking questions you look engaged in the conversation and interested in your fellow workers — and you may get the chance to steer the conversation elsewhere. Which leads to Point B…
b) follow the conversation down a side street — where it’s still related to the main conversation, but is a more interesting conversation to you. For example (and this is entirely personal), today people might be talking about how a sports columnist’s Tweet broke news of a sports trade.
If I were to find myself in a conversation about that, you can bet I’d try to move the conversation away from sports and onto Twitter as a platform/business model/etc, or onto the area of news scoops in general, because I’m more interested in what people think about the latter two topics.
c) change the topic entirely. Safe topics tend to be things like restaurants, weather, and travel — and if there’s a lull in a conversation at a table it’s a great way to learn more about people by asking “So, has anyone been on any amazing vacations lately?” Or — for the newbie in the group — ask what the decent lunch spots are near the office.
Of course, if you’re at a cocktail party and free to move about, you can always just leave a conversation.
Readers, what are your best tips for awkward conversations?
Updated images via Stencil. Originally pictured: conversating, originally uploaded to Flickr by alhadley.
S
To the OP – how about finding an opening where you can bring in something like “did you read about Stephen Colbert’s new rally in D.C.? It’s really funny…” or “I heard this interesting program on NPR today about….”.
My problem is that I like to talk about more general news or discuss current events whereas I sometimes get stuck in conversations with a couple of colleagues who read NO news and don’t talk about anything except themselves (what they did that weekend/what they’re planning to do, what work they’re busy with or occasionally something that happened at the office) – they don’t have the most basic idea about even events in their immediate vicinity as long as it hasn’t directly affected their lives.
I used to bemoan the boring conversations until I realized that I could influence their course and now bring up interesting titbits (they seem interested to hear, but it often takes the course of me explaining the whole article/news item and them asking questions so it’s one-sided – never gets to an interesting discussion.)
ST
I would imagine that working mothers miss their children while they are at work each day. I would also imagine that their children bring extreme pride and happiness to them. Even if the OP finds it annoying, certainly she can see why these women talk nonstop about their families. The OP should also keep in mind that mothers are experts on certain topics that may be interesting to her. Working moms are great at time management, know everything about stain removal, are experts at finding indestructible or time-saving products, and can easily navigate any attraction that draws children. When in a similar lunch conversation, I have brought up topics such as scrapbooking, cameras, portable DVD players, stain resistant carpet, the latest kid movie, Disney World, and finding a gym or salon with hours that work for a busy life. If any of these topics can be brought up using a complement, then it goes even farther. For example, “Mary, I noticed the snapshots of your beautiful children on your desk. What kind of camera are you using?”
i'm nobody
it saddens me that the conversation has degraded into the Offended Working Moms versus the Bitter, Childless Dried-out Uterus Club.
Kat’s spin on the OP’s question, how to negotiate conversation topics, is good. finessing conversations, making small talk, and at times faking interest in the subject matter is something almost all of us need to work on. how did we get so far off topic?
Pre 1L
I am childless, but only because I am in my mid 20’s and have decided to get a career off the ground first. Does this mean I’m in the “Dried-out Uterus Club”? I sure hope not, I can’t wait to have kids. Because I can’t wait, I do like hearing about other mothers (and fathers) and their kids.
However, I can relate to the women without children. Get a mom talking about her children and it’s hard to shut the momma bear up. This is how it should be! Isn’t that what a mother’s love it all about? But some women can’t have kids, either because of genetics, age, or otherwise, and it hurts to talk about. Some women aren’t offended by the topic, they just have other interests and feel awkward trying to contribute to something “un-relatable”.
Your post was to get back to the main point of the post, but in doing so you wrote a derogatory comment about a large number of the other readers. This “Mom vs Non-Mom” is just one example of the women hating women Eme was talking about above.
Here’s an idea: we are all women trying to balance life and work. Whether life includes kids or not, the point of this blog was to bring us ladies together, not further divide the sects. Let’s ALL try to be understanding of where the others are coming from. Stop bickering back and forth about the moms you can’t shut up or about the members of the “Dried-out Uterus Club”. If something hurtful is said, be the stronger woman and lead by example (like a good mother would do, maybe?). Let’s use our female ability to empathize to make our society more female-friendly, rather than constantly dragging each other back down.
I’m sorry about my long spiels today. I just can’t stand the idea of living in (and raising my daughter(s) in) a world where the female potential is something yet to be realized.
That’s my last rant for the day, I promise. ;)
Rhonda
officially offended……
i'm nobody
i didn’t mean to offend you and i’m sorry my choice of words fell flat. i was trying to use sarcasm to illustrate the judgment and bias that a lot of commenters are slinging around.
as a childless (by choice, without bitterness) woman i’m deeply offended by a lot of the cruelty and judgment upthread. there is a lot of “well if you don’t want to hear me talk about my wedding it’s probably because you’re jealous you can’t get a man.” i didn’t mean to contribute to the ugly.
J*lie
I had a different take on the OP’s story. Thought maybe she just felt left out because they were all talking about events (weddings, etc.) that she hadn’t been invited to and/or people (finance/husband/kids) whom she didn’t know.
I think if that was the slant, the advice about being interested and trying to find something to contribute and also developing a thick skin about established relationships helps.
I’m in an office of very friendly women who are nice to me but are all very good friends. It’s a balance — being friendly but professional and understanding that they have existing, deep friendships and my relationships will grow with time and friendliness.
I think it’s a little harder if you’re not super-outgoing (not sure if the OP is). If so, it can require a pep talk to be friendly/interested in others/have a thick skin about existing relationships.
SusanPG
What an interesting thread!
I’m not sure exactly where the OP is coming from, but I think Eme is right that ambitious women –in general– seem to have a lot of internalized misogyny. It’s understandable, because many of our work environments are sexist — e.g., typical guy talk is felt to be ‘normal,’ while typical women’s talk is considered silly or frivolous. It’s also true that when a workplace is made up of senior men and junior women (like in one of the examples from a commenter earlier), an ambitious, successful woman might rationally want to avoid getting associated with the junior women, and might therefore develop a special distaste for girl talk. If so, you can’t really blame the woman for responding to her environment: she didn’t design the game; she is just playing in it.
But I will also confess that I sometimes find myself despairing/disappointed about how my female colleagues navigate the ‘work social’ situations they find themselves in — particularly, very junior or less ambitious/successful women. For example, once at a conference dinner I did some table-hopping, and I was struck by how every male-dominated table was status-gossiping (who got fired, who was rivalrous, who was getting promoted), while the two female-dominated tables were both talking about TV programs! It’s just an anecdote, but still. Those women’s tables were just killing time, while the men’s tables were actually learning useful stuff. I also hate it when young women dress like princesses at work parties, instead of in business outfits. They’re undermining themselves, and I assume that if they knew that, they would stop.
Back on topic: I don’t enjoy talking about sports _or_ babies. I always try to switch the conversation to gender-neutral topics. Two that always work: 1) how to make business travel better: tips and tactics for flights, airports, hotels, combating jet-lag, useful gadgets, where to eat, etc. And 2) personal technology use: what good cellphone is coming out next, how you handle your e-mail, do you like the iPad, do you use an e-reader. Practically everybody can find bonding terrain somewhere in there :-)
Joe
Women don’t really need to carry a conversation. I don’t see anyone mention the hair throw, the furtive smile, and checking the smart phone.
N
Is this lunch out of the office? Be VERY careful of discussing work at a restaurant. Most cities (even New York) are quite small – and opposing counsel may be at the next table (or their partners, associates, etc).
Jonas Yan
Another good tip is to think of yourself as a facilitative mediator when your stuck in an sticky social situation. Never fails me, as this blogger has described the potential results in a post: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/04/02/alternative-dispute-resolution-%e2%80%93-it%e2%80%99s-like-the-new-coke-just-not-awful-and-unnecessary/
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