I need a sanity check, please

[figmo]

Here's the situation:

You're in a large, open room, working side-by-side with someone. A person from the other end of the building comes by and starts casually chatting, initially with just the other person you're working with side-by-side. Someone comes out of an office nearby and joins in the conversation.

The questions:

Is it rude for you, the other person in the open area, to also join in on the conversation?

Is it rude for you to acknowledge the conversation that had been held out in the open when chatting with the first participant later on?

or...

Is it rude for one of the people involved in the conversation to randomly exclude you even though they were holding the conversation right under your nose?

Please advise.

Comments

[cellio]

It is rude for them to try to exclude you while holding the conversation in that place.

It would not be rude for one of them to say "let's continue this in a meeting room" or the like. But if they're going to talk where you can hear, they should expect you to hear and perhaps respond.

That said, whether I participate in the conversation depends on a number of factors: topic, anticipated length of the conversation, and available options. Sometimes the person next to me needs to have a conversation with someone right there (because, say, he's demonstrating a bug), and even though it's happening right in front of me I recognize that they can't help it. So I'll try to tune that out. But if they start chatting about last week's West Wing or something, I'm free to jump in IMO.