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

[miari.livejournal.com]

I'd say the last of the options you listed. You were already right there, if they did not want you involved in the conversation then they oughtn't've started it right next to you. Just my $.02

[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.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

What cellio said. I consider it rude of people to start chatting near me (discussing a bug or whatever is different, if they have to be there) in general if I am working, because it is distracting. Even worse is when people start chatting blocking a corridor or doorway, so that other people have to push through their conversation to pass. As far as I'm concerned if it's in public then they should expect others to join in if they want to, they can't have it both ways (be public and private at the same time).

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

But replace "chatting" with "picking one's nose" (and "conversation" with "party," etc.), and you'll get a very different perspective! I think the Miss Manners' approved response is either to gamely ignore the whole thing or to ask the group politely to move the conversation. But it's tough to say that engaging in any behavior publicly and hope that it will be ignored is hoping for a little too much from the real world. People who want others to ignore certain behavior should engage in it behind closed doors, and I don't think it matters whether the behavior is talking or something else.

[gailg.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, any conversation out loud in a public place is public. If you want to talk privately, go to another room.

I have no problem with commenting on conversations within earshot if I think I have something to add. On the other hand, it is possible to be annoying to people having a conversation in a public place that doesn't concern you. Sometimes it's a fine line and different have different ideas about where the line is.

Unless I know the people involved and feel like I can continue to add to the conversation, I don't join in for more than a comment or two.

For example, sometimes I sit in the cafeteria between classes, by myself with my laptop (e.g., right now). I can hear other conversations going on around me and sometimes they attract my attention. The other day, I overheard a woman I didn't know at an adjacent table telling another woman I didn't know about this thing called Feliway that helps cats feel comfortable in their environment. I know something about it because I have it in two forms: spray and diffuser, and I used it when I moved to my apartment in Portland. I was just getting up to leave anyway, so I interrupted and told them about my experience with it, and then I left. I would not have felt comfortable about just sitting down at their table.

However, sometimes I overhear some of my classmates that I know well talking about, say, a topic we've been discussing in class, and I feel completely comfortable about pulling up a chair and joining in.

In a more intermediate example, a little while ago, some of my classmates that I know were sitting at the table next to me. At times, they talked about school subjects that we shared, and I joined in the conversation. At other times, they talked about their shared experience as Reed students, and I stayed out of it.

In any of these situations, even in the case of the strangers, I would be surprised to be obviously excluded. In the last example, if I had started talking about Reed, they might have felt intruded upon, but they would have been polite and let me speak. Then again, law school is perhaps an unusual environment.

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

If I'm working with someone, and a third party starts a conversation with that person, then I feel that I am tacitly included in the audience for that conversation, because otherwise the third party would not have chosen to start the conversation in my vicinity. Thus, I don't expect to be excluded, nor would I pretend the conversation had not happened, nor would I consider any comments I might make to be rude.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

If it is a casual conversation, I think there is no problem with your joining in, given those circumstances. I'm pretty sure that this is what you're talking about, so no worries.

However, I have to jump in and add a caveat to what lots of people are saying here.

If it is not a casual conversation, you have to use your discretion. Yeah, yeah, I understand hte point about "if it's held in a public place, of course you can join in because it's public" or "if it's in a public place, there should be no problem acknowledging what you heard." But sometimes it's more important to think about whether what you're doing is right, rather than whether what you're doing is wrong.

So if you hear someone tearfully confiding she's experienced a death in the family to someone nearby, sure you're perfectly able to join in or say something to her later. It's allowed. But if you have any sensitivity at all, you'll stop to consider how well you know the person, whether they really meant it to be overheard (since they may not have been thinking clearly) and so forth. You aren't at fault if you join in, but maybe it's not the best thing to do.

This, of course, is one of the things that makes human interactions so complicated - there isn't a single set of rules to follow. *sigh*

In any case, I suspect you did fine - I wouldn't worry about it.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

everyone has essentailly said what I was thinking.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Different cultures process lack-of-privacy differently. You might want to break the ice by saying something like "it feels weird to have other people able to hear my conversations, I don't know how to let them know if that are, or are not, intended to be included."

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I think you have it backwards.

I am in the "fishbowl." Person A starts chatting in the general direction of Person B, who is sitting next to me, about hoping to get tickets to a concert. Person C comes into the fishbowl from one of the booths and joins in.

A little later when I wish Person A good luck in getting the tickets, Person A snippily tells me I "wasn't included in the conversation" as if I was supposed to somehow not hear stuff in a conversation in my work area. I had seen one of the two acts mentioned in the concert a few years ago, and thus had added "they kick ass."