I would like to get some advice re my situation, it seems minor but it started to bother me.
I am car-pooling (I'm the drive) with a colleage everyday, she is a nice lady but very chatty, seems like she cannot bear a moment of silence in the car, I want to be polite and chat with her, but I don't really enjoy that much talk.
I really miss the days when I was driving alone, I can just listen to the Hong Kong news and my favourite songs. Since she is an English speaker and does not understand Cantonses, I'm not sure if it is rude to put on the Chinese news and Cantonese songs, but regardless, she would keep talking...
The thing is that when I was in someone else's car, how do I know if I should chat or be quite? Sometimes silence just seems so weird and awkward. In your case, chatty is not good neither.
you are too nice! You shouldn't let her take the carpooling for granted! There should be some quid pro quo in effect here.
Lay down the rules. You drive the car, you lay down the rules. "Ie: i prefer to focus on the road for our safety. you can chat all you want, but i can't promise we arrive to the destination safetly if you want me to hear all you have to say, it distracts my driving."
If she can't abide by it, diss her.
Thanks for all the comments! They are really great!
I would try the "question-and-answer conversation style", just repond with simple answers, given the charater of this colleage, she might not get the hidden message, but at least I don't have to keep up with her endless topics.
If I were you, I will just don't respond to her question/conversation, and turn on some background music before she gets on. I don't think she can keep talking and talking if no one respond to her. So if she keeps silent, turn the music louder. Then eventually try some cantonese music.
When I give a ride to my English speaking coworker, I do turn on music and said " sorry that's all I have..." but turn on in low volume. Same as my coworker, they would turn on music in their own language and no one is offended...
That's why I don't do carpool even though it's better for the environment. My time in my car is my precious personal time. So while I admire you for doing the good thing to carpool, I will never do it.
Sometimes people are just being nice to talk to the driver to acknowledge you are not a cab driver. Like other LYKs said, there's no easy way for you to tell her to keep quiet without offending her. It's hard to deal with silence when you aren't close to each other. It seems silence is often taken as "awkward" so in social situations people try to break it. Maybe you can offer her a drink with sleeping pills in it to knock her off, ha ha.
Good luck! If you find the way to make her talk less, let us know too! I want to learn how to too.
發表於 2008-10-24 10:13
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