Dr. Alison Wood Brooks

And I love interacting with people who are so engaged in what I'm saying that they interrupt me before I can finish.

That's great.

Off-topic interruptions are the ones that give interruptions a bad rap.

It's like somebody domineering cuts you off, is clearly not interested in what you're saying, and shifts the conversation to something else entirely.

It's rude.

It makes you feel devalued and disrespected.

And no one should be doing that.

If someone does that, I would try and make a joke about it.

In the moment, if you're feeling like upset about it, you could be like, well, let me...

I was just going to finish my thing.

You know, you could kind of make a joke about it because everybody else who's in the group has seen this dynamic now play out and you're all in on it.

And are you going to call it out or are you going to let it slide and sort of be happy to sit in this low status position?

I'm not happy to sit there.

And I really don't want other people to sit there either.

Here's what I would do, really.

I spent so many years of my career in a low status position.

And I think one thing I found very comforting is knowing that you have good relationships with the other people in the room.

And so what you could do is go to your work bestie who's also going to be there and say, you know, this guy always cuts me off.

It's really upsetting.

I don't feel comfortable making a joke out of it.