A colleague that needs a lot of attention

[Shankara]

Hi,

I have a new colleague at work (Since a couple of months) Who seems to need a lot of attention, and talks a lot.. mostly about herself. I personally try to keep chitchatting limited, and don't talk that much at work, because I'd like to keep my distance and boundaries. I'm very sensitive to intrusiveness and don't like when people want to get  too close, too quickly.

With this person, who is a very nice person, but seems to always want to chat or talk about something which really is energysucking..

I know it's my responsibility to be aware of this and react adequately.. I can't change other people, but I can put up boundaries.

It's quite exhausting

[NarcKiddo]

That can be very difficult and tiresome. Does the nature of the work enable you to claim a deadline so you don't have time to chat to the colleague for long? If you make yourself boring and concentrate on work, someone who needs chat will likely go and find it from another colleague. Once they have a chat habit set up with someone else it is pretty unlikely they will come back to bother you.

[Shankara]

That can be very difficult and tiresome. Does the nature of the work enable you to claim a deadline so you don't have time to chat to the colleague for long? If you make yourself boring and concentrate on work, someone who needs chat will likely go and find it from another colleague. Once they have a chat habit set up with someone else it is pretty unlikely they will come back to bother you.

Thanks @NarcKiddo,

Sorry for my very late response, as usual, too much things going on. Guess that's the case with all of us..

I spoke about it directly with her, that I do like to have more focus rather than talking about random things all the time. Guess, you can do that but it has its time and place.

The thing is, she doesn't show much interest if someone else has something to say be it private or work related, this kind of irritates me, I'm sure it irritates anyone, and it has something egoistical about it. so I've decided not to talk anything private at all..