Have you been interrupted lately?

Interruptions,

             Have you been interrupted lately? Does it annoy you to be interrupted? Or is it part of your process of communication?

            I have noticed that mainly younger people—and for me that is 25 to 60—seem to partake of the interruption game more readily than those of us who have reached 70+, are a bit hard of hearing, whose eyesight is enhanced by spectacles, but most importantly, have learned the social graces as youngsters. That part about being respectful of someone speaking, of being respectful of your elders, about using rules and procedures that allow for the expression of thoughts and ideas but do not trample on those doing so.

            It is amazing to me to attend meetings where interruption is the rule of the day. Someone has a comment to make in the middle of your dissertation on a subject and they out with it—destroying the carefully built argument you were preparing and confessing to all in attendance that what they have to say is more important than what you are saying.

            I confess that the process is irritating to me. It irritates me to the extent that I do not wish to place myself in that position again. I suppose I could shrug it off and get about the business at hand, but then again, I think of what use is one who cannot express a complete thought to the assembled group without being short changed by an interruption.

            Robert’s Rules of Order were designed to prevent such events: to grant the floor to the person speaking without interruptions so as to allow the speaker to make a complete statement or argument.

            Courtesy is learnable. It is teachable. It is practiceable. And it should be so.