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Comment by alexthehurst | Hacker News Reader

Those execs sound like terrible communicators. It’s hard for me to imagine a colleague acting this way in real life.

If you've never had a co-worker or manager interrupt you mid-sentence to breathlessly ask you a question that is literally answered by the second half of the sentence you were GOING to finish, then my friend you should go buy a lottery ticket because this happens to me daily, in every job I have ever had in the last 20 years in tech.

> If you've never had a co-worker or manager interrupt you mid-sentence

I've had plenty of people interrupt me to ask questions while I'm presenting - which I think is generally something to be encouraged.

When I've replied with "That's a very insightful question, we'll get to the answer in a few slides time" I've never had someone insist on continuing the interruption.

Exactly, this is how you do it.

I have been in some meetings where the "big boss" cannot follow any structure and will constantly throw out ideas and enquiries and demand we had ready answers for questions we are hearing for the first time or topic that was not on the agenda and pontificate about how some things should be better etc.

Thankfully they only attended our meetings once a quarter and never involved in matters beyond pontification.

I’ve run into this a few times. At first I think it must be me, that I’m not communicating correctly. But then I see everyone else run into the buzzsaw, despite differences in style and approach, and I realize the “exec” is simply an interrupt-driven dopamine fiend. Inevitably they get rotated along, because having the attention span of a coke-addled squirrel is not actually good for business.

If you can’t wait them out, or if they’re the CEO, find a different job.

Oh, it’s real, and goes down exactly as GP describes.

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