People bothering you on your lunch break are so rude
Today, I had a bit of a stressful first half of the day at work, with time-sensitive tasks, lots of distractions and a considerable mental load. I wanted to chill out a bit on my lunch break, respond to friends on messenger, maybe think about games for the upcoming improv meetup.
As I warm up the noodles and soak them in soy sauce...
There she appears.
She is a cleaning person who comes every second day and usually fills me with dread, because she's a very specific type of person, who seems completely socially unaware whether you can (or want to) chat at the moment, or if you are even making eye contact or avoiding it, and will just talk AT you, oftentimes repeating stories and phrases.
I experienced her telling a thing she found funny (her trashy neighbor getting roughed up), and when I didn't react how she expected me too, she just repeated it, like telling it again would somehow restart me, so I would find it funny or like I didn't hear or understand maybe. Yeah, I did and I did, still not funny.
It's usually about her family stuff and problems with kids, with her husband, with her supervisor, which would be to some extent a normal conversation topic, HOWEVER, most people seem to adhere to a different standard of what to tell close-to-strangers and for how long. I understand she wants to vent, but why wouldn't she rant about this to a relative, perhaps a cousin, a neighbor, literally anyone she is actual friends with and not random people working at the place she happens to clean for an hour, three times a week?
I am annoyed with this behavior in general, but today especially so, because as you can imagine I didn't get to relax on this lunch break or even eat in peace, because I ended up as a captive audience in the break room, listening to her latest husband&MIL drama, and had to finish my food quickly to get a chance to leave. So inconsiderate.