My coworker isn’t very pleasant to talk to. He’s about 30 and I’m a few years younger. I have to deal with him a lot unfortunately. I think he boils down to a “Mr. Know-it-all” and a bit of a narc.
He often stops by my desk to talk, and trust me I tried talking. The man is just a struggle to be around. He is quite ageist, constantly pokes fun at gen Z. He constantly makes references that I certainly won’t understand (stuff from 20 years ago). He is a DJ / party organizer and claims to know all about what kids are into these days… then I listen to his DJ playlists and it’s stuff like MC Hammer, Chacha Slide or Pitbull. Bro is legit stuck in 2010.
He says “I know” to everything. I almost want to make something up and bait him into saying “I know” just to throw it in his face.
Regarding his references, he always asks something formatted like “You do know that ____ right?” He also constantly refutes with “You can’t call yourself a fan if you don’t know [quarterback from a time when I didn’t watch football]” or “You never heard of ___? You kids grew up with brainrot.”
He constantly talks trash behind other coworkers’ backs too, sometimes quite audibly.
I legit just don’t want to talk to him, but I don’t want my other coworkers to think I’m rude. He stops by my desk to chat about something that I’ll obviously not want to chat about, like how I lost this week’s fantasy matchup. I just kinda sit there trying to respond, with something that sounds like I’m trying to keep the conversation going, but not really.
My only worry is just that my other coworkers are going to hear me being rude to him. I work with some people that I really look up to.