▸ Column · 1980s–90s New York City, the Channel 6 newsroom and bullpen
APRIL O'NEIL replies.
Replied to by April O'Neil, with a rebuttal from Shredder.
The letter
A reporter on a different floor wrote in: A colleague — I'll call her Priya — announced to the whole bullpen, at the Monday staff meeting, that I "have a habit of talking over people." When I caught her after and asked privately what she meant, she said I was being defensive and that was proof of her point. Now three coworkers have gone quiet whenever I walk up. I've started narrating my own sentences in my head while I talk, to catch myself, which makes me sound like a hostage reading a statement — so I'm probably interrupting people now just to fill the silence I created. I honestly can't tell if Priya spotted a real blind spot I've had my whole life, or if she's the kind of person who names a thing and then treats every reaction as evidence she was right. My husband swears I'm "a great listener," but he also says our smoke detector is "probably fine," so I don't fully trust the source. Do I owe twenty people an apology, or do I stop letting one person rewrite who I am?
April O'Neil replies
Okay, here's the thing — you've got two competing stories and zero verified facts, and you're getting ready to apologize to a whole floor on the strength of the shakier one. Stop right there.
Start with "you're being defensive, that proves my point." That's not a finding. That's a claim built so every possible response confirms it — agree and you're guilty, push back and you're guilty. I've heard that exact move in interviews. It's what people say when they'd rather not be checked. Notice it.
Now go get the one fact you can actually pull on. Not the room's mood — mood isn't evidence, and three quiet coworkers tell you nothing about your sentences. Ask one person you genuinely trust to sit in on one meeting and literally count: do you cut in, how often, on whom. Get the record straight in your own head before you act on anybody's say-so.
And the smoke-detector husband? One unreliable narrator doesn't promote Priya to reliable. They're both anecdotes; you still need the count. If the tally shows a pattern, you fix it like a grown professional — no building-wide apology tour required. If it falls apart under one honest meeting, then somebody named a thing and you handed them the pen. Verify it, then move. Never the other way.
— April O'Neil
Shredder weighs in
O'Neil convenes a jury. Of course she does. Count the interruptions, poll a trusted witness, consult the record — she would have you assemble a tribunal to learn a thing a disciplined mind already governs.
Look at what you have built: Priya, three silent colleagues, a husband, and now a reporter with her tally. Five verdicts you are begging for, on the one question no one may answer for you. Either you talk over people — then master it, in silence, where no one applauds — or you do not, and no memo rewrites a will that does not break. You require no count. You require a self that does not petition twenty strangers to define it. Render her irrelevant. Spare me the smoke detector.
— Shredder
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