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I ask them -- why do you want to know? That will either silence them or force them to come up with some silly, stupid response, to which I reply -- that answer isn't good enough.
Last time I asked someone “why do you ask” they said they were just curious. My answer was “ ah! I see” and left it at that.
I started a new job recently and am expecting nosy questions at the next gathering as I have a couple of nosy relatives that will be in attendance. I'm expecting questions like "how much do you pay for health insurance?", "what are your work hours?", "how much does it pay?" and that sort of thing.
How do you all handle nosy questions that you prefer not to answer?
Someone once said that "Why do you want to know?" is a good response.
I have a super nosy friend who asks prying questions. I know that if I tell her something, I might as well call the Associated Press, because I know how much her sons make, what her one son's prostate numbers are, what another son pays in child support, and all sorts of personal things I shouldn't know about other people because she gets information and shares it with the world.
Her daughter is onto this, because she owns a flower shop and the mother, a retired bookkeeper, offered to take care of the accounts, and the daughter said no because then everyone will know our business. She was quite put out, but I laughed when she told me.
I know she wants to know how much my pension is, and I won't say. She does "inkum tax" (as she says it) for people as a side gig at tax time, and one time I mentioned having to pay tax on my pension, which comes from a different state than the one in which I live. She said, casually, "Oh...how much is the state tax?" and I could just see the calculations starting behind her eyes. She was trying to figure out by what I pay in tax how much the pension is. I just said, "You know, I don't recall. I'd have to look at my tax records" and changed the subject.
i have always avoided telling most of my family the specifics of where i work. And yes there are plenty good reasons for doing so. They don't need to know my business, they don't need to criticize my choices, they don't need to disparage any aspect of my work, and they don't need to cause trouble for me at work. Yes, they have done all of those things. No i don't need the aggravation. All my reasons for not telling them anything fall in the general category of keeping myself out of harm's way, not making myself vulnerable to people who decidedly do NOT have my best interests at heart, and learning from past experience.
A generic "Yes, I'm happy to be working. But I'm not going to discuss work. What are your plans for this upcoming weekend. So tell me how that weekend away that you took went. How is cousin Bob liking that baseball league he just joined. Did Millie find an apartment yet? " etc. you get the idea
A former coworker of mine puts the nosy parker off balance by responding with something like "What do you think about (insert the latest scandal-du-jour)?". Then gleefully observes them scramble trying to figure out what just happened.
I started a new job recently and am expecting nosy questions at the next gathering as I have a couple of nosy relatives that will be in attendance. I'm expecting questions like "how much do you pay for health insurance?", "what are your work hours?", "how much does it pay?" and that sort of thing.
How do you all handle nosy questions that you prefer not to answer?
Last time I asked someone “why do you ask” they said they were just curious. My answer was “ ah! I see” and left it at that.
lol. That, or "curiosity killed that cat". Does anyone remember that expression anymore? I have no idea how/when it started (probably the Victorian era), but people used to use it for exactly this type of situation, when someone said they were "just curious" about things they had no business asking about.
If you are comfortable, you can say that you aren’t really comfortable talking about that, which is what I would do but that’s me.
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