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I find the responses here hilarious
I thought this was the "Psychology" and people wouldn't response with "Why do you care about what other people do?"
That's why I'm posting in the Psychology forum
Because from a psychology point of view I find it interesting that a person is having a meeting with somebody and constantly is looking out of the office to see who's walking by.
Obviously, I'm not talking about a boss or supervisor, I'm talking about a "regular" worker that seems to not be able to ignore people walking by even though he's engaged in a conversation.
In defense of the OP, if his "Bob" is anything like the person I posted about, then I can say that this kind of behavior is really noticeable when it happens all the time and it's often pretty intrusive. I wouldn't go so far as to tell the OP to "let it go"---it's not like he's all bent out of shape, he's merely posting online about some curious/annoying behavior of a coworker. The OP isn't "worried" or feeling like Bob in going to harm him.
Yes, most of us are aware of our surroundings, but we focus on what we're doing and don't pay direct attention to people walking by, who's talking to whom, who's going where. I'll sometimes have someone talking to me in my office, and every time someone walks by, they HAVE TO look to see who it is. I'm thinking "just focus on what you're trying to tell me and get the heck out of my office and stop getting distracted" but they seem to get distracted by what everyone else is doing. There are people out in the cubicle area who have to pop their heads up whenever they hear people in the general area. Get the hell back to work and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing.
In the case of the annoying exec I posted about, if I had to guess at the "psychology" of her behavior, I would say that for her at least, it's a combination of:
1. An attitude that she is so important and must be involved in everything, so she's upset when other people in the company meet or have stuff to do that has nothing to do with her.
2. Genuine nosiness. Always caring about who talks to whom, gossip, who is in trouble, etc.
3. An attention-deficit problem. Like I said above, most of us are able to focus on what we're doing. If people are talking in the background, it's just background noise we screen out. Most of us don't decide to consciously attend to it, to hear what's being said. Also, if people walk by, we may be vaguely aware of movement in our peripheral vision, but we don't have to turn every time to see who it is.
3. An attention-deficit problem. Like I said above, most of us are able to focus on what we're doing. If people are talking in the background, it's just background noise we screen out. Most of us don't decide to consciously attend to it, to hear what's being said. Also, if people walk by, we may be vaguely aware of movement in our peripheral vision, but we don't have to turn every time to see who it is.
This is what I think it is
My brain works differently, I have to constantly look at the person that I'm talking to
if I look "outside of the office" every 30 seconds, I'm not gonna know what that person was telling me.
Who knows, maybe they can still pay attention while constantly looking away, similar to the way I can talk to you guys and work at the same time without missing a beat.
Maybe Bob "likes" a particular person, and talks to Bill because he can easily see who's coming up the stairs from that vantage point.
Some people just notice everything though. I worked at a place where the boss and I had had side by side offices. Our doors were next to each other and if he walked to the shop, he'd pass in front of my door. My desk faced the door. Can't tell you how many times a someone would poke their head inside my office looking for him and I'd say "he was just there!!". Yet he had walked past me and I missed it. If I were Bob, I'd surely have known exactly where he was and how long he been gone lol
When I worked for an Atty. General's office my office was next to the conference room. One day several of our lawyers rushed into my office with a glass and closed the door. They looked like children with the glass against the wall trying to hear what was going on in the conference room!
I'm not sure why glancing at someone who walks by is rude or odd or anything. People's eyes are drawn to movement from way back in our omg-is-that-sabertooth-tiger-gonna-eat-me days. Bob sounds like a normal person who is friendly and so wants to greet people he knows when he sees them.
Unless he is being very inattentive to the conversation he's having - and then he would just be a bit rude to the person he's having it with - I think this is really normal behavior.
Maybe Bob has ADD? I know that I do, and every time someone disturbs me in the slightest I turn and look. I can't even study in the common area of the library because the flow of even quiet foot traffic is too distracting.
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