Imagine going for a nice, quiet walk. Out of nowhere, random strangers jump out from behind trees to offer “helpful” advice on your route, your pace, or even the type of shoes you should be wearing. You didn’t ask for directions, but suddenly everyone has an opinion about where you should go and how you should get there.

If you’ve ever received unsolicited feedback at work, you’ll know exactly how it feels.

In an open-plan office, this effect only multiplies. I used to work in such an office, where I sometimes wondered if someone had accidentally taped a “suggestions welcome” sign on the desk.

A colleague from another department once offered, “You shouldn’t use headphones in the office. You seem disconnected from your surroundings and I had to wave at you to get your attention.”

A decidedly non-graphic designer colleague chimed in: “I love your presentation earlier! But I thought if you’d used Comic Sans, it would have really made it a lot cuter.”

A manager in the sales team suggested, “You should put a mirror on your desk! That way, you can check your smile when making sales calls.” (I don’t do sales.)

Once, a usually reserved team member kindly said to me, “Um… I didn’t want to, uh, bring that up, uh… but when you were like, ah, on the call with, um, customer just now… you paused, like, uh, a lot.”

Unsolicited feedback can be well-intentioned and occasionally helpful, but more often than not, it’s like that awful Zoom echo when two laptops are too close without muting — it’s distracting and jarring.

And it will come from every corner of the hierarchy – from the fresh intern who just finished Intro to Marketing to the senior manager in another department who just loves a captive audience.

Here’s how to handle each archetype without losing your cool.