I work in an office environment (large Bay Area corporate enterprise software co) where people are constantly cutting each other off in conversations and technical discussions. For people that are a more soft-spoken, it is almost impossible to get a word in - nevermind getting a full thought-process in. This has negative implications on work discussions as the loudest people who are usually dominating the conversations, from my observation, are usually not the brightest. I am not someone who tolerates getting cut-off easily but it is frustrating and it takes a lot of energy for me to drive the conversation back on track and say what I want to say. This is something that I never had to deal in previous work environments prior to moving to the Bay Area so I'm inclined to think it's something specific to this area. Recently, I have moved to a team in my company where it is almost damn near impossible to have my thoughts heard and in some cases, I just shut myself off from discussions to save my energy. It's starting to affect my work life and my daily mood because in a lot of cases I just don't have the energy to reject and explain why we shouldn't be doing X, Y, or Z. Is this a common thing in workplaces? I would be interested in hearing if people have been in this situation and how they've dealt with it if so.