Does anyone else notice the excessive use of this word seemingly when someone doesn't know enough to hold up their end of a business conversation, or isn't interested in hearing details?

Not a sentence of reply- just the word "exactly".

Annoying...

Dude, someone very close to me does this all the time when I know she didn't get what I just said.

Exactly

Exactly.

Damn, too slow.

Actually, when I use it, I'm thinking of that episode in South Park -- I think it was the farting episode -- where the father (of...Kyle? I think) is asked a question, and he responds with "exactly", which doesn't really answer the question, but the father thinks the question-asker gets it.

In my case, I'm doing it ironically.

Or sometimes (such as in the Spade Kitty I'm Almost Done thread), I am in complete agreement, and I understand, and there isn't any irony anywhere to be found, except perhaps earlier.

Exactly

From "Kiss-Assing Your Way Up The Ladder" by Ida Brownose, available on Bantam Books, 1998.

I use it not when I don't know enough to hold up my end of a business conversation, but when I'm not really interested in what the other person is saying and just wish he/she would shut the hell up.

You guys are killing me.

another word used like that is "absolutely."

precisely.

Or, the interrogative, "Really?" You can say that to pretty much anything.

Of course, if you do it too much, your friends will have time to come up with snappy comebacks, such as, "No, I'm lying."

exactly

is this where we go to bump our post count?

Right.

Absolutely.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

Exacta-mundo?

Seriously.

For the reals. I'm cereal.

Took the words out of my mouth.

definitely.

this annoys me more than "exactly." one of my friends says this all the effin' time and it drives me "absolutely" insane!

oh well.

Indubitably