The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day

We do use pair programming to a limited extent: often in the context of a more experienced developer coaching a less experienced developer, or getting a couple of people working together on a particularly tricky problem, so I'm not entirely against it at all. As I said though, this post reads like hell to me.

I've often joked that techniques like pair programming are "software development for extroverts". I certainly didn't get into programming because I'm some sort of out of control social animal, and I was absolutely the stereotypical nerdy kid at school.

I still skew somewhat introverted and need time alone to recharge. What I've found as I've moved through my career is that the more oriented my job is around social interaction, the less I want to be sociable outside of work. Now, as an executive, it's all about the people, and I've dropped to 4 days/week so that I don't turn into a total hermit, shunning all social contact, outside of work. If I don't have a day completely alone at the weekend I really start to struggle. Similarly if my only social interaction comes via work I also struggle. I lose perspective, become tired and disengaged, my judgement and decision-making goes on the wonk: nothing good comes of it. But there's always a balance. I have so much social budget to spend, if you like, and if I spend it all at work I don't have anything left for outside of work (and vice versa) - I always need to find a healthy middle ground.

I am just one data point and I know full well it's different for different people, but I suppose this is one of the issues I find most frustrating about "pairing mandates" (and, yes, I have worked somewhere that had one): enforced pairing doesn't take into account the differences between people. I'm not advocating that we're all special snowflakes but, at the same time, software engineers in general aren't doing basic tasks that can be easily interchanged with different individuals - sometimes not even within their own teams - so it makes little sense to me to force everyone to work in a way, all the time, that a decent number are going to find detrimental.

Let me put it starkly: if I'm working full time as a software engineer and you force me to pair all the time then not only am I going to hate my job fairly quickly, but you are also very literally ruining the rest of my life. I don't want to come home from work completely exhausted with no energy to do anything else and no desire to see friends or family. Not OK. Not OK at all. This is obviously one very effective way to burn people out.

We're all human, and it's helpful for everyone if we can remember that when we're at work.

There was literal chest beating and shouting motivational stuff during sales meetings, an incredibly amount of beer (which isn't necessary an issue, but in this case it was), sometimes drugs (which led to some people being fired whenever it became public), lots of sexual harassment complaints (which also led to some surprise firings).

The cult-like part was the CEO fancying himself some Steve Jobs type, doing two-hour long presentations on random topics like his favourite economic ideas, or presenting a treatise against post-modernism. I of course knew which youtube videos he was plagiarising.

It really felt like a Silicon Valley parody when I finally got out.

I find that CEO level bosses (I used to be a teacher so am including heads/principals here) love to pontificate about stuff not related to the job. I've often wondered why. It's sometimes harmless, and clearly,as in your case, sometimes harmful. I do wonder what causes it though.