191–200 of 212 posts
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IDK I quite enjoy being home alone with no human contact. Interacting with other people is so tiring, and there's not much reward in it for me. Being with other people is stressful.
What I feel like cannot be missed if you're paying attention is that other people suffer from it. Whether individual mind it or not doesn't disprove the general observation.
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When I worked in an office, there was no policing of communication or reading books on effective communication to influence people (??) – people were just normal ass people.
You never had a list of banned words at work? You missed the whole master/main thing? Words prefixed with black/white weren't given alternatives? I had a manager once go thorough one of my slack conversations and go line by line with how I could rephrase things with softer corporate jargon. There's books on leadership, books like crucial conversations, books on managing up. The industry is obsessed with staff enginee…
This reminds me of growing up as a homeschooled kid and hearing people ask my parents "but how will they socialize?", generally while we were at the youth soccer field or at the playground or somewhere else that the irony should have caught their attention. Homeschooled kids can be isolated more because they don't have the forcing function of mandatory group settings, but often there are other opportunities available…
The question is whether you are the norm or the exception. Others may not have that social structure outside the job available or may not be motivated to use it (the "forcing function" of the office being removed)
There have personally been times in my life where I’ve lost that bandaid (workplace, academic extracurricular activity, etc.) and thankfully I’ve usually been able to respond by realizing that I had a problem and proactively doing something about it.
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You probably just never got to know them that well and did things outside of work with them. I've met people at the office and stayed in touch with them and hung out after they left or I left the company.
That's a great point I never thought of! I'm also an introvert and don't relate to my peers who normally are always older than me by 10 years for some reason lol
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When I worked in an office, there was no policing of communication or reading books on effective communication to influence people (??) – people were just normal ass people.
The usual expectation is that you wont discuss politics or personal topics. You are expected to not ask about other peoples health either. The other completely normal expectation is that you will limit general chit chat, unless you are at unusually slacky workplace.
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I do this with my team. We spend more than half of our weekly 30 minute 1-on-1s talking about anything but work. That isn't written down anywhere, it's just a natural consequence of us being interested in each others' lives, and prioritizing that over "getting back" 20 minutes to do more work. We also have a team-wide monthly "happy hour" where we bring one discussion point each, usually an interesting article. They'…
What if they don’t want to spend their time making small talk with their boss or manufactured chit chat at a happy hour? I get that a lot of people need this. I don’t need my work to provide a social life, I’d rather get my shit done and leave. When I socialize in a work capacity I’m doing it because it helps me do my job better, not because I want to
There's no consequence to skipping the happy hour but everyone shows when they can and is engaged and contributes to the conversation. We often talk about culture, politics, economics other topics most folks have a general interest in.
> I don’t need my work to provide a social life
Fair, not everyone sees work as a community, but many do. Remote culture is hard to build but it needs to allow for folks who still need human connection in their workplace.
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I do this with my team. We spend more than half of our weekly 30 minute 1-on-1s talking about anything but work. That isn't written down anywhere, it's just a natural consequence of us being interested in each others' lives, and prioritizing that over "getting back" 20 minutes to do more work. We also have a team-wide monthly "happy hour" where we bring one discussion point each, usually an interesting article. They'…
The risk I often see is when the company also emphasizes this 'family' ideal. I think that is unnatural and forced; most of my associates hated this. It ruins the work-life balance. I found it more important to emphasize trust, and allow them to handle these conversations/attendance If they couldn't, that's fine. Outside factors can disrupt this, ... So I wouldn't complain if there was a no show once in a while. We h…
The happy hours are only an hour a month during work hours, where we talk about stuff everyone on the team is interested in, like economics, culture and politics. Most people seem engaged and bring interesting stuff to talk about.
We also do a more formal "data blitz" in our ML team labs, where folks bring vaguely data-related topic to talk about for 10 minutes, but that requires a little prep. Those are always fun. We've had people rating diaper brands and showing their marathon training schedules.
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I do this with my team. We spend more than half of our weekly 30 minute 1-on-1s talking about anything but work. That isn't written down anywhere, it's just a natural consequence of us being interested in each others' lives, and prioritizing that over "getting back" 20 minutes to do more work. We also have a team-wide monthly "happy hour" where we bring one discussion point each, usually an interesting article. They'…
I've had 1:1s like this and I'll tell you it was entirely performative. Yes my manager and I chatted about non work stuff for half or even all of the meeting but it was all fake, just talk to get through the meeting.
It's not like we try to fill the 30 mins, but I think we all crave a little connection with our colleagues, so make use of the time to catch up. I've worked with these same team members for over 3 years, so we are all a little invested in each others' lives by now. Obviously I'm not going to force a new team member to divulge everything about their lives, or go through my weekend in detail unless they're actually interested in chatting. It's pretty clear when someone just wants to get on with their work, rather than chat.
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It never ends on HN, does it? These wild claims about "[i]n EU". I puke each time I see that phrase. The EU is enormous . There is no way that a "simple one-bed apartment can easily take 50% of your net income" in any mid-sized EU city, or an hour outside a large EU city.
My statement obviously referred to major cities, which is where most IT jobs are, as I indicated remote work allows you to leverage cheaper locations. Take for example Oxford. A typical rental will be around £1,600 pcm. The median pre-tax salary is around £50,000, which converts to around £3,100 net. So, the apartment is actually more than 50% of your net income. Some programming jobs will pay a bit more, but you get…
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I have a feeling that people who feel isolated due to WFH would be same people who don’t interact with anyone in the offices as well i am experiencing this from a different angle. i am shy in certain situations so i don't easily socialize. what helps me is forced/formalized socialization, like pair programming. forced in the sense that i don't have to ask someone to make it happen. (although asking gets easier as i g…
Well if you are shy, you have two options. Support going back to the office so everybody commutes there and you can easily talk to people without putting much effort... Or take it as a growth opportunity for yourself, take advantage of the extra time that you have saved in that useless commuting, and try to talk to people outside work and make friends as everybody else does. Please believe in yourself!
As a fellow shy person, I feel the pain when someone basically just tells you to get over it.