You can be very productive while being social as well. In fact, the shittiest projects have consistently been those where people don't communicate and communication includes a human factor, starting at the most basic level.
Why? Because fundamentally we are social animals and opening up to this circumstance will allow meaningful, project-related communication at a much more useful level when you previously connected at a human level.
I find it exceedingly weird when you have next to no interest in the people you work with for 8+ hours every single day.
I agree with you, but it's unlikely to convince the other camp. How about purely selfish reasons though? There is a finite limit on what a single developer can accomplish. By definition a high performing team requires excellent communication , and you don't just shrug and say that's managements problem. Team output will dwarf anything a single rockstar could ever hope to produce. Developers should Read mythical man month about the requirements of scaling up; the challenges are not technical, they're all about communication and visibility.
I'm on the same team as you - that's why I can't really work remotely - but let's acknowledge that it's a personal preference. People are different, much more than we can usually imagine. You can't tell another person, whom you really don't know that well, what she can or cannot do; and different projects require different people and different models of communication.
I acknowledge it, yes. And I should be more thoughtful of people with. for example, heavier levels of introversion than me.
A really good setup would likely be something that respects all sides on the spectrum - people who prefer to be quiet and working in solitude should not be judged for it.
Neither should people with more social approaches be dreaded by the introverts. That would be ideal. In essence, we need a system that is able to integrate all preferences and make use of them in the most productive way.
Thank you for reminding me that I should be more considerate.
It think that we already have this system, it's called capitalism. Different companies have different internal cultures, some are for lone hackers in individual cabinets or remote locations, some favour giant open floor plans with constant communication. That's what culture fit is mostly about for me: most aren't better or worse, they're just different.
Keep in mind remote work doesn't mean isolated, individual developer unless it's a very small project or you're doing it wrong.
I object to the characterization in this thread of all casual coworker interaction a being social and meaningless to the work. This view is just plain wrong. I know many here will disagree and say they are on big projects with remote teams that don't socialize; if that's true and you're delivering work than I've got to believe someone behind the scenes is doing extra work to hold it together.
I'm exactly the same way as you, it feels really depressing to sit next to people for 8 hours and not know anything about them. It just feels fundamentally wrong to me and I work so much better when I know my coworkers. I'm currently looking for a new job, partly because of this, but I'm not sure the best way to ask about this in an interview. Do you have any tips or questions to ask?
It may sound like it but I can assure you that it's not. Humans are social animals and when you have to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a setting with little to no peer interaction, it'll start to wear on you.
The first month is awesome. Complete freedom & autonomy, then the depression starts kicking in.
The distinction is going to be whether you have a rich social network outside of work. Stack up immediate family, extended family, a handful of close longtime friends, church, a softball team, a couple of hobbyist groups, and a volunteer board, and your half dozen colleagues you were randomly assigned to work near can seem rather superfluous.
On the other hand, you take a bunch of young people straight out of college, collect them from around the country and the world, drop them in a new city without any social network, lean on them to work 50, 60 hour weeks, and suddenly socializing with your coworkers becomes very important, especially if you're single, not very religious, and not very outgoing. The alternative is complete isolation and sad phone calls with friends and family thousands of miles away.
Man, this really resonates with me, basically my situation right now. I love my job and my colleagues, but I basically have no close friends outside of work in my city since moving.
One piece of advice is to not focus on making close friends. They're important, and it's really nice having some nearby, but it's not really any easier to make a new close friend than to start any other long-term relationship.
Instead, just focus on (a) meeting as many people as you can bear and (b) establishing membership in a few groups with regular activities.
The latter is more straight forward, and can accomplish the former. There are lots of options: signing up for a sports league, taking classes (art classes, exercise classes, continuing education classes, whatever), going to a board games meetup group, joining a volunteer organization, join a church (or whatever) if you're even mildly religious. Friendships, like all relationships, are built on shared interests and repeat interactions.
You can also meet a lot of people without joining any groups, although it's easier if you're the sort of naturally sociable person who can strike up a conversation with anyone you're around for more than two minutes. Besides the obvious (go to places there are people, talk to them), or the "run for political office" strategy (it gives you a reason to go and introduce yourself to a few thousand people in your area), there's also the reverse strategy, where you establish a routine.
Pick a few activities to do yourself, and do them on a regular, predictable basis in public. Go for a walk or a run every day at the same time, on the same route. Go read at the library or a park a coffee shop at the same time every week. Go to a farmer's market every weekend. You don't need to schedule your entire life on a recurring basis, but by just keeping a regular schedule you will make yourself more visible, familiar and approachable to the people around you, and they'll feel comfortable saying "hi" or introducing themselves.
While meeting lots of people and joining a few groups can lead to finding a few close friends, it's also a big help in itself in alleviating the isolation which comes with moving to a new place. You'll be surprised at even the difference that just introducing yourself to a couple hundred people makes. Suddenly, everyone around you isn't just one flavor or another of "stranger"; you know their names (or at least, some of them, depending on your memory for names and faces), and they know yours. You've been introduced, so now you can wave or say "hi" or comment on the weather without it being weird.
I did this for over five years (I was working as the only dev on a project, PM gave me 100% autonomy), it's just fine. Work is for work, not hanging out.
I would have liked to work on a team for that project, but not because I needed to socialize.
Humans are social, but I socialize outside of work.
Very early in my career I was working with other young engineers and I wanted work to be a social place too. I learned from that quickly, there's much too many downsides: you don't get to pick your coworkers so sometimes they end up being not great as "friends," you realize that work relationships are incredibly shallow because no matter how much time you spent socializing once one of you leaves the company you never see each other again, trying to turn the office into social hour interferes with work, it's probably best my coworkers don't see the same side of me as my friends.
> Humans are social, but I socialize outside of work.
I see this sentiment a lot and I don't get it. You are spending more time with your coworkers than anyone else. I'm not saying you should find your best friend in the office, but enjoying your time with coworkers seems like a good thing. Maybe the definitions of socializing are different. I'm not talking about after hours drinks or philosophically debating for hours. I'm thinking chit chat, jokes, having shared strife reaching a common goal, feeling better for having worked with them, and generally enjoying the 1/3 of a day you spend with them. Professional and friendly. It also so happens that the majority of people I work with I would likely make time to see outside of work from time to time. Non-work socializing is different and more fulfilling, but you have much less time to squeeze that in outside of weekends, which are also squeezed for time when you have a family.
Personally this slides from a near-perfect setup to a completely-awful setup once I need to leave my house and drive to an office (or luxury condo, apparently) to do this, for literally no reason.
I'd also reckon a typical remote team probably has more of the routine social interaction some other comments here describe as personally beneficial than this arrangement.
