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Comment by neuronic | Hacker News Reader

What a horrible working style.

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.

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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?

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