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Comment by programmertote | Hacker News Reader

I'm on the opposite spectrum. I don't like socializing with my coworkers. I keep a respectful and professionally-friendly relationship with them.

I have college friends (not many, just 3 who I call close), and a family. That and life's chores/errands are enough to keep me busy when off work.

To me, relying on coworkers for companionship is not a sustainable approach because like it or not, we need to switch jobs every 2-4 years (esp. when you are junior or esp. when you are not working at a big tech company for a cushiony/chill role, which might be rare), and there is never enough time to build strong bond with anyone you work. This is also disregarding the office politics, bullcrap/hypocritical things that you see some of your coworkers do once in a while.

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I don’t rely on my coworkers for companionship, but I work eight hours a day. Interacting with people that are “friends” is better to me than interacting with people that are cold and indifferent because they have no interest in being friendly with work colleagues. I don’t want your time after work. I just want to get along and crack a few jokes while the code deploys.

You can have a lot going on at work that makes people turn to cold and indifferent because they want to get work done and deadlines met. Their mental effort is focused on that because that's the priority. Socializing can be a context switch. If the company continuously keeps the pressure on, they just continue on like that until switching jobs.

It would be nice if we had more time to relax and socialize as a reward for getting work done early or at a higher quality but the reward for it is often more work, which will quickly turn people cynical. If you are cynical, socializing is very much a chore even though they know you didn't cause it.

Essentially, there is a lot to focus on that prevents people from relaxing and socializing. But profits are up, so yay?

They said professionally friendly. That is not cold and indifferent.

Meh, I never went to college, and I'm not at all close to my family. My closest friends almost all came from people I worked with at one point or another. Many of them moved in 2020+ away from the SF Bay Area, which sucked.

It's incredibly difficult, and isolating to bootstrap a social network these days.

>I have college friends (not many, just 3 who I call close), and a family.

Plus people you share your hobbies with (if you have a social one). This is the way. I like who I work with, but I don't want to socialize with any of them, unless I'm being paid.

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