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Working remotely for extroverts

hoppycow.com

65 pointsjoshbetz22 comments

I think of myself as being mostly introverted, so I was a little surprised at how well I can relate to many of those suggestions. It's good to remember that the introvert-extrovert thing is a tendency with many levels rather than an absolute. I do need and enjoy lots of alone time, solo projects, and low-intensity social interaction (ahem ahem, internet forums like HN...). But I also need some amount of actual in-person social interaction, including the types of things the author describes.

I also wonder sometimes just how introverted people who say that they're introverted really are. I tend to think that true introversion is genuine pleasure at being alone, and discomfort from being in social situations is not necessarily a consequence of that so much as not having learned social skills. Enjoying being alone is perfectly okay and not something that can be or needs to be 'fixed'. Social skills can be learned and improved at any time, though, just like any other skill. If you don't care to, that's perfectly fine, but you could be missing out on a lot of things you might otherwise get.

It's not a matter of skill. For some people, being around others that they don't know very well is tiresome, for other people, it's a pleasure. How well the person handles the situation is a completely different matter.

Also, I don't see any reason to think the above correlates with liking or disliking to be alone.

As an introvert, it's fascinating to me how there are people who look forward to those awful team lunches and office birthday cakes. I feel exhausted just thinking about those things.

Do you like your coworkers?

Another commenter here, but I can relate - I like my coworkers and I'm sure they feel the same about me, but these birthday gatherings, christmas parties and other special occasions...well, I don't hate them, but comfortable is not a word I would use to describe them. It may sound like a cliche from the "introverts' manual", but when it comes to me, social interactions are preferred in small crowds, or even better, one on one.

It doesn't have to mean the he doesn't like other people as you seem to imply.

Throwing in another two cents here.

I'd say I lean toward introversion, though I've tried to spend a lot of time learning to engage in social situations, and do fairly well. I've been a full time trainer, and participated in various levels of managing teams to good success (if I do say so myself).

I like the people on my team, and I like going to lunch with them, but I hate Team Lunches. I think it has to do with how contrived the social situation feels, and how much I feel like someone is trying to push me into their vision of a sociable team.

One of my pet peeves is finding out someone wants to push Company Culture and that means getting everyone together to do cheers and chants.

There's nothing inherently wrong with cheers and chants and team lunches or whatever you want to do, but you love your job and who you work with and not want to be forced into a contrived social situation where you're supposed to bond. I bond just fine with my coworkers after we decide which thai place to go to on a given day.

You know you're an introvert when you call in sick or plan your vacations to "coincidentally" fall during an office festive event. True story.

The key thing to remember when working remotely, or even at home, as the two are always the same thing, is to make regular visits out to see people. Having worked remotely for a three year spell. I found a certain quota of face to face time is a minimum requirement to stay normal, sane, and most of all, grounded.

As an introvert who works in an office (and works remote in binges), just being in the vicinity of people is good for overall mental health. You don't have to interact with people to be energized by them (all the better, of course if you do). Like walking down a busy city block, energy can be absorbed by just being near people.

Open plan workspaces tend to get a bad rap on HN. My challenge to developers here is to stop relying on the headphones to block out noise to focus. It can be done. You don't need to be in a "monastery" to work well.

Are you sure you're an introvert then? Being around people doesn't energize an introvert. That's the definition. Being an introvert myself, hanging around in a coffee shop even without interacting with anybody will wear me down slowly. I've built up enough of a tolerance that I can deal with it and still go on to have other social interactions throughout the day, but the fact remains just being near people is an energy net negative for me (and all introverts).

> Open plan workspaces tend to get a bad rap on HN.

And in several scientific studies.

It's not so black and white. A term I've read somewhere for being around people without interaction is "ambient socialization". I'm a dyed-in-the-wool introvert and still find it beneficial from time to time, especially after long stints of isolation. It doesn't necessarily mean you become more productive (e.g I can't concentrate in coffee shops as much as from home but I attribute it more to noise than people per se) but it still works fine for breaking the routine once in a while.

I agree that it is not so clear. I do remember one exercise at a previous company where they divided us into introverts and extroverts based on MBTI (Myers-Briggs scores). They then gave us the hypothetical exercise that we had the day off.

Us introverts were planning chores and shopping.

The extroverts were planning a trip to Vegas.

Like many labels, introversion is a personal thing. I prefer the description from Susan Cain's book by a MIT professor (sadly, the one who was recently accused of sexual harassment of his online students). Anyway, his description was that if you are passionate about something, that will overcome your baseline introversion such that you can do what is not normally in your acceptable range of behavior. Perhaps, I am so jazzed by problem solving that I like going to the office (where there are a lot of problems to be solved and good teammates to solve it with).

OT - our Slack channel is 'noisy' and the office is not.

No, no it can't. I'm glad that it works for you, but for me the part of my brain that focuses on voices turns off the part of my brain that turns thoughts into code. It doesn't matter if they're talking to me or not, but I work at 10% focus if I can hear voices, even in my headphones (unless it's a song I know really well, or trance/metal where the voices are distorted)

Ok, on that note, I like Bach choral music because I can't understand any of what is being said. It is in many ways ethereal. When I can't understand the lyrics, I find I don't try to think about what I am listening to.

And OT - have you tried meditation?

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy

This article is beyond awesome - I was actually starting to think I'm in some kind of burnout stage since I didn't feel productive at all and I was blaming it on the fact that I've grown from a developer role into a more managerial one. I'm quite an extrovert working full time fully remote and some days just seem like they last forever.

/me is off to find a coworking space nearby.

Not really related to being an extrovert; finding ways to deal with the incongruity of working remotely in a world that assumes your workplace offers a social experience is something introverts need as well.

The recommendations in the post sum up to building a surrogate workplace and surrogate colleagues. That is great for attending to the need for active feedback of human interaction for the extrovert, but it is not the context in which the work is actually being done. Does that discontinuity present any obvious problems?

Due to the absence of any discussion of telepresence robots, do they miss the mark in addressing these needs, or, has the writer not learned of them?

Question for remote employees: Do you get to join a co-working space as an expensible perk? I am considering asking for it but I was wondering if it is culturally out of the norm for companies to pay for it.

At Automattic we do. It shows that a company isn’t remote just to offset office costs.

These are some great suggestions. I worked remotely for two years and almost went crazy. It's hard to overestimate how much information you miss out on when you stop sharing a room with people.

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