5 ms·

>Couldn't you also be learning how to spend time in a group? I think the definition of the word "introvert" might be something you should review.

Jtsummers 10y ago
No true introvert. The term itself is useless anymore because it conflates shyness, introspection (an aspect of introversion, classically), and symptoms of social anxiety.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  One time, my spouse dragged me to Summerfest in Milwaukee, during the day. Even during daylight hours, it's crowded and noisy, and it only gets worse at night. At one point, my spouse turns around, looks at my face, and says, "Oh my God--you look like you're dying." And I felt like I was. To an introvert, groups of strangers are uncomfortable, parties are taxing, and crowds are torture. "Can't you learn to spend time in a group?" is, to an introvert, conceptually equivalent to social mithridatism. All you have to do to feel comfortable in a pit of venomous snakes is to painfully inject yourself with increasing amounts of venom over an extended period of time, giving yourself time to recover after each dose. Or, to overcome a food allergy, you undergo desensitization therapy, gradually increasing your exposure to it. Since the process is painful, there must be some perceptible reward at the end of it in order to make the first step worthwhile. There is no such benefit in most companies. Hey, congratulations! You get to keep your job, doing more of the same thing! Now get back over here and do a trust fall, where you close your eyes and then a dozen people touch you at once, all over your body! It's fun! How about instead of doing that, you give me an office with a lockable door (and also actually give me the key for it) and make sure I only have exactly one boss? Put up a team wiki and give everyone dev blog URLs instead of having a daily face-to-face status meeting? Automate or pre-schedule any co-worker lunch outings, such that everybody knows the restaurant selection in advance?
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    As an introvert, "torture" is never how I'd describe my experience in groups (outside some training classes, but even most extroverts would agree). That's why I find the term useless. It's an umbrella term that people use to cover too many situations and conditions. And other self-proclaimed introverts will deny my claim of being an introvert because my experience isn't the same as theirs. I used to have a similar reaction to what you describe in crowds, it wasn't introversion, it was social anxiety. A separate, but related, condition. And then there's people suffering for milder conditions of depression, where solitude is a relief, and again gets conflated with introversion. They feel relief and conclude that the crowd or social scene was the problem, which is inaccurate (for their case). We need more nuanced language to discuss this than just extrovert and introvert.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      Given your definitions is there any concern about introverts that don't have social anxiety? Do introverts just work better alone or do they actually perform badly in open space plans or in paired programming?
      - Jtsummers 10y ago
        Sure. But you have to go on a case-by-case basis. Again, me as an introvert, I do fine in team projects, or alone. I do fine in open floor plans, or with my own office. For teams, I tend to interact with smaller-than-the-whole units, so one or two people, a tester, a couple of co-developers, not the whole. That does still grate on me, but less from my introversion than the fact that not much gets accomplished when you throw 15 people in a room for most of our meetings. But other people have different skillsets, or more extreme introversion, or lower tolerances. But that's just me. I've got a friend working down the street. He's so much happier being in an office with 3 other people who never talk to each other. He'd hate the environment I'm in and the team sizes I work with. To the best of my knowledge, and by his behavior (compared to my experience with my own issues and working with/helping others), he doesn't seem to have any social anxiety (or nothing beyond some fairly common level that many engineers seem to have). My father is even more introverted than him, but he successfully ran organizations (military) of thousands of people. He got his alone time, really small group time was more to his liking, on the weekends and after-hours. He tolerated it for 8-12 hours a day, then came home and set work aside. Again, introversion isn't a disorder. It becomes a disorder, and likely some sort of anxiety disorder, when it impacts your ability to do what you want to do. Ultimately, there's also only so much a company can do though. Introversion isn't a disorder (anxiety is), so there's no obligation to accommodate people, legally. Which is another reason to address things by what they actually are. When I was last depressed, addressing it as depression meant that I worked with my supervisor to reduce my workload, reduce my stress (my depression is a consequence of anxiety, combination of personal and professional stressors triggered it last time), while I got through it. Then we ramped it back up once I got passed a couple hurdles. Another thing to note, things that annoy productive introverts also annoy productive extroverts. A loud office filled with nonsense like five people playing music on their speakers, and conversations about WoW. That annoys almost everyone that just wants to get shit done.

Jtsummers 10y ago

No true introvert. The term itself is useless anymore because it conflates shyness, introspection (an aspect of introversion, classically), and symptoms of social anxiety.

logfromblammo 10y ago
One time, my spouse dragged me to Summerfest in Milwaukee, during the day. Even during daylight hours, it's crowded and noisy, and it only gets worse at night. At one point, my spouse turns around, looks at my face, and says, "Oh my God--you look like you're dying." And I felt like I was. To an introvert, groups of strangers are uncomfortable, parties are taxing, and crowds are torture. "Can't you learn to spend time in a group?" is, to an introvert, conceptually equivalent to social mithridatism. All you have to do to feel comfortable in a pit of venomous snakes is to painfully inject yourself with increasing amounts of venom over an extended period of time, giving yourself time to recover after each dose. Or, to overcome a food allergy, you undergo desensitization therapy, gradually increasing your exposure to it. Since the process is painful, there must be some perceptible reward at the end of it in order to make the first step worthwhile. There is no such benefit in most companies. Hey, congratulations! You get to keep your job, doing more of the same thing! Now get back over here and do a trust fall, where you close your eyes and then a dozen people touch you at once, all over your body! It's fun! How about instead of doing that, you give me an office with a lockable door (and also actually give me the key for it) and make sure I only have exactly one boss? Put up a team wiki and give everyone dev blog URLs instead of having a daily face-to-face status meeting? Automate or pre-schedule any co-worker lunch outings, such that everybody knows the restaurant selection in advance?
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  As an introvert, "torture" is never how I'd describe my experience in groups (outside some training classes, but even most extroverts would agree). That's why I find the term useless. It's an umbrella term that people use to cover too many situations and conditions. And other self-proclaimed introverts will deny my claim of being an introvert because my experience isn't the same as theirs. I used to have a similar reaction to what you describe in crowds, it wasn't introversion, it was social anxiety. A separate, but related, condition. And then there's people suffering for milder conditions of depression, where solitude is a relief, and again gets conflated with introversion. They feel relief and conclude that the crowd or social scene was the problem, which is inaccurate (for their case). We need more nuanced language to discuss this than just extrovert and introvert.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    Given your definitions is there any concern about introverts that don't have social anxiety? Do introverts just work better alone or do they actually perform badly in open space plans or in paired programming?
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Sure. But you have to go on a case-by-case basis. Again, me as an introvert, I do fine in team projects, or alone. I do fine in open floor plans, or with my own office. For teams, I tend to interact with smaller-than-the-whole units, so one or two people, a tester, a couple of co-developers, not the whole. That does still grate on me, but less from my introversion than the fact that not much gets accomplished when you throw 15 people in a room for most of our meetings. But other people have different skillsets, or more extreme introversion, or lower tolerances. But that's just me. I've got a friend working down the street. He's so much happier being in an office with 3 other people who never talk to each other. He'd hate the environment I'm in and the team sizes I work with. To the best of my knowledge, and by his behavior (compared to my experience with my own issues and working with/helping others), he doesn't seem to have any social anxiety (or nothing beyond some fairly common level that many engineers seem to have). My father is even more introverted than him, but he successfully ran organizations (military) of thousands of people. He got his alone time, really small group time was more to his liking, on the weekends and after-hours. He tolerated it for 8-12 hours a day, then came home and set work aside. Again, introversion isn't a disorder. It becomes a disorder, and likely some sort of anxiety disorder, when it impacts your ability to do what you want to do. Ultimately, there's also only so much a company can do though. Introversion isn't a disorder (anxiety is), so there's no obligation to accommodate people, legally. Which is another reason to address things by what they actually are. When I was last depressed, addressing it as depression meant that I worked with my supervisor to reduce my workload, reduce my stress (my depression is a consequence of anxiety, combination of personal and professional stressors triggered it last time), while I got through it. Then we ramped it back up once I got passed a couple hurdles. Another thing to note, things that annoy productive introverts also annoy productive extroverts. A loud office filled with nonsense like five people playing music on their speakers, and conversations about WoW. That annoys almost everyone that just wants to get shit done.