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When will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts? The pandemic-driven remote working is hell for some people,

• amir734jj 6y ago
  Very well said. I am actually more productive working from home. I think asking everyone to work at the office again is just a decision by extrovert people managers.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• CapricornNoble 6y ago
  >>>When will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts? This is my exact complaint, even in the Marine Corps. All of our senior leadership are charismatic extroverts. They are trying to adapt "distributed command & control" because they recognize that large management nodes are easy to spot and kill. But they still insist on all forms of concentrated workspaces, in-person meetings, video teleconferences, etc... We have the technology, but it will never be fully embraced because it is fundamentally anathema to the character of our decision-makers.
• laurent92 6y ago
  Our political conditions are also driven by extroverts. Our promotions are also driven by extroverts. Our insurance for the house, and the value we add as programmers, extroverts organize the world and take their share. I consider being extrovert as a quality for many things, and one has to learn to be versatile, even if I don’t like it personally.
• gear54rus 6y ago
  It's broader than that. Their whole life is being dictated by extroverts (teaming up with other extraverts, something introverts cannot do). And that's why one should strive to shift as much into extroverted state as possible and defend their opinion and find allies.
• tudorconstantin 6y ago
  I'm totally not an introvert: I love being around nice people, I love playing table tennis and having lunch with my colleagues. But wasting 1h-2h daily on commuting to/from work is in absolutely no way worthy of this. It's our duty as human beings to resist going back to the office as much as possible. To gain back some of the life we otherwise would spend on commute. Work is for work, not for socializing, or having fun, or playing Xbox and table tennis. I mean, sure, these are nice perks, but we are being paid for the work we do, not for the fun we have. And working without being distracted by some colleagues loud music in the headphones, or the chit chat of others, or the "sorry, quick question" of some manager, improves my quality of work tremendously.
  • heterodoxxed 6y ago
    Yes, two non-introvert reasons for remote work: Commuting is hell and deep focus is near impossible in modern offices. For the latter, there are times when you need to think about working, and when you're doing that, being in the office with a group of people and a whiteboard is invaluable. But at some point, you know what you need to do, you just need to get into a flow and do it. And that is near impossible in modern offices. That is especially important for engineers, but it also applies to accountants and designers and carpenters and any productive labor that isn't management. Introvert/extrovert doesn't come into play, all productive labor needs to get into states of deep focus. Maybe if engineers all had doors that closed, but for some damn reason we haven't had those since the 1960s.
    • edem 6y ago
      I worked in an office many years ago where I noticed that the accountant always stayed late in the office. I once asked her and she said: "I stay late because when they leave I can finally start to work".
      • CaptainZapp 6y ago
        For me it was exactly the other way 'round. I came to the office very early (say 7ish), which gave me a couple hours to really focus on things, before my colleagues started meandering in.
• oblio 6y ago
  > When will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts. Majority rule :-)
  • tremon 6y ago
    Hardly. Extroverts just have an easier time getting heard.
    • oblio 6y ago
      In these circles, yeah, maaaaaybe introverts are the majority. For the general population? No way. Most studies put the number of introverts somewhere between 20-40%. Extroverts are loud and they are the majority, too. As someone on this forum put it, the only evolutionary advantage to being an introvert is that you're insurance in case all the bunched up introverts die in a natural disaster, while you're away sitting alone in your far away corner.
• blub 6y ago
  For most people home office makes sense for practical reasons - long commute, spending more time with the family, living in a nicer / cheaper location but having a well paying job. On the other hand, extreme introverts that don't tolerate working in an office are a tiny minority and should dictate the working conditions even less than the extroverts. Personally I tend toward introvert (it's not black and white) and have experience with working from home before the pandemic. For someone who's starting working from home it's easy to fall into a pattern of self-isolation which will have a negative psychological effect on them. I'm convinced that most people need at least a couple of days per week of social office time for their own sanity.
  • izacus 6y ago
    Is long commute something that's normal for "most people"? Most people around here have commutes shorter than 30 minutes one way.
    • disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      This is the thing, right. The problem isn't remote or office per se, it's the commute to and from the office that's the issue. I can definitely focus more at home, but I really miss my 30 minute bike commute.
      • eertami 6y ago
        >I really miss my 30 minute bike commute. I've seen this argument before, and I don't understand how working from home changes this honestly. Why not just start your day with a bike ride for leisure? Unbound by the location of your office you can now cycle to any arbitrary location. If you struggle to do it without a reason, perhaps cycle to a bakery or store and pickup some fresh food for the day.
        • doix 6y ago
          > Why not just start your day with a bike ride for leisure? Unbound by the location of your office you can now cycle to any arbitrary location. If you struggle to do it without a reason, perhaps cycle to a bakery or store and pickup some fresh food for the day. For me, it's a motivation issue. I had to go to work and had to cycle/walk there. Now, going out in the morning is optional. If I stayed up too late or if the weather is bad (it's almost always bad in Scotland) I'll make an excuse and not go out. After doing it a few times, I broke my morning habit and it's extremely difficult to force myself to go out. I know it doesn't really make sense but that just adds to frustration. I hate that I cannot force myself to do daily exercise and it makes me feel like shit, creating a sort of feedback loop. I don't go out and do exercise because I feel like shit and I feel more shit because I don't exercise.
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  > When will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts? While extroverts are overrepresented in management, I think a bigger issue is that people who overvalue physical proximity as a tool for establishing/maintaining control (both of formal subordinates and otherwise) are overrepresented in management. You don’t have to be an extrovert to be cargo culting Management By Walking Around (if you aren’t cargo-culting, you can probably adapt it to a remote environment) or to have developed and lean heavily on communication techniques (non-verbal, especially) that work better for dominating meetings in=person. Honestly, I think introverts who have spent time crafting a particular set of tools for surviving as managers are at least as dangerous here here as extroverts.
• Dissley 6y ago
  “Well Google use primary colours in their logo, Brian” LOL, thanks for the laugh! :-)
• gfxgirl 6y ago
  For me, either I can go to the office 90% of the time or I can burn out from being alone at home and only talking to people via chat/video. My personal live is qualitatively better when I go to work most of the time. There are tradeoffs but on the whole the benefits of WFH (less interruptions) don't make up for the isolation. In the same way working 60-80hrs a week will start being more productive at the start but eventually burn most people out, at least for me and people like me, not hanging out with others will do the same thing. It's a balance for me. Too little direct interaction, short breaks, sharing lunches, having non-work related conversations, will end up decreasing my over all productivity. You're welcome to WFH but I personally hope you're in the minority because if no one but me goes to the office then it's just as bad as WFH for me.
  • hyko 6y ago
    I’m not suggesting WFH is right for everyone; I think you should have the right to work the way you need to, as you know yourself and your work best. I personally feel you have nothing to fear in terms of numbers, because there’s an enormous bias towards IRL work for both strong and weak reasons. I think one of the major challenges for an organisation is how to get peak performance from a diverse team (in terms of life circumstances and personality) and still maintain one culture and a ‘team mind’ where everyone is safe and content with their work. I’m not a WFH evangelist really: remote is just another modality, with its own costs and benefits. It just doesn’t seem to get a fair hearing in a lot of places.
  • alibarber 6y ago
    I'm in exactly the same position. My worry is, even if there's this move to both WFH and office, at some point 'office' is going to become an expense and be cut and then there's no choice. I am too cynical to believe that companies want to push WFH for good and nice warm fuzzy reasons. Also I feel for the people who's work was supporting workers in, y'know, work. I no longer live there, but even a crappy day in London for me was brightened by the countless interactions with people, the guy in the magazine shop, a new hipster pop up cafe, the street vendors selling exciting new food. Will they work from home?
• brnt 6y ago
  I had hoped Covid would normalize at least partial WFH. I'm somewhere in the middle on this scale, but the reason to WFH is that it gives me some flexibility around chores and appointments outside of work, and saves me a commute. I hope we'll get to keep that freedom at least. 2/3 days at the office and 2/3 days at home would be great for me.
• beforeolives 6y ago
  This is way more nuanced than introverts-extroverts. I'm not a massively social person and I prefer working in an office over working from home by a very large margin.
  • okprod 6y ago
    My wife is exactly the same, while I'm fine with either (prefer meetings in-office but have been working 100% from home over a year now; though I personally haven't "made friends" from my work/office since I hit management, so an office setting doesn't provide that incentive to me).
• daemin 6y ago
  The problem is the working environment in general, doesn't matter if it's at home or in an office, if the surrounding environment is full of distractions then productivity will be as bad everywhere. For a knowledge worker where they need to concentrate there needs to be a quiet distraction free environment without interruptions. If this is at home in a separate low-traffic room or in an office with few people and a door that can be closed , both will work well. However I don't think many people's environments are like that in either place. So to me there's no difference between working at home or the office, if you're going to have people interrupting you, high levels of background noise, and other visual/scheduling distractions.
• ozgung 6y ago
  I agree but I think this is more than an introverts vs extroverts issue. Managers need an office to manage. They also want a large private office for themselves. They don’t want to be a “manager” in a Zoom window. They want all the people they manage around them. This is the career they’re trained to do and worked hard for. Not the Zoom thing.
• ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  I'm an introvert as well but even I recognize the effectiveness of face-to-face interactions and the necessity of creating team cohesion and esprit-de-corps. That is simply not happening in total WFH despite the best efforts of both managers and individuals. There was a recent posting on HN (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/30/microsoft-message-to-managers-after-decline-in-team-connections.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/30/microsoft-message-to-manager...) where Microsoft reports significant drops in team connectedness as the pandemic continued. As for "The pandemic-driven remote working is hell for some people, and unfortunately they call the shots.", one might want to ponder _why_ the extroverts got into a position where they're calling the shots. Mastering the art of human interaction is important, even for introverts.
• jjkaczor 6y ago
  In my remote office (which used to be at home, but is now a private, non-shared rented space), I have an ergonomic split keyboard that costs probably 6x a 'standard' one , I have 78" of screen real estate, split across 3 monitors, I have an Aeron chair (used, but worth every penny), my internet connection is completely dedicated to me and is business-class cable with LTE failover. Typically, as a contract consultant, working onsite would have me provided a 13" cheap crap-top (my personal laptop has 32gb of RAM and 2tb of SSD in a RAID config), and then stick me in the worst "half-cubicle/half-storage/supply closet" that none of their employees would ever sit in. Even then, there would be a non-stop stream of people dropping by, and/or "shoulder-taps". And I am a weird introvert/extrovert - so I love in-person meetings, whiteboarding and training/speaking sessions. But I also love the quiet, uninterrupted time in a decent work environment to actually... "get stuff done".