"""And you know anything about my socialization how?""" Well, duh, from YOU, when you stated: "online is where I do 99% of my socialization outside of the offi

"""And you know anything about my socialization how?""" Well, duh, from YOU, when you stated: "online is where I do 99% of my socialization outside of the office." """Where did this backwards (and utterly ludicrous) idea that one can only socialize in person or via voice come from?""" I don't know, never heard of that idea. Mine was: if you're doing "99% of your socializing online" there you're not doing much at all --especially if people you could contact think phone calls from you are "distracting and rude". """I'd expect a commenter to a site named "Hacker News" to have a more hacker-esque mind set.""" No, I don't go for sheep mentality. Try ESR's blog for a truly hacker-esque mind set. """Having the phone ring is much, much more distracting to someone who is occupied on a mostly mental task such as coding than an instant message or even a SMS.""" I'm a programmer myself and have lots of programming friends, from work, for old workplaces, from uni, you name it. No one has a problem answering their phone --as long as you don't call them every other hour. There are tons more distractions in a day than a friend calling you (meetings, for one) --and you wouldn't call them at work time, anyway. OTOH, if all their/your time is work time, i.e if 9pm you're at work coding, then, they/you're not really socializing anyway, you're just commenting on other people walls --other people you will almost never see in person or interact with. """I'm happy you have all the time in the world to organize as you see fit. I am not so lucky.""" I sure don't, but if a meeting in real life took herculean effort, I'd consider my working schedule a failure, and would try to find ways to amend it.