I was forced to pair at a company that I temporarily worked for. I was open to the concept of pairing but through actual experience pairing with other engineers

I was forced to pair at a company that I temporarily worked for. I was open to the concept of pairing but through actual experience pairing with other engineers, I found out that it was not for me. I can see the benefits of sharing the context of what's being written and having two sets of eyes on the code but in my experience, the process ended up slowing down myself and other engineers as well as making us unhappy (we preferred to code independently most of the time - being forced to directly work together isn't an enjoyable thing) and didn't dramatically increase the quality of code enough to warrant the hassle. That may be due to the quality of engineers and other factors in the workplace, though. I can absolutely see the benefits of pairing when engineers themselves choose to pair with each other though (instead of being forced to all the time). An engineer asking another engineer for a bit of help with some code is not an uncommon thing and well, it's pretty much part of working in a team and not some bizarre new concept so I don't think it really needs to be highlighted as part of a company culture. Since I left the company (due to unhappiness), I understand that the managers have become a bit more relaxed towards pairing and now allow engineers to "solo" more (at least the more experienced engineers).