andrewducker | (Reply)

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Interesting. More like the (better) small companies I've worked for then, with the "saving the world" motivation in the leadership. Except the social thing. . I don't do that. I had my one close drinking buddy at my 2nd job. That was it. (Probably not that) oddly, he later tested out as Asperger's after his son was diagnosed. Make of this what you will, but in my first job they took it upon themselves to try to teach me to say "good morning" and so on and "hello" when I met folk in corridors and not just "ignore" them or launch into deep work / current problem talk (I tried to work out if it HAD to be EVERY SINGLE TIME as that seemed unnecessary). In O
One other place, the Mormon Essex Boys (yes really) did successfully teach me to not berate myself / express frustrations out loud whilst working. Other workplaces have found me socially odd in undefined ways, mainly utter disdain for small talk. (But again, see the Gen X thing... I'm not there to make friends!). I'm a Software Analyst/Dev and female and good "on stage" (and on stage), that probably covers up a lot. :-). Plus almost none of my colleagues have ever been "normal". Normal Nick (a great guy) was a great developer and a great workmate and understood my joke in calling him that after so many years in the biz!

I can usually work out the social rules, it's just I can only rarely be ARSED to try to follow them. And if I'm thinking hard, I've got no spare processor capacity to run the "deal with people" service as it were. Zero filter, and if you do manage to break my concentration it's not good. Better just silently put a cup of tea on my desk and sneak away if I don't react. Of course I think THAT'S normal!!

Conversely, if you've got a work or practical puzzle or problem to solve, I'll drop everything to help, if I can. But the painful part is that I tend to expect that of you...

Headphones on is a universal geek "do not disturb" sign, right?

Lol. We all have our social rules, eh? Most people seem to really really NOT like it if you state them explicity, or ask for clarification!!

Like I said, I've been lucky to be in IT.

I've also assiduously avoided "promotion" (but see the Gen X link!)

My main large places of work have been the purest of evil - investment banks and hedge funds, one insurer - but that was a independent dept made up of a company run by a couple that got taken over, and was small company awesome.

The rest have been 1-4 person startups, mix of amoral-evil in terms of management.