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0 pointssurgical_fire3y ago0 comments

> many, many people feel more comfortable approaching someone in person vs. online.

Also many, many people feel more comfortable approaching someone online vs. in person.

Seeing your arguments here, I'll guess that you're just more social than many people. When I was a junior, a long time ago, I learned most things by trying and studying on my own. I always learned very little from senior engineers directly. I would do a lot better by having them tell me what to look at and exploring stuff alone.

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2 comments · 1 top-level

rcme3y ago· 1 in thread

> Seeing your arguments here, I'll guess that you're just more social than many people.

I'm not, at all. In fact, I'm very introverted. I think you're missing a number of nuances to this argument.

It's very true that some people are more comfortable approaching people online vs. in person, but that's actually an argument for in-person work. When you're in-person, you can get insight into your team and learn new things just by being around conversations. You don't need to actively participate in any way. Even if you're more comfortable approaching people online, it's still more overhead to approach people online than it is to sit at your desk literally doing nothing.

Second, saying "many, many people feel more comfortable approaching someone online vs. in person" isn't a good argument for two reasons:

1. What you're comfortable with isn't likely to be what's best overall. It's very often that you need to grow your comfort zone to grow as a person. For instance, it can feel very uncomfortable the first time you play a sport or do a hobby in front of others. It definitely feels more comfortable to stay at home. But you'll never get better that way.

2. Apparently, extroverts outnumber introverts by a large margin, so if you had to pick one method of work and apply it to the general population, then it would make sense to pick a method that favors extroverts. I'm not saying in-person working favors extroverts. I think the opposite, actually, because socializing online is harder so only those with a high social drive will actually do it. But I'm just pointing out a logical issue with that statement.

surgical_fireOP3y ago

> When you're in-person, you can get insight into your team and learn new things just by being around conversations.

Those are distractions. Those conversations, for the most part, bring no insight and destroy my productivity. As I said, that's not how I learn. You are applying your personal perspective unto others, but what you are describing is alien to me. I learn by experimenting and exploring on my own.

It's the reason why during most of my professional life I had to drown outside noise with headphones.

> It's very often that you need to grow your comfort zone to grow as a person. For instance, it can feel very uncomfortable the first time you play a sport or do a hobby in front of others. It definitely feels more comfortable to stay at home. But you'll never get better that way.

And I got out of my comfort zone many times. Taking on projects that didn't perfectly suited my skills and having to learn new things on the run. Switching roles and finding myself having to take on responsibilities without any proper training or hand over, etc and so forth.

Having my energy and focus drained by navigating meaningless social interaction has nothing to do with "getting out of my comfort zone", but everything to do with being able to maintain the focus I need to be actually productive.

> Apparently, extroverts outnumber introverts by a large margin

I have no idea, and honestly I'm not so sure. I certainly don't think they are the majority in Software Development.

> because socializing online is harder so only those with a high social drive will actually do it. But I'm just pointing out a logical issue with that statement.

I don't need work to socialize, when I have the need for socialization. Just make friends outside of work. Find a hobby. There's plenty of people out there.

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