I just read this article at physorg.com about how in the United States co-workers are less likely to socialize beyond work hours, and that it is trending down.
It got me thinking about a problem I've noticed with myself and working life. I don't tend to make close friends at work, although plenty of casual ones. This is a shame, I've met some really great people over the years, and I've been making a half-hearted attempt to reconnect with some former co-workers recently (especially with the help of LinkedIn and Facebook). Hell, I'm trying to reconnect to old friends I've lost contact with over the years, for that matter.
I'm pretty introverted in general, I love socializing but it takes a lot of energy for me to do so. I'm not sure if that has to do with it, if I give off surl-ons, or what. Some of the recent positions I've had for work (manager and senior dev) tend to create some distance from other people in the group, as well.
My current day job of consulting to Microsoft is pretty bad for it, as well. I share an office with four others (so far) and while we're all friendly there's no connection, I'm pretty much hacking code eight hours a day so there's no much interaction with others either. This will very likely change over the next couple months as I wrap up my current work and move to more complex design and coding that requires coordinating with many others in the larger business group.
To those of you I've worked with before: do I come across as unapproachable or uninterested/uninteresting? Or is it just a general cultural thing about the US or the pacific northwest? Maybe I'm just too old for all you young people with your music.
As evidence the other way, I had beers the other night with two former colleagues from TalentSpring and had a blast. Most of the talk was work and industry related, of course, but that's to be expected. We're planning on making a regular thing of it, and I'm looking forward to that greatly.
I play in a regular Thursday night poker game (not so regular the last few weeks), and although many of the players are current or former Microsofties I didn't actually know any of them professionally before I joined the game.
Anyone want to grab some coffee or drinks sometime?
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