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Comment by cmsonger | Hacker News Reader

For the first time in a VERY long career, I joined Google a few years ago, which is an open office company.

The thing I noticed in the first week: Everyone avoided eye contact all the time. The thing I noted after six months: I'd learned to avoid eye contact at all times.

So I'm kind of not surprised. It was counter intuitive to me that open office was less social; but personal experience suggests that open office is less social.

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I've been working remote and i don't remember this. Is it because you don't want people to talk to you? Kind of like avoiding eye contact with someone who is going to ask you for money?

If you pay attention to people at all, it has a potential to distract you from whatever work you're trying to focus on, every time. If you're in a space where you have people moving about and coming and going in and out of your field of view, you need to learn to pay no attention so that you don't get distracted all the time. The best way is to focus on the screen in front of you and avoid making accidental eye contact with people.

I seek (or sought) eye contact. When I first joined it was crazy how much walking through the halls and around the desks people avoided eye contact.

Then I figured out it was because you saw them too much. There are so many times a day you can look at and say hello to co-workers without it just being weird.

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