Hacker News Reader

Comment by ThePadawan | Hacker News Reader

> That said: Personally, I do want my coworkers and I to be something akin to a family. If I’m going to spend around a third of my life working, I want to do it with a group of people I like and care about.

I find that admirable, but having gone through a number of different workplaces in the last 6 years, also very naive.

Out of the hundreds of colleagues I had, I would voluntarily choose to talk to maybe 3 of them.

I don't think I find 97% of people I encounter in general disagreeable, in my experience Software Engineering just has loads and loads of "that guy"s. You know, the ones you try to avoid at parties. Except that's most of them, so you don't show up to the parties in the first place.

View on HN

If I had gone through a number of workplaces in six years, interacted with hundreds of people and potentially liked no more than three, I would probably sit down and do some introspection.

I didn't say I didn't like them. I could work together with a vast majority of them just fine. Only handful of them were actively people I would not look forward to being in a meeting with, for example.

But that doesn't mean I would invite most of them over for a beer, talk about politics, and still expect to have a good time.

>>that doesn't mean I would invite most of them over for a beer, talk about politics, and still expect to have a good time.

The question is why? Because they would disagree with you? They would challenge your beliefs?

I am finding that more and more. People want agreement and echo chambers, not debates and arguments.

I love arguing politics, hell sometimes I will take a contrarian position just to have the contrarian position not because I believe / support it.

Debate and augmentation is how with strength our principles, our worldview, and solidify our beliefs as we age. As a society (in the US at least) we seem to be losing the ability to sit down with people that have different politics, have a heated debate/conversation, but then still walk away as friends or colleagues. that is very bad for society over all

> The question is why? Because they would disagree with you? They would challenge your beliefs?

No and no.

Because I couldn't get a word in edgewise. And they can shout louder than me, and for longer. I have been in that meeting at work before, and I have left with a headache, and they with a sense that "they've won".

Imagine trying to have a beer with Piers Morgan, or a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Sure, it might be productive. But it wouldn't be fun, and I feel that was the premise - I don't think the idea of a "family-like atmosphere at work" was to imply "everybody hates each others guts, but still has to get along somehow".

>> would probably sit down and do some introspection.

What now? Not in the modern era. No one take personal responsibility for anything, everyone else must conform to their worldview, their opinions, their lifestyle... Period no discussion.

Nothing is wrong with them, everyone else is the problem

> I find that admirable ... also very naive.

That's quite harsh. Empathy and social bonding is normal and healthy.

Yes, there are a lot of hypercompetitive working environments that train workers to see each other as contenders and encourage cynicism. It also depends on country you are it.

But please don't assume it's the norm across all organizations (companies, no-profits, academia...).

Of course not!

I also wasn't trying to hint at competitive workplaces at all. In my experience, the far more prevalent workspace atmosphere is "just let me do my job, I just need to show up for 40h a week to pay the rent and feed my wife and kids".

And that's fine! But that also doesn't lead to a familial work environment.

> I don't think I find 97% of people I encounter in general disagreeable, in my experience Software Engineering just has loads and loads of "that guy"’s. You know, the ones you try to avoid at parties. Except that's most of them, so you don't show up to the parties in the first place.

I should probably mention here that I'm not a professional software developer.

I could have become one. I've always liked coding and working with computers—it's why I'm hanging out on Hacker News—and a lot of people in my life encouraged me to pursue that as a career. But I resisted, and if I'm completely honest with myself, it's because I didn't see programmers as the type of people I wanted to work with.

Talking about this—even thinking about it—feels kind of ugly, because I know I'm stereotyping! And, there are plenty of programmers who I consider wonderful people, some of whom I'm even lucky enough to count as friends! But on average, across the broader population of people who pursue software engineering, I do think there's a lot of truth to the stereotype.

(I currently work at a small graphic design agency, as a sort of bridge between the design and development teams. I'm eventually planning to get a masters in elementary education.)

It’s not naive. I’ve found a place where I genuinely like and care for my coworkers. From personal experience, it is definitely worth the effort of looking for such a job.

Thank you so much.

I have been on the job hunt since May 2020 and have only come up against obstacles so far.

It has really cheered me up to hear those words!

I too found such a company. They are a bit rarer. Lots of companies just don’t know how to manage people. You think with the thousands of management trainings that it would be so, but alas.

A good company makes you happy, isn’t a perpetual stress fest and makes good money as well.

It's probably related to the fact that parent "has gone through a number of different workplaces in the last 6 years". I have been working at the same place for the last 9 years, it's much easier to build a "family" that way. Also the company was tiny when I joined, which helped.

Of course it does come with some downsides, like the fact that it's tougher when someone leaves. That's life I guess :)

(Maybe I should have clarified that I was employed at a contractor for a while - so I jumped to a new "workplace" for every ~3-month project. I know that technically, that might not be considered a change of workplace, but for me, it meant a complete change in the colleagues I worked with on a daily basis.)

I agree with you, it definitely counts as a change for me too. I don't think contracting is ideal to find a "family" like atmosphere because such places are probably reluctant to use contractors (there are other benefits of contracting of course).

I actually like the workplace for the 97% of people with who I won't naturally talk to.

They may not share all your hobbies and opinions but they are usually smart people. Like you, they landed the job and they are still there after all. They all have their own, rich world that you may not realize exist because they are not invited at your parties (and you aren't invited at theirs). If you keep an open mind 97% of people are interesting not 3%.

The good thing about workplace "families" is that there is still some distance. You can have a look into their world but you don't have to be part of it if you don't want to. And you don't sleep under the same roof, don't share the chores, etc...

I do try and keep an open mind :). And 3% was perhaps the low end of the scale I could have estimated.

On the other hand, I do think you overestimate the skill of employees in general. Just ask around how many of your colleagues think they could pass the job interview for their current position right now - that percentage is generally pretty low (especially at places like Google, where interview training is basically a full-time job).

Quite often, people that "are still there" are simply still there because they have made themselves indispensable, e.g. they write working software, but no other person can understand their code. Firing someone like that is a business risk - not firing someone like that isn't (immediately).

In the last 10 years i switched jobs 2 times and i still have contact to most of my ex-coworkers. I wouldn’t take a job if i dislike most of my coworkers.

At some point it’s not them, it’s you.

Thank you for your experience!

And I totally agree. I have had to quit job interviews simply because both sides agreed that while we could work together, we probably would both just have a bad time.

But then I've also worked jobs where in 2020, employees still referred to things they thought were bad as "gay", so that's that.

How can you possibly know if you're going to like your coworkers without taking the job first and interacting with them?

Good relationships take time to build.

I kinda want to congratulate you on never encountering the sort of person you immediate and strongly dislike within 10 minutes of meeting them for the first time.

I know everyone has an off day some time, but I literally had job interview video calls before where my prospective boss asked me questions, then interrupted my answers 10 words in, for 20 minutes straight.

I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

There are definitely such people that I've disliked within 10 minutes of meeting them, but they were extremely rare and they were total strangers who were usually freaking out in public over something trivial (not necessarily related to me)

I've never encountered such people in my professional life (thankfully).

> video calls before where my prospective boss asked me questions, then interrupted my answers 10 words in, for 20 minutes straight.

Yes, that might do it. I wonder how others tolerate them.

Why should there be much of a difference? We do not choose our family (except, perhaps, one person), nor do we usually choose our coworkers. (Hell, we actually have more freedom there, if you take the choice of a workplace into account.)

Maybe you’re both right? They’ve found a team made entirely of people from that small population of potential co-workers with whom they’d form genuine friendships, and are reluctant to trade down to one composed of more so-called “that guy”s.

> Out of the hundreds of colleagues I had, I would voluntarily choose to talk to maybe 3 of them. [...] in my experience Software Engineering just has loads and loads of "that guy"s. You know, the ones you try to avoid at parties.

I absolutely understand what you mean! And I certainly think 'family' is an absurd way of thinking of work relationships.

But if you were applying for a promotion, to become the leader of a small team of programmers, can you see how your reluctance to talk to your direct reports would make you unsuitable for the role?

I personally find that there is a huge difference between talking to a coworker about their hobbies, or their last pull request.

Talking about the job at hand is never an issue. But it's also best to leave it at that to keep the work environment constructive, and not e.g. split a team among party lines.

(In my experience, we are now also talking about a purely hypothetical scenario. At the workplace I spent most of my career, team leads were generally hired externally, or promoted based on nepotism and "company loyalty" [read: years spent working at the company] rather than skill)

> Out of the hundreds of colleagues I had, I would voluntarily choose to talk to maybe 3 of them.

That... also describes my extended family.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com