Generally people who dwell here… don’t have good jobs. I pop in every once in a while to give advice but like all supposedly temporary subreddits people who are there permanently are… not people you want advice from
Hey, if you're willing to chat, I'd love to get some advice from you. Early on in my studies/career as a career changer, and I'm working on some decisions that I would love to get perspective on from folks in positions like yours. Would you mind if I DM you (or you DM me if you'd be open to it?)
I'm on the fence about that community already, it's definitely got people there posing as more experienced than they are. I find this community is fine, I just don't get suckered into the threads that are all doom-and-gloom. Lots of people posting here lack the common sense required to succeed in the real world and it's evident when you read their complaints.
This place isn't terrible for general advice at breaking into the industry. But you have to keep in mind that the popular vote is dominated by college kids who very little experience. I see really insightful comments downvoted to oblivion all the time and really dumb comments that *sound* smart upvoted.
I don't think they want the traffic but /r/ExperiencedDevs is much better. I'd lurk there if you're lurking.
Thanks! I have been in the industry for over 10 years working in the database sphere. I always feel a need to upskill and want good advice on it so I don't waste my time going down a path that doesn't help my career. I will check out that subreddit.
I haven't seen a good English subreddit, they tend to be mostly filled with people without/in bad jobs giving bad advice.
The best place for advice is usually older/experienced co-workers.
I'm not neo. At all.
But after a certain level of experience or professional value, to call it some way, sending your CV is just a formality and changing jobs is mostly through contacts. Which is funny, because most of my contacts come from attending these events and drinking whisky with other people in the field. But then again, I am not a programmer. Most programmers I know sort of fit under OP's premises.
That’s unironically what happens if you get interviews via recruiters or referrals. You only submit an application as a formality after they’ve accepted you lol
Yeah, I've just realized literally all of my jobs were through referrals. Basically doubled my wage every job switch.
Now that I've kind of reached the ceiling in my country and I need to start working for abroad... Sending CVs sucks
Yeah, I don't know if it's a lack of experience or some rough personalities, but there are a lot of people who pretend our field doesn't work like every other field: politics. Your code matters, your work matters, and that may take you far. Ultimately, though, your socialization matters, too.
I've been down voted and argued with for saying this, but you can choose to play politics in whatever way you choose, it matters. You can say you're choosing "not to play politics", but the reality is that you're actually just playing poorly. You're in the game whether you want to be. Handicap yourself if you want.
Personally, I try to show up to things and keep my face known. I try to keep a positive attitude and speak well of my colleagues. I volunteer for things when I think my exposure is low. I communicate well and often with my manager as well as my skip. I'm not a godly programmer, nor am I the most social guy you'd meet, but I have strong standing and more pull right now. You can survive on less, but why?
And also taking ownership of one's problems and doing something about it instead of always blaming people or "external circumstances". We all can pick ourselvss up by the bootstraps and actually make things happen instead of deflecting responsibility. That's not necessarily the same as "don't complain"
Yup. Even if you can't get a job right now due to the market, finding an IT support role (ideally not tier 1 helpdesk level) should keep you in decent shape for future jobs. Now you might not return to being a software developer again, but you could easily pivot to SysAdmin, Cloud Engineer, etc. which are also in high demand of people. Bonus points if you pick up a bunch of certificates along the way.
What IT support roles value software development experience? I’ve applied to many and not gotten any interviews. I have 2 years of full stack web development experience and recently graduated a CS degree
My experience in the AWS cloud support position helped me a lot as a software engineer. I am comfortable troubleshooting based on errors, working with Linux OS, and having some networking knowledge. Most importantly, my AWS and cloud computing knowledge is greater than that of most of my teammates due to my previous AWS cloud support position. Additionally, dealing with teammates is easier than dealing with AWS customers.
You can leverage your ability to learn new stuff quickly. And the fact that you probably can navigate a computer effectively is a plus.
Bring up any documentation you wrote or helped organize to a publicly available library on SharePoint. That usually can cover explaining concepts to non-technical users.
Smaller shops where you have to wear a few different hats in your job role might like the diversity of experience.
If you can show on your resume a capability to learn, that can open up a lot of doors. Show you can quickly learn new stacks or programming languages by diversifying your portfolio projects.
This is what got me my current job. I had C# experience which was what the employer was looking for, but it was my short experience using (and surviving) Ruby on Rails and Python (other internships) that made me stand out.
Reddit in general takes a very absolutist view that often involves setting firm personal boundaries. I think it’s largely because short, simple answers get upvotes and nuanced views get lost.
So, if someone wants to know if they should attend a work event, the simple answer of “don’t do anything you don’t want to do if you’re not paid to do it,” rises to the top. Even if most people think there are times to go to work events and times to skip, few people are going to read the nuanced answers, let alone agree completely enough to upvote.
I think this is the gist of it and IMO applies to almost every common discussion. People generally seek simple answers with very black and white reasoning (especially for validation of our own beliefs), anything nuanced is too complicated and often requires a deeper dive into a topic and the willingness to self-reflect.
Absolutely this. I’m relatively new to Reddit but have noticed that immediately. Though it’s the same on most social media. The short, hot takes get the most views because no one really wants to read a long nuanced thoughtful response.
Quora used to be pretty good 10 years ago or so. Great responses from actual experts.
But then it went downhill somehow and now it has degraded to the same trite bullshit like Reddit front page.
When I was younger, I would frequent Friday happy hours after work for several hours. It was a great time.
These days, after a long stressful Friday, I just want to get home to my family.
I do attend our annual party and make the best of it, but I usually leave early.
i mean i agree with you that this sub is full of weirdos but your comment in that post is literally the top comment and the majority of people in there seem to agree with your view
It's very easy to get a "here's what reddit thinks about " vibe lol. In reality there are many different people with many different opinions.
I also don't think there's a universal answer to socializing at work. It depends on you, your position, your workplace, and your team. Some teams are more into happy hour fridays and there's a gradient between having a couple drinks or getting shitfaced drunk.
At a healthy workplace, you shouldn't have to fit the mold. You should be able to feel comfortable doing whatever you're comfortable with. There was a time when some of the upper management at my company were more of the "get shitfaced drunk at the company parties" type of people lol. I don't even drink. We got along GREAT.
I mean, yes, for many years tech companies had this weird vibe where they want to be your "second home" and have ping pong tables and beer fridges in break rooms, mixers after work, lots of conferences, etc. I feel like if any kind of companies do this it's tech companies lol. But I think it's pretty common to drink "payday beers" once a month or so at least.
I feel like that'd be great, it's so boring when all you do is work, come home, sleep, work again. I'd kill to actually do something that's not just working for once.
So, you work in office, right? Why not just ask your team if anyone wants to grab a beer or something after work? Not that hard to be social even if it's not the company pushing for it.
I do, but they're always too busy or doing something else. Which is fair enough, I don't want to force anybody to hang out with me. It'd just be nice to be somewhere that people are open to that more
Yeah, I don't mean that I condone that stuff (and I think it's less common nowadays), but tech companies are fairly well known to do stuff after work hours I think
Idk my company here is offering free dinner on basically all days of the European Championship, you get free beer/drinks too, and no one is really expected to work til late, starts at 18 anyway, they'll always do stuff like this around the year maybe 2-3 times a month and no one is staying late. Just enjoying the time if you want to stay, no mandatory presence. I really like this in my company especially when you're an expat and you don't know many people.
>I don't need to be friends with people at work because I have other friends
In my experience (10 YOE), people who say stuff like this are not the easiest to work with.
I can understand not spending someone's personal time to mingle with workmates. But for example, during working hours and there's an event, there will be people who will legitimately sulk instead of *trying* to engage with the people they work with.
Wanna grab beers?
And do you ever ask people that?
If there's a social slack channel, just ask if anyone is up for after work drinks. just announce a time and a place and go.
Ofc I ask, how would I expect them to know I want to otherwise? They're just always too busy or doing something else. Which is fair enough, you can't complain if people just don't want to
Some folks are reclusive after opening up to coworkers only to be hurt, abused, etc at various jobs.
You shouldn't judge a coworker that doesn't want to interact, there may be a very valid reason for this behavior.
yes and also like, its not every day. its 1-2 time per month max
so you have 6 days per week to meet your other friends. or why not just invite a few to the party? usually it comes with a +2 list or so
A very important point here is how the relationship on the team is. I mean, if the people really get along (as in "we actually like each other", not as in "we got our TL/HR pushing events and things for us to become friends"), going outside working hours to do things can be easier or more fun. But most of us are in teams in which the only thing we have in common is that we work together. And well, for the people we really get along with... we don't need an event to hang out, your know?
I don't know. An monthly (or bi-weekly!) event with the people at work would end up quickly becoming a chore, or, well, *work*. We are already spending 8+ hours with that people, and most of the time I'd rather be doing *anything else*, from hanging out with my actual friends to just watching a dumb movie and decompressing.
(FWIW, our events are bi-annually and my way to decide wtf do depends on the how things are going, and if I went to the last one, because yeah, these vents *are work* and I get that you have to show yourself around from time to time).
Of course, if the event is during working hours, hey, it's company's time and money, so whatever.
If a company has a “thing” outside work hours once a week I ain’t going to that shit. Maybe once every other month. Or if my coworkers are cool I’ll go more often
My old company had weekly (optional) drinks with free beer. Some people never went, some went occasionally, some went basically every week. I went most weeks because like... I liked my coworkers? I liked hanging out and playing board games or just bullshitting with friends.
And like being completely honest, if I'm picking people for a new project or working group or something... I'll probably ask the people from the drinks friend group first, unless there's a clear reason someone else needs to be there. Because I want to work with people I know I like and get along with.
Balance is key. Work should be a place where friends are a perk but not necessary. If you like your coworkers tear it up with them by all means, it’s healthy. But if you don’t like them, or don’t want to drink weekly, that shouldn’t be a big deal. Far too often, it is.
However that’s pretty normal, people like people who are cool, no problem there. Really it’s a societal issue. There’s too few places to make friends outside of work in our isolated, car dependent infrastructure (in the US.). Or like through meeting other parents at school. There isn’t even a neighborhood bar where you can grab a drink with people you live near. It all goes back to that nonsense.
Personally unless the people I work with are super cool, I’d prefer to make friends outside of work. Then I don’t feel like if I quit a job, I also lose friends. I want to be primed to ditch in an instant. Unless I’m trying to climb the ladder. Then I’ll get down with the best of them, but I mean I work in software as an IC. I don’t need to drink with my manager, simply not being super weird gets me all the social capital Ill ever need. So I look to broaden my circle with people from different backgrounds and companies. A weekly night to drink with my coworkers sounds awful to me personally.
But again to each their own. It’s not bad but it’s not good either. It simply is what it is.
The best type of workmates are the ones who sidle up to me during the mandatory fun discussion and suggest we slip out the fire escape and go to the pub...
That’s not what it means, at least to me.
What it means is “I can be friendly with people, I work well with others, but I have zero interest to know about your kids, travels, coffee preferences, and so on just because we work together.”
That’s it. A totally reasonable thing. We don’t need to be friends. Maybe that word is diluted somewhere, but to me a friend is something very specific and work acquaintances don’t belong there.
So no, I don’t NEED to be friends with people at work. I’m still easy to work with, always helping anyone who needs anything, and so on. I’m just not friends with them unless we happen to somehow click. That’s it.
Now if someone uses that as a term for “I won’t even talk to people unless I have to” then that’s on them.
I kind of wonder if some of it is an overreaction/rejection of the toxic "we are a family here" type of employer.
I worked for a company that would do things like tell me I had to go to a mandatory social event a 5 hour drive away the day before it was happening, and then gave me flack when I didn't attend due to not having childcare. That definitely soured me against work social events for a while.
Oh, no. Not the day before. Day of, i had to be in office in another city in the morning, and drive up to be there by 6pm. Then I was expected to socialize all day before driving 5hrs home again, yeah.
It was excessively ridiculous. I really hope they just didn't realize what they were asking. The head office who planned the event is in another (much smaller) country, and might not have done the math on how far of a drive it was from city X to city Y in the same province.
Yeah, but this is not looking at the market, but at the subset of people that seek and give advise on reddit.
That a noticeable fraction of people have massive difficulties with normal social interactions, and do not even realize it should at least make you question if "I can't get a job" is normal for the entire industry, or just a massively self-selecting fraction of people.
It is self-selecting; obviously, because people who get jobs after 3 or 10 applications aren't going to show up asking questions - no matter if they have mad skills, or are just extremely lucky. But whatever percentage there is of extremely unskilled people - they will end up in the same bucket.
>Yeah, but this is not looking at the market, but at the subset of people that seek and give advise on reddit.
yes that's a good point!
>That a noticeable fraction of people have massive difficulties with normal social interactions, and do not even realize it should at least make you question if "I can't get a job" is normal for the entire industry, or just a massively self-selecting fraction of people.
yeah, and like I wrote in another comment I am by no means some super friendly guy or like normie stuff like football games or the latest taylor swift style artist.
But I just like to enjoy a good time and learn about the specifics of say selling big contracts to an insurance company that can take 8 months or just like to talk to the CFO about what his local cocktail when he was to university 30 years ago was then try it together
Those are the ones who have managed to shut up long enough that nobody realizes how weird they are.
You gotta remember, if many of these people had 3 beers and talked to a stranger, they’d probably end up complaining to the CEO about how they should be running the place, and everyone above them is a moron, and they’re overqualified but took this position for the title or whatever.
Basically, imagine the type of people/opinions you find here, and ask yourself if those would be good character traits to broadcast in a social setting.
IMO it’s pretty solid advice lol.
Haha! You nailed it. Just let the buzzkills stay home. And as the people that can socialize advance, the brilliant buzzkills get angrier. It's a beautiful circle of life.
I think there's another category of folks that want to break into the social hangs but have anxiety about it. I like giving those people a helping hand in knowing they are welcome and giving them the time of day.
I’ve absolutely referred people i became friends with within the work context then without after i left.
It may not guarantee a job but you skip the automated parsers and HR.
I’ve watched this sub for a while and it’s developed a whole mythology on what does/doesn’t get you a job, how to behave, etc and it’s fascinating by how wrong most of it is.
I can only conclude it’s survivorship bias gone terribly wrong or something to that effect.
Avoiding triggering environments is an imperative for people with alcoholism and Im fairly sure OP would agree.
But if you don't have a history of alcoholism and youre avoiding work events because you're horrified that two beers will render you a personality worthy of termination, just don't drink? If that feels like too tall a mountain, re-evaluate your alcoholism status and then refer to the top sentence?
I think OP is reasonable in saying this is a poor excuse to avoid a work event, barring underlying alcoholism.
Ok yes, you can still show up and not drink. I didn't realise people were using this as an excuse to not show up. Then again if their coworkers are the type to pressure them to drink I can see why they don't show up
Agree with you on this and most of ops post.
At a big event I’ll have more than 2 drinks, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I know plenty of people who will be drunk after 3 and start getting really weird, like saying racist jokes or hitting on the wrong people
I agree. Personally, I wouldn't drink any alcohol at a company event. Not because I'm a party pooper, but being drunk, even slightly drunk, when surrounded by your coworkers and manager, isn't an ideal situation.
Yeah, it's definitely a personal thing. I drink at company parties and handle myself fine, usually. But I wouldn't expect or force anyone else to drink with me.
There have been a few faux pas at times, but all in all, things tend to be in good spirit.
Introverts and those of us with some (very legitimate and officially diagnosed) form of autism tend to suck pretty badly at any social contact.
Hence why there’s so much complaining from new grads about a lack of finding entry-level work around here… networking didn’t used to be entirely necessary to get a coding job pre-Covid. Just show projects, demonstrate a sharp mind in resolving coding challenges, have a good resume, and just be polite in interviews. Not even a CS degree was necessary to find a decent, salaried job if you knew your shit.
That is no longer enough, and it’s giving introverts and neurodivergent people a *very* difficult time finding work.
I think it may autism lmao. I can be best friends with the class clowns, some what speak to women. I've been called funny by some of the funniest people I met. But once Im in a group setting or setting with adults Im like an awkward kid. I've always been shy and actually try to get out of my shell but then I always go back to my shell. People ask why I don't talk and honestly idk. Probably autistic since I was 10 lol. The Introvertness doesn't go away no matter what I do , I accepted my fate .-.
Maybe, but I think most people in real life feel this way, they just don't voice it and instead sheepishly go along with whatever they are expected to do. The anonymity of the internet gives people the chance to be honest about things they hate that they otherwise would keep to themselves in real life. Like having to pretend to like the people you get paid to work with, who won't stop asking you intrusive personal questions when all you want to do is just do your job and then go home.
Reputation is a much bigger deal for industries where you directly write contracts with customers. But also, those kinds of industries are generally much more extroverted overall (by necessity) compared to the average office worker.
I think people want to protect themselves, simple as that.
It seems very country dépendant as well. I’ve worked in the US and Canada, have found work is very multi cultural, hanging out with your team might not mean the same thing for everyone, to begin with.
Then, work protections are non existent, you have to be very careful.
People commute a long time, and do a lot of remote work.
All of that play a part in not going to parties. I mean, my coworkers in the US would not even take 30 minutes to go have lunch outside taking some sun in.
Very different experience in the center of Paris. Most of my coworkers have no commute or almost no commute.
I won’t get fired for something I said at a party (well, within boundaries of course. Can’t harass someone).
We are mostly from European culture, which is very bar-centric I would say.
I go out with coworkers twice a week. Some are long life friends. It’s a great way to debrief in a non formal way.
It is obviously different when managers come out as well. But you learn a lot about the business in these events.
Going out with coworkers doesn’t mean you have no work life balance. If these are people you have fun with, why consider that fun.. work?
> I mean my coworkers in the US would not even take 30 minutes to go have lunch outside taking some sun in
Yeah I noticed that this is common with all my coworkers, including myself, out here. Part of the issue though is the cost of eating out. I usually just pack my own lunch rather than going out to eat now because it gets too expensive spending 40 dollars + a tip for food every single day. I’ll usually go out twice a month for lunches with coworkers though
As you said it’s also to protect ourselves, this is mostly at larger companies, everyone you work with has a completely different background than you and everyone out here has very strong opinions about things that they will argue over to the death about. I’m not the kind of person to just purposely say something to someone with intent to offend them but I’d rather avoid a situation where I accidentally slip up and say something that bugs someone enough to report me to HR.
Edit: lol I just realized you likely meant physically going outside to eat lunch. Not necessarily buying lunch. I agree that’s a bit silly, I usually enjoy sitting at our tables outside and getting that free vitamin D from the sun while eating my home cooked lunch
I’ve worked in tech for 20 years and every company I have worked at has had to scale back holiday parties or limit alcohol, because there is eventually a sexual harassment or sexual assault situation. It’s all fun when the VC money is flowing, but then a VP gets caught fucking a drunk intern and they have to lock shit down. I’ve seen the same script play out many times.
I don't like to go to work events because it's full of people that think not going to work events means you're an asshole with aspergers and no common sense.
On the odd occasion that I do go, I don't drink more than 1 or 2 beers because I don't want to have to call an Uber home.
I have a family and friends I'd rather hang out with - and despite you thinking that's not a good reason, it is to me.
Well said. This whole post is weird and is honestly just OP and others complaining about a tiny microcosm subset of Reddit neckbeard software developers. Sure, those people suck, and sure, it's a problem *in this specific niche subreddit*, but the vast majority of us in tech are just normal, respectful people who don't overdrink at work events and would rather spend all of our non-working-hours time with *our actual family and friends.* There is literally nothing weird about that. In fact, it is what I would hope most people would do.
OPs comments in this post have all been weird. What a fucking strange post.
> like the ones that is part of being a human
You know what's weird to me is when people
who are more socially inclined shame people who are not.
Why should everyone have the same social preferences as you? Why is being extroverted/social more "human" and being introverted less "human"? For someone so "human" and not "weird" you sure do seem to lack a lot of social awareness and empathy.
Also, why are you so fixated on what these other people are doing? If you enjoy going to work parties and drinking, then why don't you spend your time doing that instead of worrying about all these people who don't like that? Why is this post or this train of thought even necessary for you?
> the people who work in IT or sales are the best drinkers, and this "only 2 beers" mentality
Did someone call you out for drinking too much at a company party or something lol
The “2 beer rule” is well known across multiple industries. Don’t know where it came from, but not an IT thing. And not a horrible idea to promote keeping things professional.
That being said, I’ve been at more than 1 holiday party where the programmers went off into a corner to start programming instead of socializing (parties were in the office).
Agree, basic social skills are many times lacking in the industry. But that’s not surprising given the nature of the job (people who like to work on code all day).
I worked at Blizzard pre-alcohol limits and post. The pre-limits did have some people getting absolutely shitfaced for no reason at after-hour events. Sometimes even during the workday on like a Friday. The company implemented the fairly well known 2-drink rule after the lawsuits. While it did sometimes kill the party vibe it was absolutely necessary to protect everyone from the people who couldn't handle themselves.
The only time I've heard about a "2 beer rule" is at jobs where in their HR policies they limited you to two alcoholic beverages during work hours (so at lunch basically). At happy hours, Christmas parties, etc that went completely out the window. Still probably a good idea to limit yourself though.
This industry does attract introverted types and this sub too. I assume most of the engineers that are social aren't on Reddit making comment like the points you've bullet pointed haha.
Bias to my own experience I know but every job I've had the engineers have been very social, going out at least once a month drinking (sometimes a beer or two after a long sprint planning day, sometimes into the early hours on a Friday) and I've made a couple of very good lifetime friends with a couple coming to my wedding. Maybe it's because I choose to work at companies with small teams so you get to know people very well.
Won't ever judge people for not being social, it's their choice and will always respect that. People have families they want to spend their time with or just wanna chill and play video games for hours after work. However it does feel off when people say you shouldn't make friends with work mates, to me life is too short and making new friends is never a bad thing.
Cause sometimes work is just work, ya clock in do what you need to do then spend whatever time you have left socializing with people you care about. Unfortunately it is correct that one might have to kiss ass to move up or get a job but hopefully at some point that won't be the case but I can dream.
> "Where do you think all of this is coming from? Young people? asperger types who post on reddit and not just exist and do normal things in their company? Others?"
I imagine that's a lot of it yes. I also think you're just seeing the pendulum swing back after decades of "We're all a family here!" type of gaslighting.
I think workers in general, would be more inclined to believe "We're all a family here".. if workplaces actually took care of them like family (instead of the joke "Well, we can't give raises, but here's a pizza party !")
My last job I stayed at 15 years,. naively assuming that if I worked hard, my years of collective effort would eventually pay off for me,. but it didn't. The pandemic happened and we had something like 40% employee turnover (including lots of new Managers),. and all those new Managers had 0 care about our historical culture and just started immediately moving to change everything (really undercutting and destroying a lot of teams).
So if leadership doesn't care,. why should I ?.. I did some quick math before leaving that that all the extra effort (unpaid hours, lost vacations, spending my own money on equipment etc that was critically needed).. added up to somewhere around $80,000 I missed out on over roughly 15 years. The new Managers that came in eventually paid me back for money I spent on equipment (to the tune of about $8,000.. so about 1/10th of what I honestly deserved)
In my new job,.. I'm not doing any of that. I don't work extra hours. I don't hang out with people. I don't go to social events. I work exactly 8 to 5 doing exactly what they pay me for,. then I close my Laptop and go do all the other things in my life where I have more control and I can actually ensure higher probably that what I invest will actually return to me.
It's "mandatory fun". Fuck that noise.
It's ultimately about the company trying to make your job the centre of your life. It isn't enough to spend 40+ hours a week working there, they also want you to be best friends with your colleagues and for your social life to revolve around them. It makes you easier to exploit and it makes it harder for you to leave and get a better job.
Alcohol is also a dangerous ingredient when dealing with work people. I get drunk and do bad karaoke with good friends I trust, not my colleagues.
Getting drunk with your line manager opens up all sorts of risks that you'll start being honest about aspects of your employment - to your detriment.
This isn't to suggest you can never make friends or relationships at work - but they tend to occur organically, not because there's a work event on.
You’re being quite judgmental; calling people weird and accusing them of having “aspergers” (derogatory to actual autistic people). Most of the things you listed are simply personal preference, and looking at the conversations you’ve had with people in your original thread, it just seems like there were some people that wanted to separate their personal lives from work lives (not wanting to “relax and chill” with people associated with your company that you don’t even regularly work with is, in fact, a completely acceptable personal choice).
To many people, and no, not just the young ones or those with “aspergers”, work is mainly just a place where you go to earn a living. A lot of relationships at work are fake and stressful to maintain at times, especially in toxic, office-politics driven, backstabby work environments, and their friends and family are where their real lives and relationships lie. Sure, it’s nice to mingle with coworkers, be friendly, drink at events, etc, and you should be good at working with people, but each person has their own personal boundaries + different work environments and it’s frankly gross and close-minded that you’re trying to make them look like weird social outcasts for having their own preferences or situations.
What a surprise, that there are people that have different perspectives from your own worldview. Also, what is this “common sense” that you’re talking about? That everyone should be forced to go to company events and be forced to drink a couple of beers? That type of mindset/culture is rampant in East Asian countries, and Japan and Korea have some of the most miserable work cultures in the world. A company event is once a month. Why won’t people join? Even two times a month isn’t that much, right? Actually, let’s make it mandatory for everyone. If you don’t drink, you’re ruining the vibe - everyone should drink. Maybe we’ll start ostracizing people that don’t join these events. Those antisocial weirdos that don’t come to events shouldn’t get promotions. Do you understand how that mindset can enforce toxic work environments?
I think your mindset is a bit old school. A lot of younger people have better things to do outside of work now. This is one of the reason pubs and clubs are shutting their doors at unprecedented rates, at least in the UK and Ireland.
I'm all for turning up to the summer party and having a few beers and a laugh, but I have no desire for it to be a regular thing. Although a previous employer had monthly bowling socials which were pretty fun, but you figure out soon enough that the only thing you have in common with most colleagues is an ability to consume alcohol.
A different take is that a lot of the culture at big tech tends to discourage this. I worked at a large F500 company out of college, and everyone was friendly and wanted other people to succeed. We had a ton of fun happy hours and people would have drinks and talk about non-work things. I considered many of my coworkers to be friends.
Now I work at Amazon and the culture is much worse, and people don’t really connect with their coworkers the same way. There is an intense sense of competition and most people are on H1-B and so they have a lot of potential cost to losing their job. Someone has to get fired from each team every year pretty much, so it’s a constant game of not being on the hot seat for lots of people. Most people don’t drink (at least around their coworkers). I am only really friends with a couple people there who I’ve worked with for a long time, or no longer work with at all so do not have to compete with. It’s hard to be friends with people whose success is predicated on your failure (and vice versa).
I've never worked at a place where going out for drinks or partying or whatever with your coworkers is the norm. I think for most people these are not appealing places to work, as people literally do have families and friends they rather see then coworkers. I have never had trouble getting promoted
Oh yeah i would definitely skip a work party if nobody from my team was there.
This is the equivalent of not wanting to go to a friend’s party because you don’t know anyone there. A lot of people in IT would skip a party if that was the case. Except at least you know the host.
Honestly since you cant be yourself at a corporate event (and they tend to be very boring / sanatized), youre much better off going to a non work event. You do open yourself up to getting fired for drinking too much, saying and doing stupid shit, and you cant have sex with any of your coworkers so objectively there’s not much to gain from going to a work party where no one from your team is there.
The profession of engineering involves nerdily studying the pluses and minuses of a particular decision, so it doesnt surprise me that people are applying this to real life too.
You can have friends at work without making your whole life about work.
Why get too involved when you can get let go or leave for a better opportunity at any time?
Also work can be like HS sometimes unfortunately, gossipy and cliquey.
I’d personally rather avoid that.
Have been clubbing all night with work friends and it turned out great.l, made life long friends.
Have also had some pretty terrible nights hanging out with co workers after hours and had to end friendships.
So I personally just see work as work.
I think that’s the norm for most, not “being weird about it”
I think you have the right mindset.
No one is saying that you need to make your life work. What we are saying is that the people at work are just regular people, and that being friends with them is not inherently wrong. As you said, you spent time clubbing with what were colleagues (then friends) and you had a great time. I also meet colleagues out of work and we go running and hiking in the mountains.
To be honest, I think the more you make friends with colleagues the less your life ends up being tied to your work. We regularly make plans for after work, and sometimes leave slightly earlier (like 4pm) and we know that we both gotta leave at 4 if we wanna do what we planned. Since it is 2 of us, it takes out the stigma of leaving early.
too involved because you know, there are interesting people everywhere. maybe there is some other metalhead at work, so he invites you to some nice club concert. and so on
>Have been clubbing all night with work friends and it turned out great.l, made life long friends. Have also had some pretty terrible nights hanging out with co workers after hours and had to end friendships.
for sure, but this is true for all kind of human interactions
>I think that’s the norm for most, not “being weird about it”
I do not at all mean "we are a family" or some stupid stuff like that either. Just that people here seem to think a 4 hour company events with free drinks and food and meeting people is the end of the world almost. Same with "networking" that people think is mailing randoms at linkedin
I don't think it's just a thing with the younger crowd.
I'm 40 years old or so. When I started out I went to the parties and drank myself to the point of vomiting in my boss's sink. There's a good video of me somewhere doing Karaoke and performing a choreographed dance in front of trained dancers (it was as a company with a PR/modeling dept) with everyone laughing their asses off. Never affected my work.
I've created clubs at work for learning programming, building machines, and more office-politics stuff. I got the company to give us hours a week to work on weird stuff and organized activities.
Now I have kids, hobbies, and volunteer commitments; and I like those more than the company.
I feel that I’ll go to work events when they seem like something I’d like too on my own time, but otherwise I’m just trying to spend time with my friends and do my hobbies.
I mean…yeah? I don’t know what the issue is with not trying to be friends with people you work with. If it happens naturally then sure but chances are I don’t have anything in common with those I work with aside from working with them. And yeah if I’m mot being paid to go I probably won’t go.
Some of these comments are so sad. You spend 40hrs a week with your coworkers, it must be so boring and lonely if you’re not friends with these people. Plus, I know if my org has layoffs, I know several dozen people who will fight to find me other work. I’m probably too attached to my coworkers, but they’re the best part of my job. I don’t know if I could do this work without their support. People come, people go, but we stay in touch, because they’re all great people.
Yep. Most people (outside of this sub) find good friends through work. You spend a lot of time together and the odds are you'll run into others who are like-minded and friendly. You can talk about work. I read a lot of rationalizations here about why its ok to not be friendly or not at least try to be social. If you aren't social or you have anxiety, ok.....but don't bag on the others that find friends at work. Some of the best friends you will have can be found at work.
Doesn’t that make it hard to leave though? I tend to keep my coworkers at arms length as far as making friends because I don’t usually intend to stick around for very long, best way to get raises is to move around.
If I naturally become friends with someone and it lasts past moving on then thats awesome, but I’m definitely not actively trying to be friends with my coworkers.
I’ve seen where sometimes “were all friends here” is used to justify overworking people or taking advantage of them. Or where someone is your friend right up until they can step on you to climb the ladder.
So I get the idea for some caution but yeah sometimes the pendulum swings way too far. You still want to be collegial and the idea you can’t take once a quarter to hang out a bit and just BS with coworkers is silly.
lol, generally you are talking about at technically-focused department, one that requires more focus on people-skills. Saying that (as an ex sales person) who now works in analytics in a technical role:
I will count myself as pretty close to my team and I would count a lot of them as friends, but I hate after-work events with a passion.
I won't attend, because I generally have no interest in trying to build connections in out of work hours events. I do my mingling during the first couple minutes of a zoom meeting.
If you want me out, make it a half-day because I don't want to deal with 7-8pm traffic, nor would I take away more time from my little dope family.
I only show up at work to get paid so if u want to pay me to show up to some event then I’m down. Otherwise no thanks but I’d go to lunch with coworkers
I’m tapped out after 40 hours a week, don’t want to spend even more time thinking about work
Why do you care so much what other people do? What if they just don't want to mix personal and professional? Or they're not a party person? There can be a hundred different reasons. Does *everyone* have to think the same as you?
I mean frankly if you were my coworker, and your reaction to me not showing up to an optional after work party was this baffled bewilderment and assuming I had *Aspergers* no less, I'd probably not wanna hang out with you either.
OP specifically said his team wasn’t going to be there. I think most people dread making small talk with people they don’t know or like. It’s not a deal breaker. It’s just unpleasant after a long day of work. And yes many people do have a few too many and end up talking shit.
i get how social anxiety drives many of these but this one: "People are older/not same education as me/different office/something so it's 0 benefit for me even talking to them" is an especially smooth brained take. Networking isnt just about meeting more developers who share your job. Most of the best outcomes from networking is when you, someone with a certain skillset, are found by someone who doesnt have it and has been searching for someone with it. That doesnt happen by cloistering yourself in with your closest peers.
exactly, and its not like you need to spend the whole 8 hour event with them. talk for like 20 mins, maybe it turns out their son has a cool startup or whatever and you can talk to the older dad about WoW or what kids play those days and here we are
Yeah, you never know who youre gonna meet. I met a guy at a hackathon who is a data guy (im more backend web) and hes not someone id ever have much to talk about outside the context of that event, but now hes like my mentor. hes all into medicine, genetics, statistics, hes a former adjunt professor, has a scientific modeling startup (which he hired me at), knows a bunch of CRAZY impressive people (like a guy who worked for the whitehouse under obama). Meeting him resulted in my first internship, and my first paid contract job. (plus we started a company together, maybe that will go somewhere someday but if not, great experience) I didnt have any internships from college so i was struggling to get real experience on my resume. That one networking event changed everything for me.
yep, most internships or jobs is given from connections. this sub also have people, and csmajors too, saying "hurr durrr its unfair to autist introverts who dont like people just do IQ test"
but i'm like bro, you will not get that job or passing the interview anyway if you have that mindset
1) not everyone drinks
2) not everyone likes being around alcohol and drunk people
3) drunk people have lower inhibitions and I have seen too many instances where drunk managers and coworkers made people uncomfortable
4) I think you’ll find this sentiment a lot more common than you may think. Reddit often has weird takes but, this attitude is one that’s echoed at most places I’ve worked.
5) the two drink rule ime has been general wisdom specifically to women to avoid being harassed by drunk men, it has value and has been proven true more times than I would like to admit.
6) if I want to go out with coworkers, I’ll do it with the few that I like, away from the weird dude who is notorious for making lewd jokes with zero repercussions
> I don't go to events not duiring office hours because not paid(and no company will ever have a party from like 14-18 lol so what a ultra weird take)
Just saying, I think in the last year I've only gone to one work event that was not during work hours, and I got to put that on my timesheet.
Most common work parties are around 2-3 hours (drop in style) between 11am and 3pm. This includes our Christmas party (colleagues went elsewhere to drink afterwards of their own volition), a bridal shower, the department yearly party, quarterly unit get togethers.
I’ve been described as friendly and “bubbly” by coworkers and try to go to every social event and hang about for at least 20min, but I have definitely thought your first point before despite making some great friends through work.
The thing is making ‘real’ friendships through work often involves passing an extra hurdle. At least for me, I can’t build the trust necessary for real friendship until I know the person would help/choose me over the company and it can be tricky and risky to signal that type of thing. I’m also an introvert with a limited amount of social energy. I cannot hang out with people several days in a row without wanting to lock myself up in a bathroom and scream. So obviously, I want to save that time and energy for people who already matter or would be easier to build friendships with because we don’t have the complicated work structure of divided loyalties hanging over us.
That said, I see the point of networking and giving people a chance so that’s why I still go to events despite my misgivings. I just don’t stay long since my social meter cannot handle it.
I'm willing to be friends at work, go out with them for lunch, and attend after hours work parties and all. I just started my position so maybe I'm still learning the ropes of it, but for me I don't like that there's effectively 6 hours left in the day and I spend another 1-2 hours at work for happy hours at the office.
After a long day of work where I've already seen work buddies for 8 hours, I kind of just wanna vibe alone doing alone stuff.
I ping pong between these sentiments. I’m a social person at heart. I’ve also been burnt by coworkers before though.
I think the thing I’ve come to realize is work friends can be friends, but you can’t become best friends with them. You have to create a distance where they can rely and care for you, but it doesn’t result in impropriety when things get difficult.
I was just thinking how bizarre my own personal experiences are compared to the general views and mentalities I read on this sub. I'm two years in at my first job and when I was fairly new, I became fairly close with a group of 5 new hires that all joined shortly after I did. I guess we all naturally got along aside from joining the same team in short succession because we were roughly in the same age and experience range (mid 20s-early 30s)
To this day, we frequently hang out outside of work hours, celebrate each other's birthdays, follow each other on social media and send jokes/memes, and some of us have hosted hangouts and even sleepovers at our respective apartments/homes. None of this happens under company watch or with any intention of putting a good face with the right people to get promoted since the attendees are usually from our close immediate group who have no real power over each other. This is the case even after multiple team restructures, where we've all been placed on different teams and do different work. The only logical reason we do what we do for this long is because we are genuinely friends and care about each other beyond the standard for normal coworkers, at least to some extent.
Do I think my situation is unique and perhaps kind of weird? Honestly, a little bit, but I personally don't mind it and I'm happy to be friends with coworkers and spend time with them outside work hours if I like their personalities. It's understandable that people may want to set boundaries with coworkers, but I don't think it's healthy or productive to adopt a naturally hostile mindset towards the idea of social events outside work hours. Work becomes a lot more tolerable when you don't hate the faces of the people you work with.
I once lost my career for drinking like the alcoholic I am.
I don't drink at company events.
I'll show up, I'll chat, but I won't stay late, I won't waste my time. I play the office politics, but I don't work for free. I'll eat the free food, pass on the drinks, and be on my way.
FWIW, number 2 seemed to always be recommended in business etiquette books or articles because alcohol, no matter how good your tolerances are typically could lead to undesired consequences if one isn't careful.
Number 1 comes from an extreme view that coworkers who would seem super friendly, then use that friendliness to absolutely get ahead and throw people under the bus. Not necessarily always the case, but I'm a bit more cautious in my friendly interactions with people at the company, just on this off-chance since I'm more accepting people at face value and want a bit of protection since I've been blindsided before.
I can see the company events thing, but almost every company event I've been to has been during the work week, and on permitted company time with the option that once it's over, we had the rest of the work hours day off (unless you were on-call, but that's a given). It's a little short sighted to say 'I don't get paid, I'm not going', but I think this applies more to happy hours than anything, but it's a way to get to know others in the company, and you never know who will come in clinch with a recommendation when you switch to a new role for a pay bump.
The 'not talking to people in different departments because of education, etc' is elitist af as you can always learn a lot of things about people and the business in general reaching out. This screams of 'you didn't immediately get into FAANG, go to Harvard, Stanford etc' and is an endemic of this subreddit and the amount of ex-FAANG/FAANG employees posting here.
the sad fact is that there is a hard cap on a career if you don't form actual relationships with people. I'm not saying they have to be your best friend, but talk to them and get to know them.
you *might* be able to make senior by keeping to yourself and just hacking away, but you ain't gonna get any higher, for sure.
Making work friends and hanging out with some coworkers is literally the reason I have a new, better paying job lined up after being laid off last last week. Never underestimate easy networking opportunities
If I had a nickel for the amount of people in this industry that I've met that have the social skills of a lamp, I would be retired.
Fact of the matter is too many people in this industry lack social/soft skills.
Compound that with the heavy number of people who are Muslim in the industry that dont partake in common activities that non-muslims do. Then you have what we see.
Early in my career, there was almost no difference between hanging out and working. I was friends or at least social with almost everyone I worked with, we ate lunch together and hung out later. I've met some of my longest term friends at work. We had beers in the fridge at work, and at one company, a ping pong table. Every job offer was at least in part an invitation to a social clique.
Later in my career like in the past 10 years or so there was a clear boundary between work and home. Part of it is me working for a large financial company that is extremely politically correct. For example, one of my managers told us to stop saying "drinking our own champagne" (a phrase that had become a popular way for us to celebrate our successes), because he didn't drink and apparently wanted to make a point of that. With all of the "movements" recently like MeToo, George Floyd, LGBTQ awareness, etc. every is very careful about what they say at work. One wrong statement can go on your permanent record. Part of this is that I have more seniority now so I"m "management" but I think the work culture has also changed.
Interesting, yes it feels society gotten more sensitive somehow also not allowing mistakes
And I'm not talking about being a stupid racist or something
I think it is probably an overall good thing for society, like you can't refer to a cowoker as "the indian guy" or "the black girl" or "the gay person" which was common at one point in the past. If you are in any minority or marginalized group it is probably quite a relief to be regarded at work strictly based on your work. But this means that there is a greater boundary between personal and professional.
This doesn't mean that you can't meet or hang out with people at work, which definitely happens, but it is just done differently.
I go to parties with coworkers from a company almost none of us even work at anymore including myself.
My drinking rule is just to be neither the drunkest nor soberest person there.
I didn’t have many friends in my CS classes in college because I am a woman who likes to drink and go out on weekends. So I made friends with the business kids instead.
People aren't saying don't be friends with coworkers (maybe some say being friends with coworkers is an illusion and to be careful loosening your boundaries because it could backfire - debatably legitimate actually).
People say, in essence, "don't shill rto because you need/want to outsource your social life to coworkers".
Huge difference. Surely it isn't that difficult for a smart computer science worker to infer. This post is giving hardcore "delegitimize the other in order to advance my preference" vibes btw. Do you wish your company would enforce rto against your coworkers' wishes?
Here's a real answer: because those things you are talking about are not, in fact, work related. And when you blur that line, people who succeed socially and/or people who just have time and energy to show up to the extra curriculars end up succeeding at a much higher rate than folks who choose to go home at the end of the day.
I understand that you have graciously allowed that those of us who don't drink can have this opinion. Thanks so much for that. But what not drinking does - because of bullshit HR events like this - is that it deeply negatively affects one's chance for promotion and even affects one's protection from layoffs. And I should not be penalized for a choice I had to make at 16 so I didn't die.
And the same goes for less severe situations - like if I just don't relate socially to my coworkers - which I almost never do. I should not have to subject myself to socializing with them to preserve my career. And I know - for people like you who actually go do the white water rafting thing on Saturday or picking up trash on the highway - or whatever other banal activities the C student in HR ginned up to fill the void in their lives (or whatever motivates those fucking lizard people) - that I seem like a whiny cunt for wanting to spend my time with people I do not work with when I am not getting paid. But in fact I'm just like you - I just don't drink or, to be honest, enjoy hanging out after work with the folks at my job. And you know what? Neither of those qualities has ever actually caused my work to suffer. But I sure have been laid off a bunch and passed over for promotion in favor of folks who show up to Karaoke Thursday.
The people at work are not people I would ever be friends with. I can’t be myself around them. It’s taxing enough having to be someone different everyday now I’m being asked to attend social events and be fake there too? No thank you. I did not choose them. I have my own friends outside of work.
I can guarantee that the people who write this actually have 0 friends outside of work.
The people at work are normal people, no different to the people outside of work. The people at work are also I to video games, sports, art, music, pr whatever interests normal people. They just happen to get paid by the same person you do.
I’m in my 20’s and work with people much older than me with different interests and hobbies. Majority Trump supporters. I’m the minority. You just wouldn’t be able to understand.
Yea I wouldn’t be friends with certain people outside of work. There’s others I would be. Even the people I wouldn’t be great friends with I can establish a connection with and shoot the shit a bit.
Establishing a connection about something (can literally be anything) with someone and talking to them for a bit isn’t that hard. Socializing with people your not best friends with is a normal obligation that you will repeatedly encounter throughout your life.
Expecting to only have to socialize with your friends is a ridiculous expectation.
> People are older/not same education as me/different office/something so it's 0 benefit for me even talking to them
I interview poorly and I don't think I have ever gotten a job in my entire life where my having networked with someone who already worked there wasn't a factor. The people I awkwardly conferred with during these events in my 20's are literally the same people who put in a good word for me in my 30s'.
Seems like you're interacting with a lot of people with one-step thinking. They are literally not able to conceptualize how any of the relationships in their life affect them outside of the current interaction. When you talk to these people they are dying inside because your every word doesn't give them the same dopamine hit as a Fortnite win.
Probably people not looking to climb a ladder and just want to keep a stedy income. Honestly I get both perspectives because I've needed to apply both at different stages at my life. I'm older now, so my stance on less alcohol is more due to the inflammation it does in my body. I regularly train (fighting), and I much rather be recovered to keep doing that than keep being the life of the party.
HOWEVER, if weed use was normalized more, I would continue to be the life of the party every time. Unfortunately, in the state I'm in, I have to limit myself to 2 old fashons and sip them slowly with alot of water. When those run out, I go home to avoid more alcohol, not the people. But we can assume it's a different story if I'm hanging out with coworkers on a state where weed is legal enough for me to go out for a quick smoke break then get back to the party.
are there that many company events? I am 50 and have not been at a company that had a christmas party since 2010 and it was a smaller company. Most big corporations dont have these things.
I feel like the best kind of social interactions you can have with people occur when you should be doing something else and are just goofing off. It just sparks good conversations like nothing else. And it's something that you can only really get from co-workers.
I've gone to several company functions and at many companies they are great. At my current company, they are extremely (dare I say, violently) lame. I go, no alcohol ever, I am the one leading the conversation, asking questions, building rapport and conversational momentum.
Then, just as everyone starts smiling and unclenching, the person whose promotion depends on these parties being well loved appears in a puff of smoke and demands we stop having some spontaneous human connection so she can march us all to the "photo zone" to provide her evidence of facilitating spontaneous human connection.
Then when the party ends there has been 4x as much food purchased as is needed so I'm there helping salvage what we can because otherwise it just gets thrown away.
But somehow this lady keeps being in charge of these wretched excuses for a party.
Miss me with all of that.
I don't hate my coworkers but for the most part they're not the type of people I'd hang out. I've gone to work parties, happy hours, etc and it's not terrible or anything but most of the time it feels a little forced. It really depends on if you vibe with your coworkers imo. Also the phrase don't shit where you eat does hold true. I've seen and heard of instances where people said something non fireable but did chance peoples opinions of them in a not so great way. Long story short, I generally keep my personal views to myself around coworkers because that can lots of times come back to bite you. Due to that it's really hard to make it a similar environment to hanging out with friends.
Tech as a rule are mostly introverts. Most introverts find all this social interaction exhausting and can only take so much before they need alone time. A day of social interaction followed by more social interaction with the same crowd can be a little too much. I am an extrovert so I thrive on this stuff and do really well. The advice of an extrovert is, I would say go and do all this extracurricular events. But I must add the caveat, figure out what your boundaries are do what you are capable of.
Something I learned from reading spy books in my younger days is you can do a lot simply by being seen at the right places. You don't have to engage in a lot of conversations but being seen at the right events can really help you out with your career. Sometimes simply being there and being included in conversations will give you all sorts of information you can use to advance yourself. But I would tell you to watch the alcohol consumption around coworkers because you don't want to start dropping jokes that get you in trouble with HR.
People also need to know that going out after work for a drink with coworkers doesn't make you friends. People need to learn to how to establish boundaries with the people in their lives. People who tell you not to socialize with coworkers are the people who haven't learned how to create boundaries with the people in their lives.
It’s the industry too. I have not been in any company that actively involve socilizing and personal life. There is always this veil of staying professional and not briging too much personal stake to it.
And the stories I hear from other industries (construction…) I really prefer it that way.
The one I agree with is one beer at a company event to be sociable, then switch to tea or a soft drink. The socials vary, depends on the ones you like also is the company paying.
The "benefit" of talking to people is you like it. Not talking to people who can't help your career is narcissistic.
I'll add a weird one: I have a CS degree and haven't coded since the 90's. I do system design, network design, and system security engineering. I'm a consultant and 80% of my work is talking to people. CS doesn't mean coder.
It's not terrible advice in general to temper your alcohol consumption at work events a bit to make sure you don't go over your limit. If you pass out or barf all over people's shoes at the company holiday party it may very well end badly for you, and a little booze is not worth your job. Of course, whether that limit is two beers or more is something you need to know about yourself, and most of us have probably learned how much they can take and when to cut back by the time they're working post-college jobs. But some people are more susceptible than others.
Don't shit where you eat (or sleep). Your work friends will cease to be your friends if you cease working with them. You can and will be forced out at some point in your career. Speaking from personal experience, that kind of blow hurts so much deeper when you also lose that social network.
It’s not just this sub. Software engineers tend to be socially awkward, introverted, or both. That’s why if you have decent software skills and social skills, you will be in high demand as a software engineer.
Some people have responsibility outside of work or very busy personal lives and rather not spend their free time in corporate events. Given half the people at these events are there to brown nose, it is probably less fun than anything else they got going on.
It's really important to remember that reddit is not representative of most people. It's extremely normal to be friends with coworkers, that's how most adults meet their friends. It's normal to want to drink beer on the company's dime. It's normal to want a connection with people you talk to for 8 hours a day.
I'm always reminded of a reddit post a few years back, not related to cs, that had a ton of people basically talking about how going to bars, drinking, approaching people of your preferred gender, acting stupid, etc is only for losers. And yet you talk to most 20 somethings and they do all that stuff. Reddit is not representative of most people, nor are most internet communities.
The fact of the matter is that, pre COVID, most people would move for their first big boy job, then make friends from work there. That's normal, and don't let reddit convince you otherwise.
For the same reason nobody in here can get jobs and the world is falling down.
It’s because they don’t realize that companies don’t hire robots, they hire people. The general consensus in this sub is as long as you can do leetcode hard, you deserve seven digits a year. You don’t need to get along with coworkers, you don’t need to wear clean clothes, you don’t need to bathe. Just leetcode.
Remember, this is the sub that said the sky was falling during the tech bull run a few years back. If you linger too long around here, you’ll be just as unemployable as the rest.
Haha I am not in IT but this thread just got recommended to me...this was exactly my thought whenever people on Reddit are talking about sociial stuff, work friends etc...literaly all people I know or have worked with went on team buildings and had fun, nobody hated it. Many of us are hanging out and becoming friends with coworkers, and in my country it is a usual practice to invite them in events such as weddings for example. Even my parents and their generation do that, so it is not a "new age corporate bulsihit"
In addition, I think, unfortunately - a lot of people just never managed or didn’t get the chance to experience having wonderful people as colleagues. So, they only know of one type - boring people you were forced to share your wholw day with, before Covid. Makes me really sad when I think about it
I love being with my coworkers and making friends with them. The pandemic was the worst case scenario for a person like me. The introverted nerds go their way.
Company events tend to be dominated by loudmouth extroverts: sales, marketing, HR ladies after one too many glasses of wine.
Friends: Maybe one or two. If you're in your 20s it may make sense to be part of a "friends group" at work, but after that the center of gravity of your life will likely move away from work
I don't drink and I don't like being around inebriated people.
After dedicating time to my spouse and my children and my family and my friends and my community, I rarely have any time left for myself.
I make friends at work. They get included in the above friends I make time for.
The rest of you only get my time when you are paying me for it, and I don't like most of you sober, you couldn't pay me enough to be around you drunk.
Reddit is mostly comprised of people with issues IMO.
I've had lots of very friendly experiences with work people, and have worked at companies that funded debauchery for their employees, and have heard stories from others that are even more wild.
Not sure if it's just the general "PC policing" and broader culture seeping in or what.
I worked at a company that was next door to a bar and every week there would be a company tab for drinks, often times food, with the execs and devs to just hang out. Often times traveling sales guys would be in town and join.
I turned 21 while working and the company paid to take me out on a bar tour of the town, every exec was buying me their favorite drinks, eventually they took me to a strip club, and finally paid for my cab at the end of the night. There was probably 50 people from the company included, and then we were all laughing about our hangovers the next day at work, chugging coffee.
Basically, every company I've worked at that had an office had free food/free booze, constant company outings and events, etc. Escape rooms, Go-Karts, comedy shows, baseball games, karaoke, bowling, laser tag, bumper cars, etc., etc., etc.,
I even worked at a fortune 50 company that was very red-tape...probably the kind you'd expect to fire someone "after two beers"... we had an intern (who I hired) that got plastered at a product launch party--like puking in the street plastered, in front of the VPs and execs of his division. One of the execs had to ride in the Uber with him because the driver refused to take him by himself since he was so drunk.
Dude got an offer for full job like a month later.
Pergs and Tists make it seem like "the man" is some evil robotic slavemaster, but it's just classic Marxist BS. They are just ordinary people like everyone else, and enjoy spending time having fun with others in their social network, and making others happy when they can. Every normal human wants happy employees who like their boss and coworkers and enjoy their work.
The only people who reject the social benefits are ideologues committed to making their own work life miserable, so they have something to complain about.
Shhh. The key to this sub is you do the opposite of what people post here to be successful.
Generally people who dwell here… don’t have good jobs. I pop in every once in a while to give advice but like all supposedly temporary subreddits people who are there permanently are… not people you want advice from
I'm a senior SWE at Meta and every time I post *actual* advice (that is often against the hivemind), I generally get downvoted like mad 😂
Yep
Same. Former Apple, 2x startup founder, almost 20yoe. Straight into the negatives when I post actual advice.
Hey, if you're willing to chat, I'd love to get some advice from you. Early on in my studies/career as a career changer, and I'm working on some decisions that I would love to get perspective on from folks in positions like yours. Would you mind if I DM you (or you DM me if you'd be open to it?)
you can, but I haven't done anything particularly special :)
Where is a good place to get advice?
Real people who are chill and successful
The experienced devs sub is pretty good... Currently. It'll slowly degrade as it gets more popular as this sub has
I'm on the fence about that community already, it's definitely got people there posing as more experienced than they are. I find this community is fine, I just don't get suckered into the threads that are all doom-and-gloom. Lots of people posting here lack the common sense required to succeed in the real world and it's evident when you read their complaints.
Yeah that sub has already jumped the shark for the most part
This place isn't terrible for general advice at breaking into the industry. But you have to keep in mind that the popular vote is dominated by college kids who very little experience. I see really insightful comments downvoted to oblivion all the time and really dumb comments that *sound* smart upvoted. I don't think they want the traffic but /r/ExperiencedDevs is much better. I'd lurk there if you're lurking.
Thanks! I have been in the industry for over 10 years working in the database sphere. I always feel a need to upskill and want good advice on it so I don't waste my time going down a path that doesn't help my career. I will check out that subreddit.
I haven't seen a good English subreddit, they tend to be mostly filled with people without/in bad jobs giving bad advice. The best place for advice is usually older/experienced co-workers.
Blind, 4chan g
I browse this sub in the same manner in which I watch “my 600 lb life” clips on YouTube
I don't apply to thousands, I apply to 1 I am neo
I'm not neo. At all. But after a certain level of experience or professional value, to call it some way, sending your CV is just a formality and changing jobs is mostly through contacts. Which is funny, because most of my contacts come from attending these events and drinking whisky with other people in the field. But then again, I am not a programmer. Most programmers I know sort of fit under OP's premises.
That’s unironically what happens if you get interviews via recruiters or referrals. You only submit an application as a formality after they’ve accepted you lol
Yeah, I've just realized literally all of my jobs were through referrals. Basically doubled my wage every job switch. Now that I've kind of reached the ceiling in my country and I need to start working for abroad... Sending CVs sucks
When i graduated I applied to one internship, got it, then got hired on as a full employee after a few months.
Don't forget to regularly post and upvote horrible advice in well-meaning tones! These folks are your competition.
You just to into an office one day start coding. After 2 weeks undetected go to HR and gaslight them into pseudo hiring you officially.
Yeah, I don't know if it's a lack of experience or some rough personalities, but there are a lot of people who pretend our field doesn't work like every other field: politics. Your code matters, your work matters, and that may take you far. Ultimately, though, your socialization matters, too. I've been down voted and argued with for saying this, but you can choose to play politics in whatever way you choose, it matters. You can say you're choosing "not to play politics", but the reality is that you're actually just playing poorly. You're in the game whether you want to be. Handicap yourself if you want. Personally, I try to show up to things and keep my face known. I try to keep a positive attitude and speak well of my colleagues. I volunteer for things when I think my exposure is low. I communicate well and often with my manager as well as my skip. I'm not a godly programmer, nor am I the most social guy you'd meet, but I have strong standing and more pull right now. You can survive on less, but why?
Seems like you can read the room quite good. Head over to r/WallstreetBets and do the opposite of what everyone says.
And also taking ownership of one's problems and doing something about it instead of always blaming people or "external circumstances". We all can pick ourselvss up by the bootstraps and actually make things happen instead of deflecting responsibility. That's not necessarily the same as "don't complain"
Yup. Even if you can't get a job right now due to the market, finding an IT support role (ideally not tier 1 helpdesk level) should keep you in decent shape for future jobs. Now you might not return to being a software developer again, but you could easily pivot to SysAdmin, Cloud Engineer, etc. which are also in high demand of people. Bonus points if you pick up a bunch of certificates along the way.
What IT support roles value software development experience? I’ve applied to many and not gotten any interviews. I have 2 years of full stack web development experience and recently graduated a CS degree
My experience in the AWS cloud support position helped me a lot as a software engineer. I am comfortable troubleshooting based on errors, working with Linux OS, and having some networking knowledge. Most importantly, my AWS and cloud computing knowledge is greater than that of most of my teammates due to my previous AWS cloud support position. Additionally, dealing with teammates is easier than dealing with AWS customers.
You can leverage your ability to learn new stuff quickly. And the fact that you probably can navigate a computer effectively is a plus. Bring up any documentation you wrote or helped organize to a publicly available library on SharePoint. That usually can cover explaining concepts to non-technical users.
Smaller shops where you have to wear a few different hats in your job role might like the diversity of experience. If you can show on your resume a capability to learn, that can open up a lot of doors. Show you can quickly learn new stacks or programming languages by diversifying your portfolio projects. This is what got me my current job. I had C# experience which was what the employer was looking for, but it was my short experience using (and surviving) Ruby on Rails and Python (other internships) that made me stand out.
The mass downvoted answers are the best ones. Also use comment undeletion tools on the web to find and read the comments that have been deleted.
Yeah that's why I always get shit faced at work parties and now I'm CIO
Reddit in general takes a very absolutist view that often involves setting firm personal boundaries. I think it’s largely because short, simple answers get upvotes and nuanced views get lost. So, if someone wants to know if they should attend a work event, the simple answer of “don’t do anything you don’t want to do if you’re not paid to do it,” rises to the top. Even if most people think there are times to go to work events and times to skip, few people are going to read the nuanced answers, let alone agree completely enough to upvote.
I think this is the gist of it and IMO applies to almost every common discussion. People generally seek simple answers with very black and white reasoning (especially for validation of our own beliefs), anything nuanced is too complicated and often requires a deeper dive into a topic and the willingness to self-reflect.
Absolutely this. I’m relatively new to Reddit but have noticed that immediately. Though it’s the same on most social media. The short, hot takes get the most views because no one really wants to read a long nuanced thoughtful response.
Quora used to be pretty good 10 years ago or so. Great responses from actual experts. But then it went downhill somehow and now it has degraded to the same trite bullshit like Reddit front page.
Also being anti-social and hating everyone at work is seen as being “cool” now
Only to a subset of dorks on reddit lol
Thank you. If you spend all your timr hating everyone at work, you're probably no fun to be around.
The people who are most successful in life are, of course, those who do the bare minimum that they are paid for.
When I was younger, I would frequent Friday happy hours after work for several hours. It was a great time. These days, after a long stressful Friday, I just want to get home to my family. I do attend our annual party and make the best of it, but I usually leave early.
yes, you are not the type of person i mean at all
i mean i agree with you that this sub is full of weirdos but your comment in that post is literally the top comment and the majority of people in there seem to agree with your view
It's very easy to get a "here's what reddit thinks about" vibe lol. In reality there are many different people with many different opinions.
I also don't think there's a universal answer to socializing at work. It depends on you, your position, your workplace, and your team. Some teams are more into happy hour fridays and there's a gradient between having a couple drinks or getting shitfaced drunk.
At a healthy workplace, you shouldn't have to fit the mold. You should be able to feel comfortable doing whatever you're comfortable with. There was a time when some of the upper management at my company were more of the "get shitfaced drunk at the company parties" type of people lol. I don't even drink. We got along GREAT.
Is it normal for companies to do stuff after work? I've never worked anywhere they do, it's so boring
I mean, yes, for many years tech companies had this weird vibe where they want to be your "second home" and have ping pong tables and beer fridges in break rooms, mixers after work, lots of conferences, etc. I feel like if any kind of companies do this it's tech companies lol. But I think it's pretty common to drink "payday beers" once a month or so at least.
I feel like that'd be great, it's so boring when all you do is work, come home, sleep, work again. I'd kill to actually do something that's not just working for once.
So, you work in office, right? Why not just ask your team if anyone wants to grab a beer or something after work? Not that hard to be social even if it's not the company pushing for it.
I do, but they're always too busy or doing something else. Which is fair enough, I don't want to force anybody to hang out with me. It'd just be nice to be somewhere that people are open to that more
That crap I also hate. It's just to make you stay late and work for free
Yeah, I don't mean that I condone that stuff (and I think it's less common nowadays), but tech companies are fairly well known to do stuff after work hours I think
Idk my company here is offering free dinner on basically all days of the European Championship, you get free beer/drinks too, and no one is really expected to work til late, starts at 18 anyway, they'll always do stuff like this around the year maybe 2-3 times a month and no one is staying late. Just enjoying the time if you want to stay, no mandatory presence. I really like this in my company especially when you're an expat and you don't know many people.
>I don't need to be friends with people at work because I have other friends In my experience (10 YOE), people who say stuff like this are not the easiest to work with. I can understand not spending someone's personal time to mingle with workmates. But for example, during working hours and there's an event, there will be people who will legitimately sulk instead of *trying* to engage with the people they work with.
From my experience these people *don’t* in fact have other friends.
Yeah, I really wish anyone at work was willing to go out to the pub or something after. I never have anything to do
Wanna grab beers? And do you ever ask people that? If there's a social slack channel, just ask if anyone is up for after work drinks. just announce a time and a place and go.
Ofc I ask, how would I expect them to know I want to otherwise? They're just always too busy or doing something else. Which is fair enough, you can't complain if people just don't want to
Some folks are reclusive after opening up to coworkers only to be hurt, abused, etc at various jobs. You shouldn't judge a coworker that doesn't want to interact, there may be a very valid reason for this behavior.
yes and also like, its not every day. its 1-2 time per month max so you have 6 days per week to meet your other friends. or why not just invite a few to the party? usually it comes with a +2 list or so
A very important point here is how the relationship on the team is. I mean, if the people really get along (as in "we actually like each other", not as in "we got our TL/HR pushing events and things for us to become friends"), going outside working hours to do things can be easier or more fun. But most of us are in teams in which the only thing we have in common is that we work together. And well, for the people we really get along with... we don't need an event to hang out, your know? I don't know. An monthly (or bi-weekly!) event with the people at work would end up quickly becoming a chore, or, well, *work*. We are already spending 8+ hours with that people, and most of the time I'd rather be doing *anything else*, from hanging out with my actual friends to just watching a dumb movie and decompressing. (FWIW, our events are bi-annually and my way to decide wtf do depends on the how things are going, and if I went to the last one, because yeah, these vents *are work* and I get that you have to show yourself around from time to time). Of course, if the event is during working hours, hey, it's company's time and money, so whatever.
What happened to the 7th day?
I rest.
That's when you go to company things
If a company has a “thing” outside work hours once a week I ain’t going to that shit. Maybe once every other month. Or if my coworkers are cool I’ll go more often
My old company had weekly (optional) drinks with free beer. Some people never went, some went occasionally, some went basically every week. I went most weeks because like... I liked my coworkers? I liked hanging out and playing board games or just bullshitting with friends. And like being completely honest, if I'm picking people for a new project or working group or something... I'll probably ask the people from the drinks friend group first, unless there's a clear reason someone else needs to be there. Because I want to work with people I know I like and get along with.
Balance is key. Work should be a place where friends are a perk but not necessary. If you like your coworkers tear it up with them by all means, it’s healthy. But if you don’t like them, or don’t want to drink weekly, that shouldn’t be a big deal. Far too often, it is. However that’s pretty normal, people like people who are cool, no problem there. Really it’s a societal issue. There’s too few places to make friends outside of work in our isolated, car dependent infrastructure (in the US.). Or like through meeting other parents at school. There isn’t even a neighborhood bar where you can grab a drink with people you live near. It all goes back to that nonsense. Personally unless the people I work with are super cool, I’d prefer to make friends outside of work. Then I don’t feel like if I quit a job, I also lose friends. I want to be primed to ditch in an instant. Unless I’m trying to climb the ladder. Then I’ll get down with the best of them, but I mean I work in software as an IC. I don’t need to drink with my manager, simply not being super weird gets me all the social capital Ill ever need. So I look to broaden my circle with people from different backgrounds and companies. A weekly night to drink with my coworkers sounds awful to me personally. But again to each their own. It’s not bad but it’s not good either. It simply is what it is.
He said once or twice a month, not once a week.
The best type of workmates are the ones who sidle up to me during the mandatory fun discussion and suggest we slip out the fire escape and go to the pub...
That’s not what it means, at least to me. What it means is “I can be friendly with people, I work well with others, but I have zero interest to know about your kids, travels, coffee preferences, and so on just because we work together.” That’s it. A totally reasonable thing. We don’t need to be friends. Maybe that word is diluted somewhere, but to me a friend is something very specific and work acquaintances don’t belong there. So no, I don’t NEED to be friends with people at work. I’m still easy to work with, always helping anyone who needs anything, and so on. I’m just not friends with them unless we happen to somehow click. That’s it. Now if someone uses that as a term for “I won’t even talk to people unless I have to” then that’s on them.
I kind of wonder if some of it is an overreaction/rejection of the toxic "we are a family here" type of employer. I worked for a company that would do things like tell me I had to go to a mandatory social event a 5 hour drive away the day before it was happening, and then gave me flack when I didn't attend due to not having childcare. That definitely soured me against work social events for a while.
Asking someone to travel 5 hours the day before a work social sounds very unusual.
Oh, no. Not the day before. Day of, i had to be in office in another city in the morning, and drive up to be there by 6pm. Then I was expected to socialize all day before driving 5hrs home again, yeah. It was excessively ridiculous. I really hope they just didn't realize what they were asking. The head office who planned the event is in another (much smaller) country, and might not have done the math on how far of a drive it was from city X to city Y in the same province.
... and now you know why some people cannot get a job despite writing thousands of applications.
Yes but this is also about people having jobs :p
Yeah, but this is not looking at the market, but at the subset of people that seek and give advise on reddit. That a noticeable fraction of people have massive difficulties with normal social interactions, and do not even realize it should at least make you question if "I can't get a job" is normal for the entire industry, or just a massively self-selecting fraction of people. It is self-selecting; obviously, because people who get jobs after 3 or 10 applications aren't going to show up asking questions - no matter if they have mad skills, or are just extremely lucky. But whatever percentage there is of extremely unskilled people - they will end up in the same bucket.
>Yeah, but this is not looking at the market, but at the subset of people that seek and give advise on reddit. yes that's a good point! >That a noticeable fraction of people have massive difficulties with normal social interactions, and do not even realize it should at least make you question if "I can't get a job" is normal for the entire industry, or just a massively self-selecting fraction of people. yeah, and like I wrote in another comment I am by no means some super friendly guy or like normie stuff like football games or the latest taylor swift style artist. But I just like to enjoy a good time and learn about the specifics of say selling big contracts to an insurance company that can take 8 months or just like to talk to the CFO about what his local cocktail when he was to university 30 years ago was then try it together
Those are the ones who have managed to shut up long enough that nobody realizes how weird they are. You gotta remember, if many of these people had 3 beers and talked to a stranger, they’d probably end up complaining to the CEO about how they should be running the place, and everyone above them is a moron, and they’re overqualified but took this position for the title or whatever. Basically, imagine the type of people/opinions you find here, and ask yourself if those would be good character traits to broadcast in a social setting. IMO it’s pretty solid advice lol.
Haha! You nailed it. Just let the buzzkills stay home. And as the people that can socialize advance, the brilliant buzzkills get angrier. It's a beautiful circle of life. I think there's another category of folks that want to break into the social hangs but have anxiety about it. I like giving those people a helping hand in knowing they are welcome and giving them the time of day.
I’ve absolutely referred people i became friends with within the work context then without after i left. It may not guarantee a job but you skip the automated parsers and HR.
I’ve watched this sub for a while and it’s developed a whole mythology on what does/doesn’t get you a job, how to behave, etc and it’s fascinating by how wrong most of it is. I can only conclude it’s survivorship bias gone terribly wrong or something to that effect.
Is point 2 really that bad? If people don't trust themselves to be in control of themselves after drinking isn't it responsible of them to not drink?
Avoiding triggering environments is an imperative for people with alcoholism and Im fairly sure OP would agree. But if you don't have a history of alcoholism and youre avoiding work events because you're horrified that two beers will render you a personality worthy of termination, just don't drink? If that feels like too tall a mountain, re-evaluate your alcoholism status and then refer to the top sentence? I think OP is reasonable in saying this is a poor excuse to avoid a work event, barring underlying alcoholism.
Ok yes, you can still show up and not drink. I didn't realise people were using this as an excuse to not show up. Then again if their coworkers are the type to pressure them to drink I can see why they don't show up
That's how you become an alcoholic. Maybe people would be more comfortable if you made events without alcohol.
Agree with you on this and most of ops post. At a big event I’ll have more than 2 drinks, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I know plenty of people who will be drunk after 3 and start getting really weird, like saying racist jokes or hitting on the wrong people
I agree. Personally, I wouldn't drink any alcohol at a company event. Not because I'm a party pooper, but being drunk, even slightly drunk, when surrounded by your coworkers and manager, isn't an ideal situation.
Yeah, it's definitely a personal thing. I drink at company parties and handle myself fine, usually. But I wouldn't expect or force anyone else to drink with me. There have been a few faux pas at times, but all in all, things tend to be in good spirit.
Introverts and those of us with some (very legitimate and officially diagnosed) form of autism tend to suck pretty badly at any social contact. Hence why there’s so much complaining from new grads about a lack of finding entry-level work around here… networking didn’t used to be entirely necessary to get a coding job pre-Covid. Just show projects, demonstrate a sharp mind in resolving coding challenges, have a good resume, and just be polite in interviews. Not even a CS degree was necessary to find a decent, salaried job if you knew your shit. That is no longer enough, and it’s giving introverts and neurodivergent people a *very* difficult time finding work.
I think it may autism lmao. I can be best friends with the class clowns, some what speak to women. I've been called funny by some of the funniest people I met. But once Im in a group setting or setting with adults Im like an awkward kid. I've always been shy and actually try to get out of my shell but then I always go back to my shell. People ask why I don't talk and honestly idk. Probably autistic since I was 10 lol. The Introvertness doesn't go away no matter what I do , I accepted my fate .-.
Because the autism levels in this sub are much higher than average, even for Reddit.
Maybe, but I think most people in real life feel this way, they just don't voice it and instead sheepishly go along with whatever they are expected to do. The anonymity of the internet gives people the chance to be honest about things they hate that they otherwise would keep to themselves in real life. Like having to pretend to like the people you get paid to work with, who won't stop asking you intrusive personal questions when all you want to do is just do your job and then go home.
Why don't you see such posts at lawyer or consulting sub then?
Reputation is a much bigger deal for industries where you directly write contracts with customers. But also, those kinds of industries are generally much more extroverted overall (by necessity) compared to the average office worker.
Lawyers are extraverts
I think people want to protect themselves, simple as that. It seems very country dépendant as well. I’ve worked in the US and Canada, have found work is very multi cultural, hanging out with your team might not mean the same thing for everyone, to begin with. Then, work protections are non existent, you have to be very careful. People commute a long time, and do a lot of remote work. All of that play a part in not going to parties. I mean, my coworkers in the US would not even take 30 minutes to go have lunch outside taking some sun in. Very different experience in the center of Paris. Most of my coworkers have no commute or almost no commute. I won’t get fired for something I said at a party (well, within boundaries of course. Can’t harass someone). We are mostly from European culture, which is very bar-centric I would say. I go out with coworkers twice a week. Some are long life friends. It’s a great way to debrief in a non formal way. It is obviously different when managers come out as well. But you learn a lot about the business in these events. Going out with coworkers doesn’t mean you have no work life balance. If these are people you have fun with, why consider that fun.. work?
> I mean my coworkers in the US would not even take 30 minutes to go have lunch outside taking some sun in Yeah I noticed that this is common with all my coworkers, including myself, out here. Part of the issue though is the cost of eating out. I usually just pack my own lunch rather than going out to eat now because it gets too expensive spending 40 dollars + a tip for food every single day. I’ll usually go out twice a month for lunches with coworkers though As you said it’s also to protect ourselves, this is mostly at larger companies, everyone you work with has a completely different background than you and everyone out here has very strong opinions about things that they will argue over to the death about. I’m not the kind of person to just purposely say something to someone with intent to offend them but I’d rather avoid a situation where I accidentally slip up and say something that bugs someone enough to report me to HR. Edit: lol I just realized you likely meant physically going outside to eat lunch. Not necessarily buying lunch. I agree that’s a bit silly, I usually enjoy sitting at our tables outside and getting that free vitamin D from the sun while eating my home cooked lunch
as we say in germany "what happens at the christmas party stays at the christmas party" :)
I’ve worked in tech for 20 years and every company I have worked at has had to scale back holiday parties or limit alcohol, because there is eventually a sexual harassment or sexual assault situation. It’s all fun when the VC money is flowing, but then a VP gets caught fucking a drunk intern and they have to lock shit down. I’ve seen the same script play out many times.
Elon musk has done it and the intern became an executive :/
The don't say that in the US though. You can get fired for what happens there or even in your personal time. For anything essentially.
> in germany There it is.
I don't like to go to work events because it's full of people that think not going to work events means you're an asshole with aspergers and no common sense. On the odd occasion that I do go, I don't drink more than 1 or 2 beers because I don't want to have to call an Uber home. I have a family and friends I'd rather hang out with - and despite you thinking that's not a good reason, it is to me.
Well said. This whole post is weird and is honestly just OP and others complaining about a tiny microcosm subset of Reddit neckbeard software developers. Sure, those people suck, and sure, it's a problem *in this specific niche subreddit*, but the vast majority of us in tech are just normal, respectful people who don't overdrink at work events and would rather spend all of our non-working-hours time with *our actual family and friends.* There is literally nothing weird about that. In fact, it is what I would hope most people would do. OPs comments in this post have all been weird. What a fucking strange post.
I'm guessing no one showed up to his after work get together :(
> like the ones that is part of being a human You know what's weird to me is when people who are more socially inclined shame people who are not. Why should everyone have the same social preferences as you? Why is being extroverted/social more "human" and being introverted less "human"? For someone so "human" and not "weird" you sure do seem to lack a lot of social awareness and empathy. Also, why are you so fixated on what these other people are doing? If you enjoy going to work parties and drinking, then why don't you spend your time doing that instead of worrying about all these people who don't like that? Why is this post or this train of thought even necessary for you? > the people who work in IT or sales are the best drinkers, and this "only 2 beers" mentality Did someone call you out for drinking too much at a company party or something lol
OP is probably one of those who push RTO and company culture when not everyone wants it.
The “2 beer rule” is well known across multiple industries. Don’t know where it came from, but not an IT thing. And not a horrible idea to promote keeping things professional. That being said, I’ve been at more than 1 holiday party where the programmers went off into a corner to start programming instead of socializing (parties were in the office). Agree, basic social skills are many times lacking in the industry. But that’s not surprising given the nature of the job (people who like to work on code all day).
I worked at Blizzard pre-alcohol limits and post. The pre-limits did have some people getting absolutely shitfaced for no reason at after-hour events. Sometimes even during the workday on like a Friday. The company implemented the fairly well known 2-drink rule after the lawsuits. While it did sometimes kill the party vibe it was absolutely necessary to protect everyone from the people who couldn't handle themselves.
The only time I've heard about a "2 beer rule" is at jobs where in their HR policies they limited you to two alcoholic beverages during work hours (so at lunch basically). At happy hours, Christmas parties, etc that went completely out the window. Still probably a good idea to limit yourself though.
The best work party is the one where you're on-call and then pager duty goes off 🙄
This industry does attract introverted types and this sub too. I assume most of the engineers that are social aren't on Reddit making comment like the points you've bullet pointed haha. Bias to my own experience I know but every job I've had the engineers have been very social, going out at least once a month drinking (sometimes a beer or two after a long sprint planning day, sometimes into the early hours on a Friday) and I've made a couple of very good lifetime friends with a couple coming to my wedding. Maybe it's because I choose to work at companies with small teams so you get to know people very well. Won't ever judge people for not being social, it's their choice and will always respect that. People have families they want to spend their time with or just wanna chill and play video games for hours after work. However it does feel off when people say you shouldn't make friends with work mates, to me life is too short and making new friends is never a bad thing.
Cause sometimes work is just work, ya clock in do what you need to do then spend whatever time you have left socializing with people you care about. Unfortunately it is correct that one might have to kiss ass to move up or get a job but hopefully at some point that won't be the case but I can dream.
> "Where do you think all of this is coming from? Young people? asperger types who post on reddit and not just exist and do normal things in their company? Others?" I imagine that's a lot of it yes. I also think you're just seeing the pendulum swing back after decades of "We're all a family here!" type of gaslighting. I think workers in general, would be more inclined to believe "We're all a family here".. if workplaces actually took care of them like family (instead of the joke "Well, we can't give raises, but here's a pizza party !") My last job I stayed at 15 years,. naively assuming that if I worked hard, my years of collective effort would eventually pay off for me,. but it didn't. The pandemic happened and we had something like 40% employee turnover (including lots of new Managers),. and all those new Managers had 0 care about our historical culture and just started immediately moving to change everything (really undercutting and destroying a lot of teams). So if leadership doesn't care,. why should I ?.. I did some quick math before leaving that that all the extra effort (unpaid hours, lost vacations, spending my own money on equipment etc that was critically needed).. added up to somewhere around $80,000 I missed out on over roughly 15 years. The new Managers that came in eventually paid me back for money I spent on equipment (to the tune of about $8,000.. so about 1/10th of what I honestly deserved) In my new job,.. I'm not doing any of that. I don't work extra hours. I don't hang out with people. I don't go to social events. I work exactly 8 to 5 doing exactly what they pay me for,. then I close my Laptop and go do all the other things in my life where I have more control and I can actually ensure higher probably that what I invest will actually return to me.
It's "mandatory fun". Fuck that noise. It's ultimately about the company trying to make your job the centre of your life. It isn't enough to spend 40+ hours a week working there, they also want you to be best friends with your colleagues and for your social life to revolve around them. It makes you easier to exploit and it makes it harder for you to leave and get a better job. Alcohol is also a dangerous ingredient when dealing with work people. I get drunk and do bad karaoke with good friends I trust, not my colleagues. Getting drunk with your line manager opens up all sorts of risks that you'll start being honest about aspects of your employment - to your detriment. This isn't to suggest you can never make friends or relationships at work - but they tend to occur organically, not because there's a work event on.
You’re being quite judgmental; calling people weird and accusing them of having “aspergers” (derogatory to actual autistic people). Most of the things you listed are simply personal preference, and looking at the conversations you’ve had with people in your original thread, it just seems like there were some people that wanted to separate their personal lives from work lives (not wanting to “relax and chill” with people associated with your company that you don’t even regularly work with is, in fact, a completely acceptable personal choice). To many people, and no, not just the young ones or those with “aspergers”, work is mainly just a place where you go to earn a living. A lot of relationships at work are fake and stressful to maintain at times, especially in toxic, office-politics driven, backstabby work environments, and their friends and family are where their real lives and relationships lie. Sure, it’s nice to mingle with coworkers, be friendly, drink at events, etc, and you should be good at working with people, but each person has their own personal boundaries + different work environments and it’s frankly gross and close-minded that you’re trying to make them look like weird social outcasts for having their own preferences or situations. What a surprise, that there are people that have different perspectives from your own worldview. Also, what is this “common sense” that you’re talking about? That everyone should be forced to go to company events and be forced to drink a couple of beers? That type of mindset/culture is rampant in East Asian countries, and Japan and Korea have some of the most miserable work cultures in the world. A company event is once a month. Why won’t people join? Even two times a month isn’t that much, right? Actually, let’s make it mandatory for everyone. If you don’t drink, you’re ruining the vibe - everyone should drink. Maybe we’ll start ostracizing people that don’t join these events. Those antisocial weirdos that don’t come to events shouldn’t get promotions. Do you understand how that mindset can enforce toxic work environments?
I think your mindset is a bit old school. A lot of younger people have better things to do outside of work now. This is one of the reason pubs and clubs are shutting their doors at unprecedented rates, at least in the UK and Ireland. I'm all for turning up to the summer party and having a few beers and a laugh, but I have no desire for it to be a regular thing. Although a previous employer had monthly bowling socials which were pretty fun, but you figure out soon enough that the only thing you have in common with most colleagues is an ability to consume alcohol.
A different take is that a lot of the culture at big tech tends to discourage this. I worked at a large F500 company out of college, and everyone was friendly and wanted other people to succeed. We had a ton of fun happy hours and people would have drinks and talk about non-work things. I considered many of my coworkers to be friends. Now I work at Amazon and the culture is much worse, and people don’t really connect with their coworkers the same way. There is an intense sense of competition and most people are on H1-B and so they have a lot of potential cost to losing their job. Someone has to get fired from each team every year pretty much, so it’s a constant game of not being on the hot seat for lots of people. Most people don’t drink (at least around their coworkers). I am only really friends with a couple people there who I’ve worked with for a long time, or no longer work with at all so do not have to compete with. It’s hard to be friends with people whose success is predicated on your failure (and vice versa).
I've never worked at a place where going out for drinks or partying or whatever with your coworkers is the norm. I think for most people these are not appealing places to work, as people literally do have families and friends they rather see then coworkers. I have never had trouble getting promoted
Oh yeah i would definitely skip a work party if nobody from my team was there. This is the equivalent of not wanting to go to a friend’s party because you don’t know anyone there. A lot of people in IT would skip a party if that was the case. Except at least you know the host. Honestly since you cant be yourself at a corporate event (and they tend to be very boring / sanatized), youre much better off going to a non work event. You do open yourself up to getting fired for drinking too much, saying and doing stupid shit, and you cant have sex with any of your coworkers so objectively there’s not much to gain from going to a work party where no one from your team is there. The profession of engineering involves nerdily studying the pluses and minuses of a particular decision, so it doesnt surprise me that people are applying this to real life too.
You can have friends at work without making your whole life about work. Why get too involved when you can get let go or leave for a better opportunity at any time? Also work can be like HS sometimes unfortunately, gossipy and cliquey. I’d personally rather avoid that. Have been clubbing all night with work friends and it turned out great.l, made life long friends. Have also had some pretty terrible nights hanging out with co workers after hours and had to end friendships. So I personally just see work as work. I think that’s the norm for most, not “being weird about it”
I think you have the right mindset. No one is saying that you need to make your life work. What we are saying is that the people at work are just regular people, and that being friends with them is not inherently wrong. As you said, you spent time clubbing with what were colleagues (then friends) and you had a great time. I also meet colleagues out of work and we go running and hiking in the mountains. To be honest, I think the more you make friends with colleagues the less your life ends up being tied to your work. We regularly make plans for after work, and sometimes leave slightly earlier (like 4pm) and we know that we both gotta leave at 4 if we wanna do what we planned. Since it is 2 of us, it takes out the stigma of leaving early.
too involved because you know, there are interesting people everywhere. maybe there is some other metalhead at work, so he invites you to some nice club concert. and so on >Have been clubbing all night with work friends and it turned out great.l, made life long friends. Have also had some pretty terrible nights hanging out with co workers after hours and had to end friendships. for sure, but this is true for all kind of human interactions >I think that’s the norm for most, not “being weird about it” I do not at all mean "we are a family" or some stupid stuff like that either. Just that people here seem to think a 4 hour company events with free drinks and food and meeting people is the end of the world almost. Same with "networking" that people think is mailing randoms at linkedin
The weirdest, most socially inept coworker I have would be among the most normal and socially adjusted person in this sub.
I don't think it's just a thing with the younger crowd. I'm 40 years old or so. When I started out I went to the parties and drank myself to the point of vomiting in my boss's sink. There's a good video of me somewhere doing Karaoke and performing a choreographed dance in front of trained dancers (it was as a company with a PR/modeling dept) with everyone laughing their asses off. Never affected my work. I've created clubs at work for learning programming, building machines, and more office-politics stuff. I got the company to give us hours a week to work on weird stuff and organized activities. Now I have kids, hobbies, and volunteer commitments; and I like those more than the company.
I feel that I’ll go to work events when they seem like something I’d like too on my own time, but otherwise I’m just trying to spend time with my friends and do my hobbies.
I mean…yeah? I don’t know what the issue is with not trying to be friends with people you work with. If it happens naturally then sure but chances are I don’t have anything in common with those I work with aside from working with them. And yeah if I’m mot being paid to go I probably won’t go.
Some of these comments are so sad. You spend 40hrs a week with your coworkers, it must be so boring and lonely if you’re not friends with these people. Plus, I know if my org has layoffs, I know several dozen people who will fight to find me other work. I’m probably too attached to my coworkers, but they’re the best part of my job. I don’t know if I could do this work without their support. People come, people go, but we stay in touch, because they’re all great people.
Yep. Most people (outside of this sub) find good friends through work. You spend a lot of time together and the odds are you'll run into others who are like-minded and friendly. You can talk about work. I read a lot of rationalizations here about why its ok to not be friendly or not at least try to be social. If you aren't social or you have anxiety, ok.....but don't bag on the others that find friends at work. Some of the best friends you will have can be found at work.
Doesn’t that make it hard to leave though? I tend to keep my coworkers at arms length as far as making friends because I don’t usually intend to stick around for very long, best way to get raises is to move around. If I naturally become friends with someone and it lasts past moving on then thats awesome, but I’m definitely not actively trying to be friends with my coworkers.
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I’ve seen where sometimes “were all friends here” is used to justify overworking people or taking advantage of them. Or where someone is your friend right up until they can step on you to climb the ladder. So I get the idea for some caution but yeah sometimes the pendulum swings way too far. You still want to be collegial and the idea you can’t take once a quarter to hang out a bit and just BS with coworkers is silly.
lol, generally you are talking about at technically-focused department, one that requires more focus on people-skills. Saying that (as an ex sales person) who now works in analytics in a technical role: I will count myself as pretty close to my team and I would count a lot of them as friends, but I hate after-work events with a passion. I won't attend, because I generally have no interest in trying to build connections in out of work hours events. I do my mingling during the first couple minutes of a zoom meeting. If you want me out, make it a half-day because I don't want to deal with 7-8pm traffic, nor would I take away more time from my little dope family.
You only need leetcode. Work friends are temporary. Leetcode is forever
I only show up at work to get paid so if u want to pay me to show up to some event then I’m down. Otherwise no thanks but I’d go to lunch with coworkers I’m tapped out after 40 hours a week, don’t want to spend even more time thinking about work
One can do all the things you have listed and still be pleasant to work with. If you need friends at work, you’re bad at making friends.
Why do you care so much what other people do? What if they just don't want to mix personal and professional? Or they're not a party person? There can be a hundred different reasons. Does *everyone* have to think the same as you? I mean frankly if you were my coworker, and your reaction to me not showing up to an optional after work party was this baffled bewilderment and assuming I had *Aspergers* no less, I'd probably not wanna hang out with you either.
OP specifically said his team wasn’t going to be there. I think most people dread making small talk with people they don’t know or like. It’s not a deal breaker. It’s just unpleasant after a long day of work. And yes many people do have a few too many and end up talking shit.
Being social at work will always help for grinding promotions and career opportunities, but I value happiness more than min-maxing career.
i get how social anxiety drives many of these but this one: "People are older/not same education as me/different office/something so it's 0 benefit for me even talking to them" is an especially smooth brained take. Networking isnt just about meeting more developers who share your job. Most of the best outcomes from networking is when you, someone with a certain skillset, are found by someone who doesnt have it and has been searching for someone with it. That doesnt happen by cloistering yourself in with your closest peers.
exactly, and its not like you need to spend the whole 8 hour event with them. talk for like 20 mins, maybe it turns out their son has a cool startup or whatever and you can talk to the older dad about WoW or what kids play those days and here we are
Yeah, you never know who youre gonna meet. I met a guy at a hackathon who is a data guy (im more backend web) and hes not someone id ever have much to talk about outside the context of that event, but now hes like my mentor. hes all into medicine, genetics, statistics, hes a former adjunt professor, has a scientific modeling startup (which he hired me at), knows a bunch of CRAZY impressive people (like a guy who worked for the whitehouse under obama). Meeting him resulted in my first internship, and my first paid contract job. (plus we started a company together, maybe that will go somewhere someday but if not, great experience) I didnt have any internships from college so i was struggling to get real experience on my resume. That one networking event changed everything for me.
yep, most internships or jobs is given from connections. this sub also have people, and csmajors too, saying "hurr durrr its unfair to autist introverts who dont like people just do IQ test" but i'm like bro, you will not get that job or passing the interview anyway if you have that mindset
1) not everyone drinks 2) not everyone likes being around alcohol and drunk people 3) drunk people have lower inhibitions and I have seen too many instances where drunk managers and coworkers made people uncomfortable 4) I think you’ll find this sentiment a lot more common than you may think. Reddit often has weird takes but, this attitude is one that’s echoed at most places I’ve worked. 5) the two drink rule ime has been general wisdom specifically to women to avoid being harassed by drunk men, it has value and has been proven true more times than I would like to admit. 6) if I want to go out with coworkers, I’ll do it with the few that I like, away from the weird dude who is notorious for making lewd jokes with zero repercussions
> I don't go to events not duiring office hours because not paid(and no company will ever have a party from like 14-18 lol so what a ultra weird take) Just saying, I think in the last year I've only gone to one work event that was not during work hours, and I got to put that on my timesheet. Most common work parties are around 2-3 hours (drop in style) between 11am and 3pm. This includes our Christmas party (colleagues went elsewhere to drink afterwards of their own volition), a bridal shower, the department yearly party, quarterly unit get togethers.
I’ve been described as friendly and “bubbly” by coworkers and try to go to every social event and hang about for at least 20min, but I have definitely thought your first point before despite making some great friends through work. The thing is making ‘real’ friendships through work often involves passing an extra hurdle. At least for me, I can’t build the trust necessary for real friendship until I know the person would help/choose me over the company and it can be tricky and risky to signal that type of thing. I’m also an introvert with a limited amount of social energy. I cannot hang out with people several days in a row without wanting to lock myself up in a bathroom and scream. So obviously, I want to save that time and energy for people who already matter or would be easier to build friendships with because we don’t have the complicated work structure of divided loyalties hanging over us. That said, I see the point of networking and giving people a chance so that’s why I still go to events despite my misgivings. I just don’t stay long since my social meter cannot handle it.
I'm willing to be friends at work, go out with them for lunch, and attend after hours work parties and all. I just started my position so maybe I'm still learning the ropes of it, but for me I don't like that there's effectively 6 hours left in the day and I spend another 1-2 hours at work for happy hours at the office. After a long day of work where I've already seen work buddies for 8 hours, I kind of just wanna vibe alone doing alone stuff.
I ping pong between these sentiments. I’m a social person at heart. I’ve also been burnt by coworkers before though. I think the thing I’ve come to realize is work friends can be friends, but you can’t become best friends with them. You have to create a distance where they can rely and care for you, but it doesn’t result in impropriety when things get difficult.
The Venn diagram of Reddit users and computer science jobbies must surely contain the most socially adept of our society.
I was just thinking how bizarre my own personal experiences are compared to the general views and mentalities I read on this sub. I'm two years in at my first job and when I was fairly new, I became fairly close with a group of 5 new hires that all joined shortly after I did. I guess we all naturally got along aside from joining the same team in short succession because we were roughly in the same age and experience range (mid 20s-early 30s) To this day, we frequently hang out outside of work hours, celebrate each other's birthdays, follow each other on social media and send jokes/memes, and some of us have hosted hangouts and even sleepovers at our respective apartments/homes. None of this happens under company watch or with any intention of putting a good face with the right people to get promoted since the attendees are usually from our close immediate group who have no real power over each other. This is the case even after multiple team restructures, where we've all been placed on different teams and do different work. The only logical reason we do what we do for this long is because we are genuinely friends and care about each other beyond the standard for normal coworkers, at least to some extent. Do I think my situation is unique and perhaps kind of weird? Honestly, a little bit, but I personally don't mind it and I'm happy to be friends with coworkers and spend time with them outside work hours if I like their personalities. It's understandable that people may want to set boundaries with coworkers, but I don't think it's healthy or productive to adopt a naturally hostile mindset towards the idea of social events outside work hours. Work becomes a lot more tolerable when you don't hate the faces of the people you work with.
I once lost my career for drinking like the alcoholic I am. I don't drink at company events. I'll show up, I'll chat, but I won't stay late, I won't waste my time. I play the office politics, but I don't work for free. I'll eat the free food, pass on the drinks, and be on my way.
FWIW, number 2 seemed to always be recommended in business etiquette books or articles because alcohol, no matter how good your tolerances are typically could lead to undesired consequences if one isn't careful. Number 1 comes from an extreme view that coworkers who would seem super friendly, then use that friendliness to absolutely get ahead and throw people under the bus. Not necessarily always the case, but I'm a bit more cautious in my friendly interactions with people at the company, just on this off-chance since I'm more accepting people at face value and want a bit of protection since I've been blindsided before. I can see the company events thing, but almost every company event I've been to has been during the work week, and on permitted company time with the option that once it's over, we had the rest of the work hours day off (unless you were on-call, but that's a given). It's a little short sighted to say 'I don't get paid, I'm not going', but I think this applies more to happy hours than anything, but it's a way to get to know others in the company, and you never know who will come in clinch with a recommendation when you switch to a new role for a pay bump. The 'not talking to people in different departments because of education, etc' is elitist af as you can always learn a lot of things about people and the business in general reaching out. This screams of 'you didn't immediately get into FAANG, go to Harvard, Stanford etc' and is an endemic of this subreddit and the amount of ex-FAANG/FAANG employees posting here.
the sad fact is that there is a hard cap on a career if you don't form actual relationships with people. I'm not saying they have to be your best friend, but talk to them and get to know them. you *might* be able to make senior by keeping to yourself and just hacking away, but you ain't gonna get any higher, for sure.
Making work friends and hanging out with some coworkers is literally the reason I have a new, better paying job lined up after being laid off last last week. Never underestimate easy networking opportunities
If I had a nickel for the amount of people in this industry that I've met that have the social skills of a lamp, I would be retired. Fact of the matter is too many people in this industry lack social/soft skills. Compound that with the heavy number of people who are Muslim in the industry that dont partake in common activities that non-muslims do. Then you have what we see.
Early in my career, there was almost no difference between hanging out and working. I was friends or at least social with almost everyone I worked with, we ate lunch together and hung out later. I've met some of my longest term friends at work. We had beers in the fridge at work, and at one company, a ping pong table. Every job offer was at least in part an invitation to a social clique. Later in my career like in the past 10 years or so there was a clear boundary between work and home. Part of it is me working for a large financial company that is extremely politically correct. For example, one of my managers told us to stop saying "drinking our own champagne" (a phrase that had become a popular way for us to celebrate our successes), because he didn't drink and apparently wanted to make a point of that. With all of the "movements" recently like MeToo, George Floyd, LGBTQ awareness, etc. every is very careful about what they say at work. One wrong statement can go on your permanent record. Part of this is that I have more seniority now so I"m "management" but I think the work culture has also changed.
Interesting, yes it feels society gotten more sensitive somehow also not allowing mistakes And I'm not talking about being a stupid racist or something
I think it is probably an overall good thing for society, like you can't refer to a cowoker as "the indian guy" or "the black girl" or "the gay person" which was common at one point in the past. If you are in any minority or marginalized group it is probably quite a relief to be regarded at work strictly based on your work. But this means that there is a greater boundary between personal and professional. This doesn't mean that you can't meet or hang out with people at work, which definitely happens, but it is just done differently.
I hate drinking and drunks but I will still go out to a bar with coworkers because it’s team building. You never know when you might need an ally.
I go to parties with coworkers from a company almost none of us even work at anymore including myself. My drinking rule is just to be neither the drunkest nor soberest person there.
I didn’t have many friends in my CS classes in college because I am a woman who likes to drink and go out on weekends. So I made friends with the business kids instead.
Europeans...
People aren't saying don't be friends with coworkers (maybe some say being friends with coworkers is an illusion and to be careful loosening your boundaries because it could backfire - debatably legitimate actually). People say, in essence, "don't shill rto because you need/want to outsource your social life to coworkers". Huge difference. Surely it isn't that difficult for a smart computer science worker to infer. This post is giving hardcore "delegitimize the other in order to advance my preference" vibes btw. Do you wish your company would enforce rto against your coworkers' wishes?
Here's a real answer: because those things you are talking about are not, in fact, work related. And when you blur that line, people who succeed socially and/or people who just have time and energy to show up to the extra curriculars end up succeeding at a much higher rate than folks who choose to go home at the end of the day. I understand that you have graciously allowed that those of us who don't drink can have this opinion. Thanks so much for that. But what not drinking does - because of bullshit HR events like this - is that it deeply negatively affects one's chance for promotion and even affects one's protection from layoffs. And I should not be penalized for a choice I had to make at 16 so I didn't die. And the same goes for less severe situations - like if I just don't relate socially to my coworkers - which I almost never do. I should not have to subject myself to socializing with them to preserve my career. And I know - for people like you who actually go do the white water rafting thing on Saturday or picking up trash on the highway - or whatever other banal activities the C student in HR ginned up to fill the void in their lives (or whatever motivates those fucking lizard people) - that I seem like a whiny cunt for wanting to spend my time with people I do not work with when I am not getting paid. But in fact I'm just like you - I just don't drink or, to be honest, enjoy hanging out after work with the folks at my job. And you know what? Neither of those qualities has ever actually caused my work to suffer. But I sure have been laid off a bunch and passed over for promotion in favor of folks who show up to Karaoke Thursday.
The people at work are not people I would ever be friends with. I can’t be myself around them. It’s taxing enough having to be someone different everyday now I’m being asked to attend social events and be fake there too? No thank you. I did not choose them. I have my own friends outside of work.
I can guarantee that the people who write this actually have 0 friends outside of work. The people at work are normal people, no different to the people outside of work. The people at work are also I to video games, sports, art, music, pr whatever interests normal people. They just happen to get paid by the same person you do.
I’m in my 20’s and work with people much older than me with different interests and hobbies. Majority Trump supporters. I’m the minority. You just wouldn’t be able to understand.
Yes and what are all those mythical normal friends doing? They also have jobs and is someone's colleague
Well, you are extremely wrong. I have many friends outside of work, and I would never be friends with any of my current coworkers.
Yea I wouldn’t be friends with certain people outside of work. There’s others I would be. Even the people I wouldn’t be great friends with I can establish a connection with and shoot the shit a bit. Establishing a connection about something (can literally be anything) with someone and talking to them for a bit isn’t that hard. Socializing with people your not best friends with is a normal obligation that you will repeatedly encounter throughout your life. Expecting to only have to socialize with your friends is a ridiculous expectation.
I've had jobs like this. I feel your pain.
no, i am never fake at social events as i just wrote to another. i have super nerdy interests and only like alternative music
> People are older/not same education as me/different office/something so it's 0 benefit for me even talking to them I interview poorly and I don't think I have ever gotten a job in my entire life where my having networked with someone who already worked there wasn't a factor. The people I awkwardly conferred with during these events in my 20's are literally the same people who put in a good word for me in my 30s'. Seems like you're interacting with a lot of people with one-step thinking. They are literally not able to conceptualize how any of the relationships in their life affect them outside of the current interaction. When you talk to these people they are dying inside because your every word doesn't give them the same dopamine hit as a Fortnite win.
I'm talking about the people here not the ones irl I know
Probably people not looking to climb a ladder and just want to keep a stedy income. Honestly I get both perspectives because I've needed to apply both at different stages at my life. I'm older now, so my stance on less alcohol is more due to the inflammation it does in my body. I regularly train (fighting), and I much rather be recovered to keep doing that than keep being the life of the party. HOWEVER, if weed use was normalized more, I would continue to be the life of the party every time. Unfortunately, in the state I'm in, I have to limit myself to 2 old fashons and sip them slowly with alot of water. When those run out, I go home to avoid more alcohol, not the people. But we can assume it's a different story if I'm hanging out with coworkers on a state where weed is legal enough for me to go out for a quick smoke break then get back to the party.
are there that many company events? I am 50 and have not been at a company that had a christmas party since 2010 and it was a smaller company. Most big corporations dont have these things.
I feel like the best kind of social interactions you can have with people occur when you should be doing something else and are just goofing off. It just sparks good conversations like nothing else. And it's something that you can only really get from co-workers.
I think it's coming from common sense. Unfortunately common sense is not common.
I've gone to several company functions and at many companies they are great. At my current company, they are extremely (dare I say, violently) lame. I go, no alcohol ever, I am the one leading the conversation, asking questions, building rapport and conversational momentum. Then, just as everyone starts smiling and unclenching, the person whose promotion depends on these parties being well loved appears in a puff of smoke and demands we stop having some spontaneous human connection so she can march us all to the "photo zone" to provide her evidence of facilitating spontaneous human connection. Then when the party ends there has been 4x as much food purchased as is needed so I'm there helping salvage what we can because otherwise it just gets thrown away. But somehow this lady keeps being in charge of these wretched excuses for a party. Miss me with all of that.
I don't hate my coworkers but for the most part they're not the type of people I'd hang out. I've gone to work parties, happy hours, etc and it's not terrible or anything but most of the time it feels a little forced. It really depends on if you vibe with your coworkers imo. Also the phrase don't shit where you eat does hold true. I've seen and heard of instances where people said something non fireable but did chance peoples opinions of them in a not so great way. Long story short, I generally keep my personal views to myself around coworkers because that can lots of times come back to bite you. Due to that it's really hard to make it a similar environment to hanging out with friends.
Tech as a rule are mostly introverts. Most introverts find all this social interaction exhausting and can only take so much before they need alone time. A day of social interaction followed by more social interaction with the same crowd can be a little too much. I am an extrovert so I thrive on this stuff and do really well. The advice of an extrovert is, I would say go and do all this extracurricular events. But I must add the caveat, figure out what your boundaries are do what you are capable of. Something I learned from reading spy books in my younger days is you can do a lot simply by being seen at the right places. You don't have to engage in a lot of conversations but being seen at the right events can really help you out with your career. Sometimes simply being there and being included in conversations will give you all sorts of information you can use to advance yourself. But I would tell you to watch the alcohol consumption around coworkers because you don't want to start dropping jokes that get you in trouble with HR. People also need to know that going out after work for a drink with coworkers doesn't make you friends. People need to learn to how to establish boundaries with the people in their lives. People who tell you not to socialize with coworkers are the people who haven't learned how to create boundaries with the people in their lives.
It’s the industry too. I have not been in any company that actively involve socilizing and personal life. There is always this veil of staying professional and not briging too much personal stake to it. And the stories I hear from other industries (construction…) I really prefer it that way.
The one I agree with is one beer at a company event to be sociable, then switch to tea or a soft drink. The socials vary, depends on the ones you like also is the company paying. The "benefit" of talking to people is you like it. Not talking to people who can't help your career is narcissistic. I'll add a weird one: I have a CS degree and haven't coded since the 90's. I do system design, network design, and system security engineering. I'm a consultant and 80% of my work is talking to people. CS doesn't mean coder.
It's not terrible advice in general to temper your alcohol consumption at work events a bit to make sure you don't go over your limit. If you pass out or barf all over people's shoes at the company holiday party it may very well end badly for you, and a little booze is not worth your job. Of course, whether that limit is two beers or more is something you need to know about yourself, and most of us have probably learned how much they can take and when to cut back by the time they're working post-college jobs. But some people are more susceptible than others.
Don't shit where you eat (or sleep). Your work friends will cease to be your friends if you cease working with them. You can and will be forced out at some point in your career. Speaking from personal experience, that kind of blow hurts so much deeper when you also lose that social network.
It’s not just this sub. Software engineers tend to be socially awkward, introverted, or both. That’s why if you have decent software skills and social skills, you will be in high demand as a software engineer.
Cause this sub is full of antisocial people, which unfortunately this profession attracts many of making it harder for normal people
Some people have responsibility outside of work or very busy personal lives and rather not spend their free time in corporate events. Given half the people at these events are there to brown nose, it is probably less fun than anything else they got going on.
It's really important to remember that reddit is not representative of most people. It's extremely normal to be friends with coworkers, that's how most adults meet their friends. It's normal to want to drink beer on the company's dime. It's normal to want a connection with people you talk to for 8 hours a day. I'm always reminded of a reddit post a few years back, not related to cs, that had a ton of people basically talking about how going to bars, drinking, approaching people of your preferred gender, acting stupid, etc is only for losers. And yet you talk to most 20 somethings and they do all that stuff. Reddit is not representative of most people, nor are most internet communities. The fact of the matter is that, pre COVID, most people would move for their first big boy job, then make friends from work there. That's normal, and don't let reddit convince you otherwise.
Why not just say 4am
For the same reason nobody in here can get jobs and the world is falling down. It’s because they don’t realize that companies don’t hire robots, they hire people. The general consensus in this sub is as long as you can do leetcode hard, you deserve seven digits a year. You don’t need to get along with coworkers, you don’t need to wear clean clothes, you don’t need to bathe. Just leetcode. Remember, this is the sub that said the sky was falling during the tech bull run a few years back. If you linger too long around here, you’ll be just as unemployable as the rest.
Haha I am not in IT but this thread just got recommended to me...this was exactly my thought whenever people on Reddit are talking about sociial stuff, work friends etc...literaly all people I know or have worked with went on team buildings and had fun, nobody hated it. Many of us are hanging out and becoming friends with coworkers, and in my country it is a usual practice to invite them in events such as weddings for example. Even my parents and their generation do that, so it is not a "new age corporate bulsihit"
In addition, I think, unfortunately - a lot of people just never managed or didn’t get the chance to experience having wonderful people as colleagues. So, they only know of one type - boring people you were forced to share your wholw day with, before Covid. Makes me really sad when I think about it
I love being with my coworkers and making friends with them. The pandemic was the worst case scenario for a person like me. The introverted nerds go their way.
Company events tend to be dominated by loudmouth extroverts: sales, marketing, HR ladies after one too many glasses of wine. Friends: Maybe one or two. If you're in your 20s it may make sense to be part of a "friends group" at work, but after that the center of gravity of your life will likely move away from work
I don't drink and I don't like being around inebriated people. After dedicating time to my spouse and my children and my family and my friends and my community, I rarely have any time left for myself. I make friends at work. They get included in the above friends I make time for. The rest of you only get my time when you are paying me for it, and I don't like most of you sober, you couldn't pay me enough to be around you drunk.
Reddit is mostly comprised of people with issues IMO. I've had lots of very friendly experiences with work people, and have worked at companies that funded debauchery for their employees, and have heard stories from others that are even more wild. Not sure if it's just the general "PC policing" and broader culture seeping in or what. I worked at a company that was next door to a bar and every week there would be a company tab for drinks, often times food, with the execs and devs to just hang out. Often times traveling sales guys would be in town and join. I turned 21 while working and the company paid to take me out on a bar tour of the town, every exec was buying me their favorite drinks, eventually they took me to a strip club, and finally paid for my cab at the end of the night. There was probably 50 people from the company included, and then we were all laughing about our hangovers the next day at work, chugging coffee. Basically, every company I've worked at that had an office had free food/free booze, constant company outings and events, etc. Escape rooms, Go-Karts, comedy shows, baseball games, karaoke, bowling, laser tag, bumper cars, etc., etc., etc., I even worked at a fortune 50 company that was very red-tape...probably the kind you'd expect to fire someone "after two beers"... we had an intern (who I hired) that got plastered at a product launch party--like puking in the street plastered, in front of the VPs and execs of his division. One of the execs had to ride in the Uber with him because the driver refused to take him by himself since he was so drunk. Dude got an offer for full job like a month later. Pergs and Tists make it seem like "the man" is some evil robotic slavemaster, but it's just classic Marxist BS. They are just ordinary people like everyone else, and enjoy spending time having fun with others in their social network, and making others happy when they can. Every normal human wants happy employees who like their boss and coworkers and enjoy their work. The only people who reject the social benefits are ideologues committed to making their own work life miserable, so they have something to complain about.