[twoquestions]

What I've always been taught is when you go into work, you cease to be a person, and become a thing. You have no dreams, desires, wants, emotions, or needs (You may be hired to project an emotion, but you're not to have any authentic emotions yourself). Your sole reason for existence is to provide the labor your employer is buying.

Your own loneliness is your sole responsibility. If you don't have the information you need to do your job that is your manager's responsibility to remedy, but their job stops the instant you have the tools you need to do yours.

[dbecker]

I haven't worked for an employer that's held that view since high school (when I bagged groceries).

I'm skeptical any successful business treats high-skilled employees that way.

[LandR]

I've worked as a developer where we weren't expected to talk to each other for non work related stuff. To the point where it would be brought up by managers, or even an employee pulled and told they were talking too much.

You are expected to go in, head down, do your 8 hours work, go home. Non work stuff was expected to be kept to non work hours.

I've also worked at highly social workplaces, drinking on the job, people playing guitar in office, everyone going out for lunch together, everyone felt like a good friend (and even after leaving are still good friends).

I preferred the second, I'm not sure which was more productive though...

I think the 2nd waa great few years but it probably wasn't sunstainable and I kinda understand an employer would prefer me to be a code creating robot rather than a human.

[sunsunsunsun]

You just described two extremes, surely there is a middle ground somewhere?

[poulsbohemian]

This was every company I've ever worked at or consulted to, which is in large part at the root of why I went freelance. Are there really great companies with culture that treats highly-paid, highly-skilled professionals as professionals? Yes, I'm sure there are, but they are rare.

[LarryDarrell]

The worst are the ones that constantly say, "We're like a family here." Family of psychopaths maybe.

YMMV, I find companies in the Midwest would rather you check your empathy at the door.

[twoquestions]

You detailed my thoughts much better than I did.

Maybe it's my Midwestern upbringing, but I'd rather just get my job done than be an emotional sop for my coworkers, or worse have other people be an emotional sop for me.

[bomb199]

> but I'd rather just get my job done than be an emotional sop for my coworkers, or worse have other people be an emotional sop for me

I don't think you have to be in THAT kind of relationship with coworkers.

[leggomylibro]

>We're just one big family and, when you've been to a few domestic disputes, Littlebottom, I can assure you that you'll see the resemblance.

- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

[quickthrower2]

Ironically not many people can bear to work with their relatives!

[radlad]

They are rare, but I've found myself at one so I can say with certainty that they do exist.

And it's in the company's best interest: Turnover is extremely low, which means that knowledge and talent are retained. It makes business sense.

[exelius]

Go work for a big 4 as a consultant in your specialty? Sure you’ll work 80 hours a week and travel basically all the time, but you get a lot of latitude and professionalism in exchange for that.

[p0ints]

My (anecdotal) observation is that this big4 "professionalism" is mostly a self-imporant delusion (probably imprinted into people by years of company culture and trainings), and that a lot of senior people in there are insufferable wankers. That's from my experience with senior managers from Deloitte and PwC.

[exelius]

Haha, completely true, but you get a lot of latitude and you are actually valued as an employee — unlike most salaried jobs, there is a direct correlation between your paycheck and the company’s revenue. There is also a high incentive for the company to pay to keep your skills up-to-date.

The culture in consulting has its problems, but things are getting better and we’re seeing a lot more women entering senior roles which is starting to fix some of the bad behavior that has traditionally gone on.

As for acting self-important? It takes a fucking ego to have a 27 year old kid tell a 50 year old SVP how to do his job. But as a result, people in consulting generally respect each others large egos, which gets you some degree of professionalism.

[maxaf]

Your point of view is considered scandalous by the local audience, but I'm inclined to agree. I was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in 1990s Russia after history threw a few sucker punches in our direction. I can say from watching my parents and other adults that "shut up & do your job no matter what" was a common enough sentiment that to me it might as well be the only possible truth.

Here and now, in late capitalism, we seem to be aspiring to some other arrangement, which is commendable in itself, but I observe it with healthy skepticism. It is my responsibility to make myself happy. I'm lucky to have a boss who cares about my well-being, but I see his efforts as secondary and something to be leveraged in order to improve the company as a whole, not somehow make me happier as a person. I'll take care of that last part myself.

Edit: a late-breaking thought I would like to include. He who externalizes happiness is bound to be disappointed, as the incentive is simply missing to make others happy without asking for anything is return. Better learn to DIY happiness.

[toomuchtodo]

I was born in US midwest, and am in my mid 30s. I do not go to work to make friends or to be social. I will be polite, but I am there to get paid. I provide labor, and in return I receive money.

Socializing is for outside my 40 hours/week, with those I chose, not those my employer chooses. The touchy feely family feeling isn't for me.

[maxaf]

Exactly! That's why we have separate words for "family" and "colleagues".

[rootusrootus]

That seems healthy. I am a newly minted manager and maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, but I try to ensure the people reporting to me are happy at work. Within the bounds of meeting the needs of the company, of course, since we are professionals. I try to encourage my people to have a healthy relationship with the office and their peers, be realistic, etc, partly because I like them as people but a certain aspect of it is that I want us all to be successful and productive as a team. As to their personal happiness it really isn't my place nor within my skills to work on. I'm not a therapist.

[copper_think]

There may be an expectation at work for you to have the desire to advance within the organization, i.e. career ambition.

[JeremyBanks]

That's wonderful philosophizing, but if you RTFA the entire point is that it affects productivity and so it would be negligent for employers to ignore it.

[ghostbrainalpha]

What does "RTFA" mean?

[DoreenMichele]

Read the featured article.

[stevenwoo]

Read the f(obscene gerund) article.

[ABCLAW]

RTFA = Read the [Expletive] Article.

[twoquestions]

I mean the fact that it does is the problem, and it shouldn't be on managers to fix it. You're lonely, your problem.

At every job I've ever worked, you're paid for your output, not to socialize.

[geofft]

A manager's job is to deliver business value. A manager's job is not to hypothetically deliver business value if their employees were less emotional.

If the manager chooses to deliver business value by hiring humans instead of robots, the manager is obligated to care about the fact they are human and help them improve their productivity, to ensure that effort the company spends training the employee is not wasted if they lose morale and leave, and so forth.

A manager who ignores these responsibilities might be great at pursuing an ideal, but their job is not pursuing an ideal. Their job is delivering business value.

If the human you hire needs to socialize to be productive, that's no different from the printer you bought needing toner to be productive. Telling a printer without toner "You're paid for your output" is shirking your responsibilities.

(There are certainly a lot of managers—and a lot of businesses—that are more interested in pursuing some philosophy of how business should be run than effectively delivering business value. They are objectively wrong.)

[wtetzner]

> You're lonely, your problem. If it causes lower productivity, then it's the company's problem. Unless they're skilled at hiring people who don't have this problem.

> At every job I've ever worked, you're paid for your output, not to socialize.

Of course, but if socializing increases output, then aren't they the same thing?

[sgift]

Correct. Which is one of the reasons many people who transition to management from tech suck at it: Humans are not machines. If they have problems outside their work those problems will leak into the work and will influence it. So, you better try to help them if you expect them to work at their best capacity. Or you ignore it, bleed people out and then cry that no one there does good work, everyone quits all the time and you are such a misunderstood poor manager.

The idea that you can just hire people who will never feel lonely (or have some other problems in their life) is in itself quite amusing.

[scarface74]

At every job I've ever worked, you're paid for your output, not to socialize.

There are three kinds of power in an organization role, expert, and relationship. Role power is actually the least effective and relationship power is the most.

It took me awhile to learn that. I've gotten a lot further in my career over the last 10 years than the 10 years before that based on building professional relationships and networks both inside and outside of work than I could have solely by becoming more of an "expert". I know people who are just as smart as I am and many who are better technically who haven't gotten as far because they don't build relationships, don't know how manage up, and can't interview well.

I work at a company that has grown and gotten very beuracratic. Other people on the team - including managers - who aren't as effective at getting things done because they have to go through official channels. I've been able to just send a message with a request directly to a person who I knew could do it, get it done and then go through the official process for documentation.

[koala_man]

Have you ever been paid for eating lunch, drinking coffee or going to the bathroom?

Management is not required to keep me happy, but I'm also not required to work there.

[scarface74]

The only thing management can do to "keep me happy" is to pay me market value and keep me on new technology so I can stay employable. If neither of those are true, I don't stay there.

I don't socialize at work to gain friends, I socialize to gain allies. I've had 5 jobs over 10 years.

[gaius]

I mean the fact that it does is the problem, and it shouldn't be on managers to fix it. You're lonely, your problem.

The funny thing is, for all your cynicism, the world is actually far bleaker than even you paint it. A manager sees being friends with your cow-orkers as a lever to extract unpaid overtime.