[lapcat]

> That’s not what the parent comment implied. It implied any tech career required this.

No, that's not what it implied. Only if you give the least charitable interpretation, rather than the most charitable interpretation.

There are work events that are unavoidable for many people. For all people? No, of course not. There are exceptions to every generalization. But let's not pretend that work events are unimportant to careers, generally speaking.

Would you not say that networking is important, in general? The article author was specifically talking about a networking event.

My point was that these events are not necessarily about pure personal enjoyment, and finding them disagreeable in some way is not necessarily a reason to avoid them, if it's important to your career that you attend. That's not a "waste of time".