[Rinzler89]

>Man, I'm really sick of the robotic culture of tech. It's such a stuffy bummer.

HN is like this too unfortunately. Anything slightly out of the high brow sanitized tech groupthink gets downvoted or flagged even if it doesn't break the rules.

It's mostly people who think the world must be a certain sanitized way and if you tell them the reality is otherwise they must suppress you to preserve their world view which they see as being the ritcheous one.

People are too sensitive and act on their feelings and emotions instead of logic and critical thinking. Which is ironic considering how such people pretend to be liberal, educated and all about free speech and freedom of opinion but only as long as your opinion matches theirs.

[mydriasis]

> It's mostly people who think the world must be a certain sanitized way and if you tell them the reality is otherwise they must suppress you to preserve their world view which they see as being the ritcheous one.

With regards to camaraderie and banter, I don't even want to talk about world views. I genuinely don't think they matter too much in that context. Really what I'm sick of is just a lack of any attempt to make a connection whatsoever. I don't need to align with a person politically or socially to build a connection and have good workplace banter. There's just such a fundamental unwillingness to do so, in my experience. That's what bugs me.

And I know the difference. I've been in both blue collar and white collar environments. Blue collar people look to build the connection and bond together almost immediately, just about every time. There's a period of 'feeling each other out' when you start on a new job or with a new coworker so that they can suss out _how to connect with you_. That's right: it's such a first-class citizen to their working relationships that there's an entire art form to initiating it.

Contrasting with the white collar environment... it's almost non-existent, unless you work with people who, ironically, come from blue collar environments. I think it's really sad, and I think we could benefit from being a little looser. I don't think that means we need to drag any contentious topics in, nor do I think it means that we need to drag ourselves into un-professionalism. There's just something to be said for being able to be goofy and chat with coworkers that seems to be lost on the white collar environment.

Harmony is the strength and support of all institutions. Banter and camaraderie build that harmony.

[vunderba]

I don't know what this phenomenon is by which humans take personal experiences and attempt to extrapolate broad, sweeping generalizations and/or present anecdotal data as objective fact, but it's far too prevalent for my liking.

I'm sorry that your experiences differed from mine, but some of my best friends are connections that I organically grew in ostensibly white-collar jobs (in the education and tech sectors).

Many of the engineers I know are some of the most eclectic goofballs you'll ever meet.

[mydriasis]

I've worked a fair bit in both environments. Maybe I've somehow missed out on 'the mean', but that's my experience. I've met the eclectic goofballs in tech too, but they're far from the norm.

[saagarjha]

Yep, that's why https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42070077 got flagged. Because it was not "high brow sanitized groupthink". Clearly doesn't break the rules at all.