Microsoft Internal Documents - Permanent Work From Home

All of this WFH network activity whereby humans are rarely seen has just reduced the Skynet takeover timeline by 100 years.
"We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride..."
 
Oncen companies realize that work from home "works" they will start hiring further and further away. Remember when technical support centers were based in your home country?
If you can work from home, so can someone else.
I dont have an opinion on wfh one way or the other. But its not going to be long before we will see the same people crying "they took our jobs!"

It depends. Most upper level management is realizing that the outsourced labor is typically lacking in critical thinking skills. For brain dead help desk jobs? Sure. But for admin/engineering the outsourcing experiment has largely failed, because they just don’t have the education system in place outside of the western countries that really grows critical thinkers. They do great on tests, and have a degree. That’s about it, and when it comes to doing the actual work they aren’t worth it. Not to mention the national security risks.
 
Productivity is up and suicides will follow.

People can't stay at home all the time.
I'm inclined to agree. Our company wants us to be WFH right now, but allows us to come into the office if we want. I've been working in the office every day since this thing started. I really can't do WFH on a full-time basis. WFH gives me a bad psychological feeling...my mind keeps saying 'Something's obviously gone horribly wrong...'
 
It depends. Most upper level management is realizing that the outsourced labor is typically lacking in critical thinking skills. For brain dead help desk jobs? Sure. But for admin/engineering the outsourcing experiment has largely failed, because they just don’t have the education system in place outside of the western countries that really grows critical thinkers. They do great on tests, and have a degree. That’s about it, and when it comes to doing the actual work they aren’t worth it. Not to mention the national security risks.
While IMO largely true, the company I worked with right out of undergrad had a huge engineering center in Beijing and started to move some of the engineers over here. Some of them were the worst co-workers I have ever worked with. One had a Masters degree and apparently 2+ years of experience after graduating and was asking me how to do things constantly when I just got out of undergrad.
 
While IMO largely true, the company I worked with right out of undergrad had a huge engineering center in Beijing and started to move some of the engineers over here. Some of them were the worst co-workers I have ever worked with. One had a Masters degree and apparently 2+ years of experience after graduating and was asking me how to do things constantly when I just got out of undergrad.
To some degree this is an artifact of the current generation. People in western countries tend to take for granted how much they learn outside of school. Some years ago I had to train a team in China on some automotive engineering topics. It was a young team but, on paper, all well educated - mostly Masters degrees. They were shockingly ill-versed in the fundamentals such that I was myself struggling to understand how this team would be expected to do what they were tasked to. But, over time I came to realize that most of them had never seen nor sat in a vehicle until their last couple of years of school. They were trying to learn an engineering discipline for an industry that many of them--one generation out of rural / poverty--had no exposure to, even as a consumer. Me? It's been a part of my life since my parents drove me home from the hospital after I was born. :)

Now, that generation's children are taking cars and riding high speed trains while immersed in their smartphones from the very beginning, so they will enjoy the important social context that lets us really internalize what we learn at school. At that point it will be a very different game.
 
The positive side of all this increased WFH business is housing.

If we enter a period where you can work from anywhere you have internet, many can and will combine the best of big city salaries, with more suburban and urban real estate costs.

Provided they can get decent internet, of course.
The negative is outsourcing. If you can work from anywhere you have internet, why employ anyone in a high cost of living state? Or why in an expensive country at all? Why not some guys in India where the per capita GDP is $2K?

I worked from home for about a year and a half and I loved it, and I was extremely productive because I wanted to look good to encourage it to be a permanent thing. Not sure those high up making the big decisions even noticed, and all WFH was universally cancelled prior to COVID. COVID hit and I figured I'd get to work from home, but nope determined to be "essential employee". Could be worse though, as we had massive layoffs.
 
And thanks to that my house's value, about 30 miles from a major metropolis, has shot up in value -- we had 5 offers last weekend, the first we listed it. My wife and I are now moving about 25 miles further to the "country-country" (where she's from). Little do the people know who are moving from the city to our current town won't be getting the quiet suburban life they expect. It's being overrun by people vacating the city, cheap housing is planned to be built the thousands, and all the nice old shops, pubs etc are selling to chains and getting the F out. All while the infrastructure was already buckling and our town council is doing nothing since they're on the take from housing developers. ...The town is going to be a suburban sprawl wasteland out of a Springsteen song soon.

As for work, I'll likely only need to go to the office starting end of Q2 (depending on the Covid situ) 2-3 times a week. That's more than sufficient for me and my teams to maintain the efficiencies that come with social cohesion. Adding another 20 minutes to my already hour-long commute 2-3 times/week I can handle to live away from the muck of the city and suburbs. I paid my dues living in the heart of NYC, Paris and London for 20 years and I've had enough of that noise: I never liked city living, was always there expressly for the work. And I certainly don't want to live in a suburban wasteland. I'll take a quiet village any day over Midtown Manhattan, as long as I can get back to the city a few times a week.

Most people based around high-cost cities are, however, missing a major negative of the mass move to WFH. Organizations are using it as an excuse to accelerate their "workforce dispersion" strategy i.e. moving their work hubs to lower-cost areas. This means high-pay/cost jobs located around major metros will be moved faster to lower-cost areas. For IT workers, once in a while this means the move is to places like Columbus, Baltimore, Des Moines; most of the time it's to India. My organization has been quickly killing positions in the 1000s around high-cost Metro areas and replacing them in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Manilla...
 
Oncen companies realize that work from home "works" they will start hiring further and further away. Remember when technical support centers were based in your home country?
If you can work from home, so can someone else.
I dont have an opinion on wfh one way or the other. But its not going to be long before we will see the same people crying "they took our jobs!"
Already happened/ing. Most orgs have figured out, while they may not get a single quality engineers in NYC, they'll get three ok-ish engineers in Bangalore for the same price. The only thing holding back the floodgates of shipping all quality dev jobs overseas before Covid was efficiencies of having dev co-located with users. Now with Covid, no one is co-located (time zones not withstanding) so that blocker for organizations to keep people in SF, NYC, HK, Tokyo, London etc is less of an issue. Cultural and language differences are largely disregarded by management at this point.

And as for learning a new skillset that differentiates from outsourced resources, this doesn't pan out. Universities and Business Services groups in India, China etc. main point of being is to replicate and proliferate these skills.
 
One thing I can say is that WFH has brought my property value way up for some reason. I purchased about 20 miles outside Boston less than two years ago, and paid 220K for a 120 year old fixer upper. The house next to me, a fixer upper sold for 350K. 200 more square feet though. House at the top of my street we found out is selling for 420k! I live in a cute/quiet neighborhood, but its NOT worth 420K.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE working from home. Been doing it for about 10 years or so. I was not into office politics or gossip so this is perfect for me. I am pretty anti-social anyway, so again, works for me. Need some interaction? Go to the mall for lunch or something. Go out to eat.
 
In my industry we can't permanently work from home. It's unpossible.
 
I've been working from home since March. I work for our main office, we fix everything remotely in the other offices anyways, so it wasn't a big deal for us. We have one person who goes into the office once a week (or more depending on our needs) and that's been working really well for us. That said, it will be nice to return to the normal routine (whenever that happens, lol). I miss my public transportation and walking to the office.
 
One side effect of WFH that I've seen, much of the silly paperwork seems to be going away. some of the stuff that used to take an email and a form or two is now 'hit the portal and it's done'. I wonder if some of the people that do nothing but push office paperwork are going to (rightly, finally) be out of a job.
 
One side effect of WFH that I've seen, much of the silly paperwork seems to be going away. some of the stuff that used to take an email and a form or two is now 'hit the portal and it's done'. I wonder if some of the people that do nothing but push office paperwork are going to (rightly, finally) be out of a job.

One would hope, but it seems the silly HR and "employee engagement" types blossom in the WFH environment and come up with even dumber ideas to "engage" employees. I'm swamped, working 14-15 hour days the last month, and I get an email about a company "contest" to submit videos of us being "silly." I look at the email and shake my head and wonder how I could get a fluff job like that. It has the opposite effect on those working our tails off - it's demoralizing.
 
There was one of those early on, and the upper-upper management basically said raffle stuff if you want, but don't take up people's time. (but not my company, our overall bosses on both contest and comment from the mgmt).
 
Work from home is nice, but I miss commuting. I like driving and sitting in traffic just doesnt bother me that much. I find driving in and driving home gives me time to prepare and unwind. Walking down stairs from the bedroom to the office just doesnt have the same effect.
 
Best consensus I have read was:
  • Introvert: WFH = good
  • Extrovert: WFH = bad
Introverts are happy just doing their work. Extroverts like a to create a lot of (mostly) useless meetings and spend time chit chatting to cultivate relationships. Admittedly, for some job roles, this is necessary.

Also, for new people, it will be harder to get the on the job training and establish relationships when working from home. For those already there, WFH is generally a better option.

Lastly, WFH will be a blessing and a curse. I'm sure it has already been said, but you know the bean counters are wondering why are they even hiring AMERICANS when they could be outsourcing everything? Keep working diligently so they don't decide you are expendable!
 
I have been WFH since 2010,in Commercial RE management,and like it,but this will bite most in the butt,as it will make many 'on-call/247' slaves going forward.now that your office is your home,your employer will push things to insane levels, mine always has but since March its gone from 12 hr days to 18. Its all with compensation increase.
 
Best consensus I have read was:
  • Introvert: WFH = good
  • Extrovert: WFH = bad
Introverts are happy just doing their work. Extroverts like a to create a lot of (mostly) useless meetings and spend time chit chatting to cultivate relationships. Admittedly, for some job roles, this is necessary.

Also, for new people, it will be harder to get the on the job training and establish relationships when working from home. For those already there, WFH is generally a better option.

Lastly, WFH will be a blessing and a curse. I'm sure it has already been said, but you know the bean counters are wondering why are they even hiring AMERICANS when they could be outsourcing everything? Keep working diligently so they don't decide you are expendable!

I never thought of myself as an introvert, but I guess I am.

I used to always be the life of the party back in college, but back then I also had a lot of alone time to force me to miss people.

These days I find I have lots of shit to do all the time, and I find people just to be an annoying time suck.

If I were to suddenly win the lottery, not have to work all day, and slowly knock down the chore list and the Steam game backlog, I'm sure I'd get around to missing people again, but the chance of that happening before I am dead seem slim.
 
I have been WFH since 2010,in Commercial RE management,and like it,but this will bite most in the butt,as it will make many 'on-call/247' slaves going forward.now that your office is your home,your employer will push things to insane levels, mine always has but since March its gone from 12 hr days to 18. Its all with compensation increase.

When I took my current job it was clearly stated it was a 40 hour a week deal. If there was a customer with a serious problem (think "People aren't going to get paid"- level) that's one thing, but it was made clear regular long hours were not on the cards. They don't get more of my time just because my office is my living room. (Also, I've been WFH for almost two years. )

People need to push back if the bosses try stuff. "You're making me hourly, right?"
 
I started working from home at the beginning of October. I stayed in the office through most of 2020 to make sure I could do everything I needed to do. I'm glad I finally went WFH. I love it. Simply not having to waste time driving gives me time to make a proper breakfast and coffee. That alone is worth it.
 
100% yes please, as a software engineer. Half the tooling I use is geared squarely at "enhancing collaboration".

it went from “staying late at the office and ignoring my family” to “going home and ignoring my family”.
Yup. And guess what - this is fine for the rest of us. Those same folks who get in early / leave late won't be seen now as "going above and beyond" and be considered for promotion sooner than those who don't put in the "extra" hours.
 
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100% yes please, as a software engineer. Half the tooling I use is geared squarely at "enhancing collaboration".


Yup. And guess what - this is fine for the rest of us. Those same folks who get in early / leave late won't be seen now as "going above and beyond" and be considered for promotion sooner than those who don't put in the "extra" hours.

Actually, its the opposite. People who are putting in the extra work still stand out. For those that don't, the rest of us think "Why do we need them them?" It becomes very apparent who is carrying the load when everyone is WFH. That's how it is in our environments at least. It's very easy to see who is cutting out early or leaving right on time by simply checking their online status. When you try to message someone and they don't respond, it stands out a lot more than it did before.

The difference is there won't be promotions. The useless people will just be cut and everyone else will do their work as they've always done.
 
Actually, its the opposite. People who are putting in the extra work still stand out. For those that don't, the rest of think "Why do we need them them?" It becomes very apparent who is carrying the load when everyone is WFH. That's how it is in our environments at least.

It's very easy to see who is cutting out early or leaving right on time by simply checking their online status. When you try to message someone and they don't respond, it stands out a lot more than it did before.

The different is there won't be promotions. The useless people will just be cut and everyone else will do their work as they've always done.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. Our productivity as developers gets tracked on other metrics, moreso along the lines of actual deliverables like code commits, story progress, that kind of thing. Perhaps moreso appropriate for WFH than many other professions.

That being said, I have run into so many who are quiet as a mouse / virtually invisible all. day. long. - but sure as rain are "on" and "productive" right at that closing hour and minute. I'll see them asking questions in our slack channels, running into baseline technical "issues", asking folks to do this or that in regards to something complex. It's gotten down to a science with a few of them. I can expect that DM at 4:45pm, 5pm, 5:15pm. :LOL: Annoying to say the least. A couple of these types will then have to the gall to speak up in our retros and talk about the "long hours". Please. ;-)
 
We'll have to agree to disagree then. Our productivity as developers gets tracked on other metrics, moreso along the lines of actual deliverables like code commits, story progress, that kind of thing. Perhaps moreso appropriate for WFH than many other professions.

That being said, I have run into so many who are quiet as a mouse / virtually invisible all. day. long. - but sure as rain are "on" and "productive" right at that closing hour and minute. I'll see them asking questions in our slack channels, running into baseline technical "issues", asking folks to do this or that in regards to something complex. It's gotten down to a science with a few of them. I can expect that DM at 4:45pm, 5pm, 5:15pm. :LOL: Annoying to say the least. A couple of these types will then have to the gall to speak up in our retros and talk about the "long hours". Please. ;-)
I don't think we are disagreeing at all. People notice who pulls that type of shit.
 
Best consensus I have read was:
  • Introvert: WFH = good
  • Extrovert: WFH = bad
Introverts are happy just doing their work. Extroverts like a to create a lot of (mostly) useless meetings and spend time chit chatting to cultivate relationships. Admittedly, for some job roles, this is necessary.

Also, for new people, it will be harder to get the on the job training and establish relationships when working from home. For those already there, WFH is generally a better option.

Lastly, WFH will be a blessing and a curse. I'm sure it has already been said, but you know the bean counters are wondering why are they even hiring AMERICANS when they could be outsourcing everything? Keep working diligently so they don't decide you are expendable!

Corporate America is designed for extroverts and they do their very best to force everyone to conform. I’m sure everyone in this thread has been forced to engage in worthless team-building activities and other warm/fuzzy BS at work. The excuse is “we want to make you get out of your comfort zone.” Riiiiight - because professionals who have worked 20+ years in their field really need that at that stage of their careers.

At one place I worked, they had yearly retreats (they called them “advances”) where we were forced to engage in really stupid activities with other departments. When I left the company and had an exit interview with the CFO, I brought those up as an example of extreme time wasting as I didn’t care if I “got to know” Bob in accounting as I literally NEVER worked with accounting. It fell on deaf ears but I’m glad I got the chance to say it.

The corporate mantra used to be “you don’t have to like your coworker, but as professionals, you must work together.” Now, it’s becoming more like preschool with mandatory play time, show and tell, and getting graded on “playing well with others.” Thank GOD for WFH.
 
Corporate America is designed for extroverts and they do their very best to force everyone to conform. I’m sure everyone in this thread has been forced to engage in worthless team-building activities and other warm/fuzzy BS at work. The excuse is “we want to make you get out of your comfort zone.” Riiiiight - because professionals who have worked 20+ years in their field really need that at that stage of their careers.

At one place I worked, they had yearly retreats (they called them “advances”) where we were forced to engage in really stupid activities with other departments. When I left the company and had an exit interview with the CFO, I brought those up as an example of extreme time wasting as I didn’t care if I “got to know” Bob in accounting as I literally NEVER worked with accounting. It fell on deaf ears but I’m glad I got the chance to say it.

The corporate mantra used to be “you don’t have to like your coworker, but as professionals, you must work together.” Now, it’s becoming more like preschool with mandatory play time, show and tell, and getting graded on “playing well with others.” Thank GOD for WFH.
I loved the one job I had that had daily safety meeting where we also had to do stretches every morning. Sure glad I got those stretches in before sitting at a desk for 8 hours. Could of pulled something picking up my mug.
 
I've been WFH since March 2020 after being in the office 5 days a week with a 1-hour commute each way. Not the worst commute I've ever had but that's 20 hours a week that is now mine again. I'd be ecstatic if the result of all this was that I was only in the office 50% of the time, and it's looking like that will be the reality. I quite like being in the office but 5 days a week turns it into a grind. Work/life balance is important.
 
I've been WFH since March 2020 after being in the office 5 days a week with a 1-hour commute each way. Not the worst commute I've ever had but that's 20 hours a week that is now mine again. I'd be ecstatic if the result of all this was that I was only in the office 50% of the time, and it's looking like that will be the reality. I quite like being in the office but 5 days a week turns it into a grind. Work/life balance is important.
Agreed. Less gas use, less mileage on car, as you said more time back.

It for sure isn't for everyone, but nothing is in life. Options are the best thing to give everyone a chance to be at their best for their job.
 
It depends on where you are and what you do. I admit I was being a bit flippant about the situation, but I work for a very large software company and they absolutely do care about job performance and institutional knowledge. I've been there for 10 years and it's not really possible to replace me because I know everyone and I know how to get things done across the entire LOB that I work in. You can't outsource my role. Now clearly, that's not possible for all roles and I recognize that, especially if you work for a small employer. Honestly though I don't think the real risk right now is further outsourcing, it's the encroachment of AI into replacing workers that have in the past been protected in "high skill" roles. They've already shown that AI is consistently more accurate at detecting cancer when reviewing radiograph data than doctors, for example.

FWIW I agree with all of your previous posts in this thread, and to an extent agree with this post. However, I suspect your statement about AI being better than a human doctor at detecting cancer is from a high-profile/well-publicized paper published earlier this year that compared AI vs docs in the specific context of reading mammograms and finding cancerous breast tumors. That paper has been heavily criticized because it has many flaws, but the most egregious is that no one can replicate it. It also is of limited value because a physician has to do a whole lot more than just read images. For most of these highly skilled roles, AI will not replace a human within our lifetimes. Rather, AI becomes another tool in the toolkit. Here's a great (it's thorough - and long) review paper on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6268174/

I chuckled at the comment about being replaced by someone from Pakistan for 1/4th the typical US salary. There are a handful of Pakistanis who can do my job (I know them!), and they're actually paid better than I am, adjusting for local costs of living - and I live in one of the cheapest states!
 
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Corporate America is designed for extroverts and they do their very best to force everyone to conform. I’m sure everyone in this thread has been forced to engage in worthless team-building activities and other warm/fuzzy BS at work. The excuse is “we want to make you get out of your comfort zone.” Riiiiight - because professionals who have worked 20+ years in their field really need that at that stage of their careers.

At one place I worked, they had yearly retreats (they called them “advances”) where we were forced to engage in really stupid activities with other departments. When I left the company and had an exit interview with the CFO, I brought those up as an example of extreme time wasting as I didn’t care if I “got to know” Bob in accounting as I literally NEVER worked with accounting. It fell on deaf ears but I’m glad I got the chance to say it.

The corporate mantra used to be “you don’t have to like your coworker, but as professionals, you must work together.” Now, it’s becoming more like preschool with mandatory play time, show and tell, and getting graded on “playing well with others.” Thank GOD for WFH.

Tell me about it.

Years ago, I had an exercise like something straight out of office space.

Those fuckers actually made me "sculpt my future career out of clay". It made me want to stab everyone.

I got laid off when the financial crisis hit. Best thing that ever happened to me (after some short term employment pain during the crisis)
 
Tell me about it.

Years ago, I had an exercise like something straight out of office space.

Those fuckers actually made me "sculpt my future career out of clay". It made me want to stab everyone.

I got laid off when the financial crisis hit. Best thing that ever happened to me (after some short term employment pain during the crisis)

Dude, you can't share that without telling us what you sculpted! 🤣
 
Tell me about it.

Years ago, I had an exercise like something straight out of office space.

Those fuckers actually made me "sculpt my future career out of clay". It made me want to stab everyone.

I got laid off when the financial crisis hit. Best thing that ever happened to me (after some short term employment pain during the crisis)

All I remember from the last stupid one (I left that company going on 7 years ago) was that the accounting team sat in a circle facing outward, and there were chairs encircling them. My team had to take a seat facing an accounting member and we had to talk about ourselves for X minutes. After the time was up, we had to get up and move to the next chair. And to be honest, that wasn't even the dumbest thing we had to do - the execs wanted us to sing songs together (no, I'm not joking), but even our CFO said "No way" to that. At any rate, I don't remember a single thing I "learned" about anyone in accounting and I don't even remember their names. It was one of the biggest wastes of time in my entire life.

Another time (at this same company), they decided to rent out a huge ballroom once per year to have an entire day devoted to "celebrating employees." The first year they did that, it happened to be my fifth year at the company and they wanted to recognize the service anniversary of employees who hit that (and even higher) milestones. So, I get a visit from a communications person (let's call her "Moron Comm Person") to my office:

Moron Comm Person: "Hi ICF, I'm Moron Comm Person. We would like you to recognize your five years of service at our employee celebration day. We need you to report to the top of the parking garage at noon on X day and we're going to make all of the 5 year folks get in a van, drive around the top level of the parking garage, and when the van stops, you're going to jump out and pretend you're the A-Team and we'll film it and show it at the celebration, set to the A-Team theme song! Won't that be fun?!?!?!"
ICF: "Uh huh"
Moron Comm Person sends me an email, after X day passes and I don't show up: "Hi ICF, we understand you were busy that day and couldn't make the film shoot. We want to make sure you're included! Please email me back and we can set something up!"

Several days pass, after I ignore multiple emails, phone calls, and experience several near misses of them going to my office while I'm just down the hall watching and snickering.

ICF: Damn I'm hungry. I better go get a snack from the break room. <opens stair door and.....>
Moron Comm Person: ICF! I was just coming to see you! I'm so glad I ran into you! We need to film you!!!!!
ICF: <curses under breath> Ok, you can show up at my desk at 2:00 PM. Please note: I am not jumping, dancing, singing, standing on my head, or wearing any ridiculous outfit. I will be sitting at my desk and working, and I'll look up and smile. THAT IS ALL I AM DOING.
Moron Comm Person: <stares at me like I pissed in her Wheaties>
 
My company is definitely going to be going to be cutting office hours as things cool down. Will be 2 or 3 days in office, 3 or 2 days home.

Engineering (for a large company that builds transportation vehicles) is collaborative, and while phone calls and video calls help, it is NOT like being there. And the serendipitous hallway conversations that 8/10 times are just social... the 2 out of 10 that are not and provide a spark will be sorely missed if we stay out of the office permanently.

Right now everyone working together from home already knew each other in person for months and years. I don't think cohesive teaming is assured without at least some personal, in-person interaction.
 
Dude, you can't share that without telling us what you sculpted! 🤣

You know.

I honestly can't remember.

I remember thinking it was total bullshit and spending a good chunk of the allotted time in disbelief that I was actually being asked to do this.

Then I remember spending another good chunk of the allotted time resigned to just sucking it up and getting it done, but not having any ideas at all.

In the end I threw something shitty together last minute and "presented" it with what I am sure despite my best efforts were serious eye rolls. I just can't remember what that "something" was.
 
I personally love the ability of being able to work from "anywhere". However, I am 1000x more efficient not working at home. Just too many distractions for me personally at home :🤷::drowning:

I will get better though ;-)
 
I never thought of myself as an introvert, but I guess I am.

I used to always be the life of the party back in college, but back then I also had a lot of alone time to force me to miss people.

These days I find I have lots of shit to do all the time, and I find people just to be an annoying time suck.

If I were to suddenly win the lottery, not have to work all day, and slowly knock down the chore list and the Steam game backlog, I'm sure I'd get around to missing people again, but the chance of that happening before I am dead seem slim.
Yeah I always thought of myself as an introvert, but damnit if I'm not a chatty cathy around some people... I think I I have extrovert tendencies around the right type of people, and I can say most people I work with yeah I don't want to spend a whole lot of time around them, but I think that's for reasons other than being an introvert.
 
Yeah I always thought of myself as an introvert, but damnit if I'm not a chatty cathy around some people... I think I I have extrovert tendencies around the right type of people, and I can say most people I work with yeah I don't want to spend a whole lot of time around them, but I think that's for reasons other than being an introvert.

Everyone is different, but yeah, I'm with you.

What I have noticed about myself is that if I have a lot of alone time (like I did in college and back when I was single) I gradually build up my people tolerance to the point where I actually want to go out and see people. As soon as I don't have alone time to recover after, or as soon as shit gets stressful, the to do list both at home and at work gets to long, I just tend to turn inward and not want to see people until I can get everything done.

I feel like there is a misconception in society about what it means to be an introvert, which is probably why I never viewed myself as one. People tend to associate the word with shy, wimpy people who lack self confidence. That's not me at all. I never back down from a fight, intellectual or physical. I can get up in someones face and never let something go with the best of them.

I just lack the patience to put up with people's shit unless I've had some down time alone inbetween. Its like my patience needs time to recharge.

Adult life with a family and a job has not been very compatible with this need thus far.
 
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