Being the weirdo frees you from a great many time consuming pleasantries. Making friends might secure a permanent place but it also means a few minutes from every break will be lost to small talk and sometimes the entire break; you see a self serving lone wolf casting himself as the hero, I see someone just trying to find a way to do what is important to him. I am fairly certain that much of the eccentric artist image is just frustration over small talk.
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>> a great many time consuming pleasantries.
It makes me sad that pleasantries are viewed by some as a time-consuming chore. You can recognize that person who really cares about how you are doing or what you did on the weekend, and it makes you warm inside. You don't need to shoot the shit for 30 minutes, but human interaction is what builds community, and most of us like that; all of us need it.
For some people, “pleasantries” are mentally taxing, and while you can force yourself to feign interest in someone’s random weekend activity, you can’t force yourself to actually find it interesting if in reality you find it dull. The “chore” isn’t that it consumes time, it’s that not everyone finds it a pleasant thing to do with any random person.
It’s a mixture for sure. My time is divided between a WfH desk and a (shared with one coworker) private office at a Co-working space. I love my coworker dearly. I also have made a handful of friends in the space that, like you say, they truly care about how I’m found and that feeling is reciprocal and definitely makes me warm and fuzzy.
And sometimes I just really need to be able to walk over to the coffee maker and refill my cup while processing a complex problem in my head. Unfortunately due to my brain wiring, having even that 5 minute conversation makes a ton of that problem solving context evaporate and it’s exceptionally frustrating when that happens.
I’m fortunate that I can plan where I’m going to be working based on the probability of working on hard problems on a given day. The pleasantries are deeply pleasing for me, except when they’re not.
Community is built through third places, neighbourship, inter-family ties, and other deep and lasting connections between people. That a workplace is a place for community is an unfortunate belief that arose in the USA in recent Bowling Alone decades just because Americans largely don’t perceive any other time and place for community.
It’s true that work place socialization is not sufficient, but back when all those forms of community were in abundance people still engaged in workplace pleasantries.
Yes, but they didn’t need workplace pleasantries in order to feel community like the OP suggested.
But when you are trying to finish writing projects in 10 minute chunks that really adds up.
Indeed - and break times don't seem to be very long. "fifteen minutes for coffee and then half an hour for lunch" - no time to waste on pleasantries when that is all the break you get!
This guy is amazing - the dedication to his craft is inspiring!
Super inspiring. A lot to read between the lines. Probably fairly introverted - prefers to be by himself than joking with coworkers. But not so much so that he can’t. He’s just really driven to be creative. And found a way, even though life took him down a very different path. “Let your wallet be your guide” is a good reminder that realistically there’s probably no chance he could make a living as a writer - very few can. But he made it happen anyway. Bravo!
People doing exclusively what's important to them is fine until they need a network/community.
Isn't the point of this essay that he doesn't? I'm so confused by these responses
It's a great piece of writing. We don't have enough contractors with truck desks writing or programming or making art.
a great many time consuming pleasantries
Oh the horror!
> a great many time consuming pleasantries
> Oh the horror!
Indeed, that is precisely the case for some folks - with social anxiety. Or autism. Or a number of other mental states.
Maybe they're tired to their bones and barely have energy to even have one meal a day? Maybe they lost a loved one and never quite recovered since then?
It costs nothing to be polite and assume best intentions from the other side.
In this particular case, there's someone whose most precious moments are their breaks during the day, and rather than saying "good on them for finding a way to do the thing they are most passionate about" the response is "gee they should have used that extremely limited free time to.... have the most shallow of conversations"?
Pleasantries are fine, but that was never going to be a long term solution for him. He needed a space that was always available to him, where he is always welcome. For better or worse, that's not the site office. (Even if it worked on that job, you don't stay in one place as a contractor)