I’m an introvert and I like going to work to do my job and go home. I don’t understand people who use a job as a substitute for friendship or marriage. It’s a means to an end.
The sooner I do my duties, the longer my downtime is going to be, and I love having my downtime.
Many of my colleagues see me and immediately start asking questions I don’t want to answer, but neither do I want to hurt their feelings, I mostly want to be left alone. In the past this has been deconstructed as arrogance and people with fragile egos feel insulted by my indifference to them and that I prefer to work than to talk to them.
The world is made by extroverts. I have observed that people are eager to help you if you give them attention. I don’t get it, but neither I’m not going to change how extroverts think or feel.
If I give them the attention they need for as long as they need it I’m going to end up with daily headaches and neither my job nor theirs is going to be done.
I want to appear approachable, but keeping the info I feed them to a minimum. How do I do that?
What do you talk about to your coworkers?
What do you say to stop conversation organically? (meaning they don’t get offended).
Hey work twin! I feel the same way. I’m salaried, so I don’t get paid extra for being at work longer and chatting all day means long days, plus it’s exhausting.
Most humans, introverts included, are to varying extents social apes and achieve equally varying amounts of satisfaction and validation through social bonding. What helped me is looking at a judicious amount of chatting as both a part of the job and a tool to get ahead. Like it or not, how you’re perceived is a big factor in your career. Look at it this way: if you and another internal candidate are both applying for the same position and are approximately equally qualified, if you’re known for getting along well with your coworkers while the other guy is not, that position is going to you.
This occured to me in graduate school. I was a scientist and, while I was a pretty good one, I’m nothing amazing. No Nobel prizes here any time soon. I noticed that scientific careers tend to attract pretty awkward, introverted people, myself included, so I decided that the way I could differentiate myself is by being the most personable scientist possible. I picked up some of the heavy hitters of social fluency, books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking (both by Dale Carnegie), Make Yourself Unforgettable by Dale Carnegie Training, Better Small Talk by Patrick King, and Empathy: Why It Matters and How to Get It by Roman Krznaric and set to reading. I treated it like one of my courses, taking notes as I read and developing strategies for implementation.
By becoming more comfortable with social interaction, it was less draining and I better understood the motivations of my chatty coworkers. It increased the quality of my interactions with others so I could have less of it while still making my coworkers feel validated. It also helped me learn to steer conversations so I could tactfully extract myself as needed. I have to use this a lot.
So my high level advice is to treat this like a skill that you can master to have more control of conversations and to make it less work.
To answer some specific questions…
1.What do I talk about? People, especially extroverts, tend to like to talk about themselves. I keep a little book with entries for each of my coworkers where I note things they’ve either mentioned frequently or talked about in a way that shows they’re important to them. Most people aren’t too complex. They’ll typically value family members, food, personal hobbies, and major events, e.g., holidays, graduations, new children, etc… So I’ll rotate through the list, simply asking them how one or two of those things are doing. If you want to take it to the next level, note something they were recently excited about and later ask them how that is going. It’s really not too complex. Just get them to talk about themselves, asking open ended questions to get them started and closed ended questions when you’re ready to stop, and reflect what they said back to them so they know you understand. I often end with something like “oh great, so you had a good time?” and when they say yes, it’s as simple as saying “I’m really happy to hear that”. Boom, topic closed. Of course that’s contextual. If it was a trying situation for them, I’ll ask the same type of question and end with an empathetic statement.
Stopping conversation tactfully can be simpler than you might think. I have a policy of being very honest and I’ve told my coworkers as much, so I’m blunt: I’ll tell them I’ve appreciated talking with them but I have some things I need to accomplish and I need to get started so they’ll be done on time. See how I said appreciated, not another verb like enjoyed? Because it’s not always enjoyable, but I do appreciate on an intellectual level that they are taking the time to show their interest in me, even if I just want to run away screaming sometimes. Being honest but tactful ensures that my contribution to the conversation is genuine. People can often tell when you’re lying and it makes them uncomfortable. The great thing about ending with this sort of statement is, if you’ve become fluent in conversation and have developed a bond with your coworkers, they’ll better empathize with your need to complete your responsibilities.
Just keep in mind that conversation is a skill like anything else and mastering it means you’ll get more out of it with less work. Thank you for attending my TED Talk. Let me know if you have any questions.
“alright, good talk, cya around”
you are a genius. Still, it’s sad I have to play this ridiculous game and placate fragile egos.
The things people do for money.
Nah, I’m not a genius, I’m just aggressively lazy. Just like you, I really value my downtime. I need a lot throughout the day or I find my tension levels get out of hand.
Office politics can be pretty silly sometimes, but I think you might be surprised to find your coworkers may be as perplexed by your behavior as you are by theirs. People have different priorities but often interpret others’ motives in reference to their own values.
Don’t be afraid of being -tactfully- honest about what you need to be successful at your job. My coworkers know I value candor and efficiency, meaning I like being to the point and getting work done quickly (unspoken: so I can proceed to fuck around). They know when it’s time to talk and when it’s time to leave me alone so I can do my thing and, since I’ve tricked them into liking me, they actually want to leave me alone because they know it helps me.
and for this you are to me a genius. I don’t believe I can trick them all:
my workplace is somewhat 50% to 50%: half the coworkers are normal, I can get along with them, are not mean, immature girls, do their job and help me do mine, I return the favor. I like talking to them, because they are mature and not 2 faced lying children. I still keep them on an information diet.
The other 50%? the complete opposite. I cannot fake interest in them, because I loathe even faking a friendship with those lying gossips who badmouth everyone when they leave the room. Manager insists we play it like a big family, I keep my distance.
Don’t sell yourself short. Ten years ago, I was painfully awkward. The couldn’t make direct eye contact, easily flustered and tripping over my words, people asking if I was on the spectrum kind of awkward. I’m not a master by any stretch of the imagination but I’m a solid 7/10. It took a few years to get here but that’s good enough the majority of the time.
Oooh, yeah. That changes things. We have a few of those but I don’t have to work directly with any of them. I’m polite and kind but otherwise distant with those. You’re right not to engage. No one wins with those types of people.