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).
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.