Comment by teiferer

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.

But when you are trying to finish writing projects in 10 minute chunks that really adds up.

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!

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!

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)

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How does this union thing work - getting laid off then being brought back on again when work picks up? How do you get to be on the union list?

(I'm in the UK, and I tend to associate that kind of approach to casual employment with dock work in sea ports. That ended with containerisation in the 1980s)

It depends on the environment - many years ago I used to have temp job in the summer working on a large industrial plant that had a nice office building where the managers and admin staff were based. There were no signs saying "temp staff keep out" - and you did occasionally have to go in there but it was pretty clear to me that you couldn't go and hang out in there - particularly as the temps got all the muckiest, smelliest jobs in all weathers.