Re:Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and h...
by tcdent on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @04:06PM
(#11911778)
"That question" need not be singled out as an outlier; what we're talking about is casual conversation.
Inventing a story, rather than truthfully explaining that you "enjoyed spending time with your wife and daughters" sounds sick to me.
You have a bond with everyone else already: we are humans. There is no prerequisite.
As someone who identifies with both depression/anxiety and positivity toward my accomplishments, in addition to a definite introversion, I reiterate my last paragraph from above: stop lying to yourself and others. If you had a simple weekend, where is the shame in admitting it?
If it was bad enough that you can't admit it, use that to fuel your development instead of pacifying it.
Or if I am bustling with joy because the wife and I managed to sneak in an evening of kinky sex between bringing the kids to bed and work on monday. THAT's what I am thinking about and THAT's not what I want to tell you. So I invent some stupid story just so you are satisfied.
It's OK if colleagues which I know well and with whom I have a kind of bond ask things like that. But not as a conversation starter or to create such a bond.
And the list of people who cannot stand questions like that goes on: those with depression for whom every weekend is just a period of grayness, those with social anxiety...