The 8h shift looking at a shared screen was absolute terror. No privacy, a lot of machismo with people claiming "I don't need to look at the documentation", terrible productivity when pairing with certain employees that didn't really took the work seriously.

Mandatory pairing simply doesn't work, period. It's like they say about therapy, wanting to do it is a pre-requisite for it working...

I like continous pair programming, but not because I actually continuously pair - if someone wants to watch me work, or is too green to go it alone quite yet, its fine. But usually we only pair when it makes sense to, i.e. we are at the beginning of something and figuring out what to split up.

If management tried to force real continuous pairing down everyone's throat all the time....yeah no. That management should be fired, they don't understand how people work.