Ergo I thought I've seen all the kinds of people having problems with interacting one another. But luckily after graduating I never experienced that at a workplace.
You see, at a workplace there're different kind of people all together, and that mixture somehow enables even the socially lamest, too, to be included in society. At all my workplaces where I worked in my almost 8 years, I have never ever seen something like here in the USA. And it seems, based on the sample of 2 occasions, that these are not isolated issues.
Software engineers are socially disabled in this country. Period.
If you go buy your groceries you are forced to have a little chat with the cashier about what a beautiful day it is and how great both of you're doing today. Well with the appearing self checkout machines this problem will be solved in the near future though.
Anyhoo, back in Europe my team was always a team. Not just a bunch of people working together. But we did stuff together. I knew who was married, who had kids, the personalities, jokes etc. But here, no no. Cubicles are a unique US thing. It isolates people. Small offices, too. So you can manage to work a whole day through without talking to any human being. People even go down to the cafeteria to eat all alone.
Y u no go together and have a casual chat?!
Because you're not able and you're too afraid to try.
I've seen it so many times: you walk on the corridor. Another colleague from the same floor is coming towards you. You've seen him before. You don't know the name, but you bump into each other a couple of times a day. Oh my gosh what should I do, what should I do?! Solution: as soon as you see the colleague, and the distance between you and him/her is still big enough that you can safely assume that he/she didn't see you noticing him/her, turn your head slightly and stair the freaking wall as you walk by. Phew, this way you don't have to say the complicated word of 'hi' or God forbid 'hello'...
Ehh?!
