I'm an introvert who treasures deep work. I'm not a monk. Going several days between IRL contacts is as distressing as going several days without solitude.

I think it's more nuanced than the introvert/extrovert duality. One needs a mix of socialization and stimulation levels. And ideally, control over that mix. Cycling between social and private spaces throughout the day was a way to achieve that. Now there's only one space. Either it's got other people in it, and there's no escape from them, or it doesn't, and you'll only ever see people by explicitly scheduled plans. Both of those are bad.

The open office wasn't a particularly good equilibrium, since you were stuck in a highly stimulating environment the whole workday. What I'd really like is what I had in college: access to a private room, shared but silent workspaces, and social/lounge settings. No one's going to pull you out of deep focus if that's where you want to be. But when you want to come up for air, you can wander over to a more social space and there's probably a few people there.

"The quiet guy who just likes listening to intelligent conversations and chiming in when they can" also misses the social interactions that happen by default in an office.

Overhearing conversations about other tech stacks/problems, conversations about vacations or plans, conversations about random political/education/local/global events - and learning something from those conversations is what's missing for me.

Switching from a vibrant office built around a family doctor's practice, with people who'd worked there for 15 years - to working from home where the only regular conversations with your wife are about her manual labor job or the details of what needs to be done around the house - has been super frustrating.

I don't want to go back to spending 30 minutes each way in the car, and going into some random office at a new job seems painful. The office building I was at was closed and the team's mostly disbanded, so that life is gone.

I miss the intellectual stimulation and I'm not sure how to get it back, the loneliness of not having someone with the same interests as you is killing me.

Try coworking spaces?

I'm 50/50 type of person, I want to be left alone when I need to concentrate, but I need someone to chat with once in a while. The best job I've ever had had flexible schedule, I could clock in and out at any time or not come in at all, just had to let the team know about my plans. But the best part of that job was that I could walk to the office. 0.5h walk is so different from 0.5h sitting in a car that I wouldn't even call it commuting, it's just hanging out in the city on my way to work. It was the best and cheapest way to improve my mental well being each day.

Ya, there aren't any local to me without driving 20 minutes and finding parking, and I'm too cheap to join one anyways.

Running group has helped, just hanging out with adults and overhearing conversations is nice - they're mostly running focused though.

My commute time was nice to just veg and listen to podcasts; it's weird how you have the same time in a day but don't ever just go sit in a chair and listen to a podcast for 30 minutes when that's what you did regularly for years.

This part: <<However, because they dislike interruptions introverts tend to do more 'deep work'[1] which makes them harder to replace in an industry like tech.>>

I see this a lot on HN. There is an explicit bias here for introverts and deep work. This view overlooks the more extroverted roles usually held by direct managers and product managers. (Introverted sales doesn't even make sense in most cases; so ignore that side.) I have seen too many introverts who think they are doing genius-level work, but hardly talk to their teammates. The worst reinvent the wheel over and over again. (Proof reading this post, I thought of one more strange pattern that I observe: More extroverted people tend to write more documentation than introverted people. It's like a 'technical performance'. The introverts just keep it all inside. Sure there are exceptions, but that is an odd pattern that I observe!)

To be clear: I'm not for or against any side, but I can and do see the benefits of both on a daily basis. Also, I acknowledge the continuum between sides and inherent dynamism (people can temporarily "shape-shift" between sides).

Another thing that never gets talked about here: What about people are more extroverted than average, but still do plenty of deep work? It describes me very well. (Please do not read that description as humble bragging / uber-genius. I am an average developer. Also, I am neither a direct manager nor product manager.) As an example, if I go too long on deep work mode, I frequently stall with "analysis paralysis". My extroversion allows me to step back (heh, sometimes!) and ask for help. If the advice is unsatisfying, or "go away, I am busy", then I try someone else. In my daily work, I try to form a rough sin() wave between 80% deep work and 80% highly collaborative tasks.

If more people saw the benefits of having both on a daily basis I imagine this conversation would look rather different. Speaking only for myself, I was told from a very young age that being introverted was a disadvantage I'd have to overcome, and that the world was built for extroverts - in the case of office culture, I wouldn't even disagree with the latter. A bit of a backlash as introverts assert our own value is probably to be expected. And a lot of that assertion just comes in the form of insisting that no, we don't want what our extroverted colleagues want, and the fact that we skew towards the quiet side doesn't mean we skew towards wanting it less.

That said, I also don't want my extroverted colleagues to lack the option to all work under one roof, if that's what they prefer. Because most working groups benefit from having both on the team, the question has to be how to make an environment that benefits both. Frankly, the employer is in a relatively good position since it makes no sense to overpay workers who have moved to a low-cost-of-living area or maintain office space in an expensive city. But attracting top talent is definitely more complex post covid, given that different kinds of talent has different needs and wants.

Working next to people who aren’t working on a similar system as you gives you nothing to talk about. It’s about the manner of work not just having people around.