…in the workplace. This part struck me:
“At the heart of it, introverts and extroverts respond really differently to stimulation,” Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking, tells The Huffington Post. “Introverts feel most alive and energized when they’re in environments that are less stimulating — not less intellectually stimulating, but less stuff going on.”
Many workplace set ups undermine introverted employees by failing to accommodate their personalities and productivity styles — over-stimulation and excessive meetings can easily stunt their full brain power. One study showed that when introverts and extroverts are given math problems to solve with various levels of background noise playing, introverts do best when the noise is lower, while extroverts perform better with louder noise, Cain told Harvard Business Review.
Ignoring the business implications, this might explain why some people like loud restaurants, while others (e.g., me) detest them. I can be social when I need to, but my default setting is introversion, and if I’m with a group that wants to go to the Hard Rock Cafe, I have no qualms whatsoever about saying “No way.” There’s not going to be any useful social interaction when I can’t hear myself think, let alone someone else talk. I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to do that, but EPID.
[Via Althouse]
Many years ago, “60 Minutes” had a story about a young autistic woman who had written a book. IIRC, it was perhaps the first book written by someone with autism. She described it as the inability to filter extraneous stimulation leading to sensory overload. She wore rose colored glasses to reduce her visual stimulation and was only able to participate in the interview if the questions were given to her in advance. It was a fascinating interview.
I’m not suggesting that introverted people are autistic but perhaps they share some of the traits. An open floor or cubicle office environment is a lousy place to do work that requires concentration for most people. I also was one of the early victims of the “open pod” fad in education where they removed walls between elementary classrooms (this was around 1968). It was a fiasco and the number one request by students was for the walls to be put back.
A tiny brew pub opened up about a mile or so from me with an in-house selection of about 20 beers, an inside area about the size of a large living room, a back patio about the same size, and no sound system. It’s like steeping back to the Scottish Enlightenment, where you can sip freshly brewed beer and have a quiet conversation about technical subjects.
Sounds like my kind of place.
I looked around for some photos and didn’t find much, but I did find a video or two.
It’s stuck back in a strip where you’d normally find an electrical supply house or something, way off the beaten path.
“Cain suggests scheduling a time for yourself every day to walk around the office, chat with colleagues or pop your head into a coworker’s office to just say hello. Turning socializing into a daily habit will eventually make it feel more natural.
“Introverts will often experience that as a waste of time, not real work,” she says. “But scheduling in a half hour or 45 minutes a day to do that can go a long way.””
Anyone spending 45 minutes a day jabbering with co-workers needs a talking to.
In some places where I’ve worked, 45 minutes of jabbering in the workplace would be a godsend, inasmuch as it would reduce the jabbering by 75-80%.