Correct. In other words, I act like a responsible adult who is out in public and mindful of the people around him.
And being at work in a place like that is being "out in public" - which is of course where (according to the guys who want to save a few bucks on office construction) all "responsible adults" go when they need to concentrate on some difficult task, learn new things, think creatively and well.
This is one of the things I mean by discouraging entrenchment. No employee should feel he a special right to privacy more than his job requires. It's not my TV den. It's not my fort. I'm here to work, not build a wall of shrubbery.
And the cat comes out of the bag.
After all, the whole point of having a workplace at all is to avoid having to find a den or build a fort just to get something done. That's extra work. That's overhead. Introverts have better things to do. They aren't volunteering for conflict - they're introverts, remember.
So why the attitude?
Being treated with hostility for not wanting to be disturbed while working - no matter how politely expressed - is a common experience of introverts from childhood on. Because in point of fact it's always somebody's den - and the introvert is just one person.
The expectation of hostility, mild and polite of course but conflict nonetheless, is what governs their decisionmaking, for example, in this situation:
And if there are others who do these things around me, then, just like anywhere else in public, I weigh the consequences of politely speaking up, or just being a little more tolerant.
Ands so the introvert sucks it up and tolerates - just as they do in public, among strangers, on the bus or in a crowded bar. They put the necessary effort into weighing the consequences - every day, several times a day - and then put the necessary effort into tolerating, being reasonable, etc.
But that comes at a price. And the guys with the data have measured that price - what it costs a corporation to lose productivity to increased social tension and pack politics and the mental effort of ignoring distractions and disturbances. And that number turns out to be quite high - a major overhead cost. So what to do?
People thought of simply not hiring these snowflakes who are so "sensitive", who "overreact" to music they can't avoid, or having somebody crunching carrots and jabbering with co-workers clear across the room, say. So they ran the numbers, and found what the gross productivity numbers should have told them: a surprisingly high percentage of people fall into the "sensitive" category, and most will not admit it - they actively hide it on evaluation forms, and have to be tricked into revealing this character flaw.
Any idea why?
