How do you socialize with your co-workers in Seattle?

[eugene_b]

@RotseCherut I can relate to what you are saying and I definitely agree with you. Socializing is important and crucial for healthy workplace. But from my experience different areas have different cultures about that. For instance in NYC socializing appears to be almost a religion with many people being fanatical about it. It's also centered around alcohol. If you don't want to participate in that, you are viewed as very strange, or at least I got that feeling. I have many strange stories about socializing in NYC but I'd rather leave it at that.

To give you another extreme - my sister has been working for a Norwegian company and she has been hanging out with them in Norway for a decent amount of time. When I shared my stories with her, she laughed hard and said that in Norway their company is usually "socializing" by driving the team to some middle of nowhere in the mountains, dumping them there with bicycles and then picking them up at the end of day, wherever they cycled to. She also said her boss and some senior level employee often hang out together by doing winter camping trips to mountains. That kind of socializing is something I can absolutely get used to lol!

And even from my own experience, as I said above, when I lived in a different part of NY (not NYC), I never had these problems even remotely. I had tons of friends, went to breweries sometimes when I was in the mood for that, attended activities, etc and never even had to think that I need to make some special effort to socialize with people, it was just happening naturally. If I didn't feel like hanging out and would say something like "sorry guys, I need to wake up really early tomorrow to do a hike", I never ever felt any negativity about it and never felt like I just performed an act of blasphemy and insulted sacred gods of socializing. And also, I am an H1b person in the past too but that's a whole different long story.

@homesinseattle Thanks for the link to your blog, it will make a very good read during my commutes! I am not living in NYC itself, I only commute there for work. The closest I've lived to NYC was Jersey City but even there it was too much for us and we moved further into NJ, currently staying in West Orange. It's more or less nice here - commute is murderous (1-2 hours one way to NYC) but on weekends we get to explore nature or launch road trips to almost anywhere (Philly, DC, Connecticut, jersey shore, etc). My favorite place in Jersey is Island Beach State Park, it's the only place in NJ where I go to get some level of nature/wilderness feel. Being so close to NYC, one would expect it to be swarmed with people and litter but, interestingly, unless you go there literally in the middle of summer, you can walk all 10 miles of perfect beach without meeting a single soul (and even in top season, people will just hang out right next to the parking lot only). I've been encountering some wildlife there too - foxes and such.

Or you can go North from there into wilder parts of NY state. I lived there for a couple years and that place will always have a special place in my heart. I'll likely be returning there in fall once in a while to climb some mountain in Adirondacks or Green Mountains and witness the endless ocean of trees of every imaginable shade of yellow, red, orange, green, brown.

[homesinseattle]

eugene, I went to university at UVM (University of Vermont) in Burlington. It is indeed beautiful up there.

[Thom52]

I worked high tech startups and big engineering companies in the Seattle area for 31 years.

When I first got there in 1985, it was a completely different culture than it is now.
Informal outdoorsy activities with coworkers was the norm in 1985 when I moved there.
Companies had formal and informal hiking and biking groups, which is what I am into.
Significant sized groups planning weekend outings for hikes and mtn bikes was a regular thing. Some companies even encouraged "clubs". These were amazing, no pressure, team building activities, without even trying. I did get chewed out for having a hiking map spread across my desk with a group of workers in my office, but mostly it was tolerated and sometimes encouraged.

Over the years, this seemed to slowly change. It became hard to ignore that formal "club presidents" and higher visibility organizers were the first to be laid off. Companies seemed to start viewing these activities as cutting into the free overtime they were getting from their salaried workers. Big groups started to be less of a thing, and it was more a couple people quietly getting together on the weekend and quietly chatting about their adventures instead of talking about the Big Game on Mondays.

As company cultures got more greedy and cutthroat, it became more necessary to be more covert about having enough free time to do something other than work every waking hour for the company, giving them free overtime. Seattle is anything but "laid back" in its company cultures anymore, even if they try to hang onto that long gone image. I noticed over the years, the "uptight" East coast company cultures started to seem to be the laid back ones when I was on business trips.

Then people started to get into survival mode in the intense Seattle area high tech scene. A "better you than me" mode, where throwing coworkers under the bus and backstabbing became the norm, and most high tech companies don't even pretend to encourage extracurricular activities when you SHOULD be working overtime for them instead. So it became the norm to just not talk about life outside work, and if you hiked with someone, it is best if they are from another company. A much more challenging situation to create.

The plus side is you won't feel the pressure to socialize with fellow workers, except maybe to "go to lunch" and play the "how do we split the check game". After work drinks is usually more related to a Pity Party after a major layoff. One company I worked with was having so many layoff parties, I had to start turning down invitations for fear of becoming an alcoholic. (only a slight exaggeration).

That is my observation for 3 decades of high tech work as an engineer in the Seattle area.

[fillmore241]

Seattle has no bearing on this whatsoever. It depends how crappy your firm is and coworkers are. The SW people I work with at my company are huge *******s.

In a meeting: "It doesn't matter what Fillmore does bc I'll have to redo it anyway"

Some of the Mechanical Engineers I work with can't get a coherent sentence out of their mouths.

I'm particularly angry today because they've been eating lunch at their desk for the past 6 hours, consisting of almonds, carrots, apples, and tortilla chips.

They talk about how much they like to drink beer, but we do something outside of work maybe once every 6 months. They don't attend the Christmas party, which sucks anyway. Most people skip the all-hands meetings. Most people skip the participating in the Pot Lucks.

[Sunaimer]

Originally Posted by fillmore241

Seattle has no bearing on this whatsoever. It depends how crappy your firm is and coworkers are. The SW people I work with at my company are huge *******s.

In a meeting: "It doesn't matter what Fillmore does bc I'll have to redo it anyway"

Some of the Mechanical Engineers I work with can't get a coherent sentence out of their mouths.

I'm particularly angry today because they've been eating lunch at their desk for the past 6 hours, consisting of almonds, carrots, apples, and tortilla chips.

They talk about how much they like to drink beer, but we do something outside of work maybe once every 6 months. They don't attend the Christmas party, which sucks anyway. Most people skip the all-hands meetings. Most people skip the participating in the Pot Lucks.

No offense but you should be a comedian, or you are seriously depressed, and you've inherited the passive aggressiveness being in Seattle.

[Sockeye66]

An example from my office.

Saunter in at 0800, see co-worker w/ head buried into screen. "Heh"

Coworker quickly glances up, "umph... sluurp" Sets coffee down.

[Blondebaerde]

After working mostly with the biggest of the big-dogs in tech in the area for quite a long time, got out some years ago and noticed that not all tech companies behave the same culturally when it comes to fraternization.

In recent years working on client sites, who are often (but not always) tech companies, each is different in how they handle socialization. Seems to be baked into the cultures. Some have high walls, others open offices figuratively and literally and they behave that way individually too. Whatever.

Then there's a local health care provider, HQ around here somewhere. Years ago, interviewed there, but prior they were sure to inform me several times that "A, B, C, D, E, and F" are our core values!" Really, hmm. So during interviews for a lead-level role reporting to a director, I asked each person interviewing me to come up with solid examples of A, B, C, etc. in the context of a delivery, resolving a conflict, dealing with moral ambiguity, etc. Not one of those clowns could come up with a solid example. Not one. The place is a fraud, their "culture" God knows what. You get the picture: watch what they do, not what they say they actually want in their "culture".

Current place has after work morale events on-occasion. The office is mostly dead because people are on client sites by-design. Morale events on people's own time, I'd expect light turnouts and that's the norm since we charge clients by the hour. If I worked for the government, some union shop, or other time wasting idiots I'm sure it would be different.

As leadership I'm there, with HR, administration, and those who are reasonably politically savvy (sales usually shows up). I mentally note who is there, but don't think on it much since my philosophy twenty years ago was "it's best for my morale if I don't show up to morale events." Usually it is the more-gregarious and connected who turn up, which I do appreciate on some level, but again: I personally understand if people have better things to do, getting around in Seattle to Eastside can be a train wreck and I've got it real easy using buses. Others don't.