Autism

That's actually Corp speak for it's not completely obligatory. I have meetings where it's if you can attend you need to be in it. And then I have meetings where it doesn't matter what you are doing you have to be in that meeting barring an emergency.

I'm reading it as, "You don't technically have to attend, but we'll remember who wasn't there when it's time for performance reviews."

As an extravert, I'd tell them to get the fuck out of my private life. If ignored, I would sabotage the event by sharing something like me puking at a party, or playing Stardew Valley on a toilet.

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lol contract, what do you think this is, civilization?

Look; we struggle a lot as we basically do on the fly translation when communicating with non NT since the two worlds are so different and every word might carry a different meaning than intended.

Now put that into a forced (worse: group) situation, it's clear that it is pure stress.

"just be yourself" is only accepted for NT. I've had lots of situations where I was left puzzled and looked down on due to being myself.

My lived experience in three memes:

It's a different type of social dance we have to do that is not part of my normal daily script and that I am not prepared for and now have to agonize over, I don't know anything about myself, a fun fact is never a single sentence how dare you???

This only works with the same select few people who speak up or share things in every call. They’re typically very outspoken, willing to go to after work, work related gatherings and such. That’s fine.

No thank you. I value work life balance very much and this violates it. I keep my personal life separate, unless I want to share. I’m very good at what I do and value my ability to do so. The people I need to get along with, I already do. These kind of details get shared organically and should not be forced.

I also do not come from a healthy family background to put it softly. When these positive sounding ideas to share come up, I come up blank, because I do not have them to share.

So go on and talk about your happy vacation to Disneyworld for the nth time, or your trip to Istanbul, or your huge extended family and their third grandchild. Talk about your hobbies and your farm animals. Don’t force me to enroll into playing games over Teams meetings. It’s fine for you to share or participate as long as you want to. I’m happy for you. Just don’t make me have to make shit up on the spot. I’m not creative that way.

If you want to know more about me, then show me that you are a good worker that I’ll get along with. Become someone I might speak positively about. Then I may offer a part of me that’s outside work. These forced team building techniques don’t work. They never have other than build resentment.

This makes me sound quite bitter but I’m just a chill guy that values privacy.

autistic person here! if I want to socialize, I will do so on my own terms. forced socialization does not make me bond, it makes me stressed, especially when I have work that needs doing

With rare exception, team bonds at big companies are superficial and these forced social situations aren't going to produce deep bonds.

More to the point, I have work I actually want to do, and shit like this isn't going to get it done any faster. Nothing you learn about my dog, kids, the weather, etc is going to make work faster, on the contrary the absolute best case is that we'll spend more time catching up about non-work shit.

If management has time to think this stuff is a good idea, they aren't good managers, especially if they manage anyone that has no interest in these things.

Feels relevant somehow, consider listening to act one of https://www.thisamericanlife.org/796/what-lies-beneath

Let's call it being shy (that's not what it is.) We generally don't like to share personal things unless we trust you. So doing this in front of a group of people almost feels like stage fright but worse. Think of being in front of a group of people that despite rationally knowing they are not hostile to you, the little squirrel in the back of your brain is convinced they are.

This can stem from several things such as generalized anxiety, to being judged previously for our interest. Many of us have interests that are out of the main stream, may be a niche interest specializing in a specific thing, or something that others consider childish.

NT: I have no interest in my co workers beyond work and dont want them to know about my life outside of work.

Even most NT introverts would find this exhausting at best.

Also NT but an introvert: I don't want my co-workers to understand more than the superficial layer I project. It's fucking exhausting to exist socially all the time but hiding behind a facade helps.

Sometimes as people who may have been bullied before, there is a lack of trust at times

If I want to share with you, I will. Usually this will happen naturally if we’ve worked together for a while and I like you. I’ll start mentioning some of my interests, and depending on how you respond I’ll mention other interests or experiences.

I have been invited to events like this before, and I have managed to avoid them through rescheduling calls with vendors so I have an excuse not to attend, coming up with critical things that could not wait so I’d be able to skip, and by just flat-out taking a sick day. I do not want to be forced to share my personal life with my coworkers.

If you make me share in front of a group, I will spend the entire allotted time talking about something incredibly trivial that applies to everyone.

For an example of how this works when I can’t avoid it, my manager recently started asking how we’re all feeling on a scale of 1-10 during some team meetings. If you give a low response, he’ll start quizzing you in front of the entire team as to why you’re not feeling better. If you answer too high, he’ll ask about why you’re feeling so happy. My response in all of the meetings has been 8, no matter how I’m feeling, because that’s average and there’s no follow up. It’s none of his business how I’m feeling; if I want to share with him and the others, I will choose to do that on my own and not in a group situation.

I am friendly with my coworkers, but I am not friends with them (with a couple exceptions for people I’ve been working with for almost a decade, and even then they’re not in my inner circle).

Try walking through a field full of land mines blindfolded and you will understand