Brain Taken-over By Alien Forces

There's a side-effect of software development you only notice if it's something you do sporadically. You start to think differently, and your social interaction skills begin to wane. Now there's no use arguing with me. If you're a software guy, it's too late, you can't see the forest for the trees, you're in too deep. This is of course a generalization, but it's just what I've noticed.

In general the large teams of software people and the individuals I've hired or inherited are characterized by a social awkwardness that also binds them together. As well as thinking logically about things, or at least from their perspective, and within their bubble, they have trouble with the niceties of human interaction. I'm comfortable with it, a couple of decades into my career, but I'm sure it creates challenges interacting with the outside world. Outside their brains that is.

These are little things mostly, not understanding some of the basic boundaries in conversation, laughing too hard at a joke, minor frustration in expressing thoughts about everyday things, in ordinary language that others don't seem to get. I've also noticed an inordinate number of references to their childhood families. "My Dad says...", "My mother was doing...", "My sister..." even though they are married with kids and (hopefully) long since moved out of their parents homes. (The unmarried SW guys have a propensity to avoid that well into their 30's, but that's another topic).

Anyway, I hope I'm not doing any of that stuff. But when I'm immersed in software development for a while, as I have been for the last several weeks, pushing on this new entrepreneurial project, I start to notice some changes in my behaviour. I start to get more non-verbal with other people. There are more periods of silence when my wife and I are out driving somewhere or something, where I'm lost in thought on my current program or module. I laugh and ask her "whoa, how long was I out?" Also in conversation, my speech doesn't seem to keep up with my thinking like normal, and I'm not getting the words I want when I want them.

I don't know why these things happen - I can probably take a few guesses with my scientist hat on, and my closet psychologist's theory. It's mostly interesting, as one observes groups of people who do software do it day-in, day-out for their careers. Thus, it's a luxury to experience it for a block of a month or two every few years. It lets you see how you change when your brain goes into a different mode, and helps you understand the reason for some of the bizarre, awkward conversations you hear in the hallways.

I just hope I can wrap up what I'm doing, and hand it over to a software team sometime in the near future, and get back to running an organization. But I think getting into another's mindset occasionally is a good part of seeing things from a broader perspectives.

Researchinator turns to his neighbour to relate an awkward story about his parent's bathroom habits...