Originally posted on LinkedIn as a meme.

my friends are all attachment styles this and attachment styles that when it comes to dating. however, has anyone had the brilliant idea of applying attachment styles to working at a tech company? I didn’t think so! now you might be thinking, “hey Stephen isn’t this a bad idea?” and yes, it is. but just like we should all hope to be secure partners in our relationships, we should also possibly strive to be secure capitalistic partners at work.

first, what are attachment styles? from my very topical reading and a lot of projection, here’s a short summary as well as some relevant spotify songs. there are three styles: anxious, avoidant, and secure. anxious people (”inside out”, “used to you”) are often overinvested to the point of destruction in their relationships, constantly misperceiving slight signals as catastrophes. avoidant people (”Let’s Fall In Love…”) create distance from their partners when their intimacy lines start getting crossed. secure people are great. go read the book “Attached” if you’d like more information or potential trauma

i think the following section is best suited as a list. NOTE that me listing them here isn’t me condemning these behaviors as I totally do them all the time. but maybe there’s something to think about 🤔. here are some avoidant traits at work:

  • setting your slack status to offline or away all the time
  • large “DO NOT BOOK” blocks on your calendar
  • restricting personal interaction / not attending social events at your company
  • copying and pasting in your responses from another app so that people can’t see you typing
  • not having a slack profile picture with your face in it
  • refusing to read your email
  • turning off notifications and only triaging if things are escalated
  • skipping all hands
  • reading a message and pretending not to read it
    • …or marking it as unread so you can deal with it later, but then accidentally reading it and then never triaging
  • writing in lowercase

in a lot of these cases, these are defense mechanisms employed to make good use of your time. though it’s still useful to reflect on them instead of just doing them automatically.

and anxious:

  • being in multiple meetings at the same time so you don’t miss anything
  • pressing enter too many times and sending tons of messages. and getting anxious when people don’t reply instantly
  • stream of consciousness style typing
  • replying instantly
  • “why is your status away”
  • double posting in the #social channel
  • “why is no one reacting to my message”
  • creating PRs for attention
  • saying yes to everything so that your coworkers will like you
  • long pairing sessions to get social contact
  • …at this point i’m just recounting my own habits

secure: honestly i have no idea that would be nice.

i pride myself at being anxious-avoidant at work, the worst of the lot. have fun misclassifying yourself and your coworkers!