If you tell this story from a different perspective though it could easily be about how companies discriminate against introverts, or how connections matter more than competence. Which are common complaints about how many companies operate. I’d say this story is the perfect illustration of the counterpoint to those arguments, which is that social skills are probably the greatest predictor of success in most roles, even technical ones.
Okay, but being able to work with other people is a job qualification like being able to code in Python. Not all jobs are Python jobs, but if you need a Python developer, you should hire someone who knows (or can learn) Python.
As someone with ADHD, I'm a solid IC and thrive at mentorship, but do not put me in an organizational role. I'm not qualified, and never will be. I still need hacks and workarounds sometimes to get the right code written at the right time, but I can do it with a bit of understanding and accommodation. The same doesn't apply to jobs that expect order out of chaos. (I'm better at going the other way, by the state of my office.)
I'll agree in principle that we can and should make space in tech for people who for whatever reason really just want to be code factories with as little human interaction as possible, but most jobs are always going to have some degree of social interaction as a requirement.
That said, "sucks if ya don't have it" is indeed a callous way of addressing the problem.
> I'll agree in principle that we can and should make space in tech for people who for whatever reason really just want to be code factories with as little human interaction as possible
I’m actually not saying that at all. I think people with severely underdeveloped social skills, such as many of the people who identify themselves as introverts in HN threads, are not qualified to do most jobs in any organisation. There are people who operate as little isolated code factories, but their deficiencies come at a massive cost to the organisation and everybody around them.
