An introvert at the workplace

This morning I read an article from LinkedIn ‘An Introvert’s Guide to Getting the Most from a Conference’. I’m very introverted and I’ve made peace with it…actually love it after reading ‘The Introvert Advantage’ from Marti Laney. In my normal office environment being an introvert makes no difference, and being a software developer I’m surrounded with fellow introverts.

But every now and again it does cause a bit of a problem. Recently there was a workshop to discuss a new bill that’s going to be implemented. At the same time all the managers in the office and the people working with that was in another workshop, so I had to attend the workshop. I enjoyed the different presentations that were given, even though I was the only person in a different field and not working for local government. There was also a Q&A session, and even though I had a question to ask I did not have enough knowledge to know if I was being totally stupid, so I ended up not asking it.  But my biggest problem was mingling with the crowd in between the presentations. The people quickly formed little groups that knew each other and I had no idea how to join any of the groups. Usually I would look for one person I knew and that person could introduce me to someone else, but that would not be a possibility there. Another tactic I usually use is to look for someone else standing on their own, but that was also not happening.

If I ever have to attend something like this again I’ll have to get some kind of strategy to avoid the same social disaster….but for now I have no solution.

Two weeks from now I have a chance to go out and meet some fellow moms at a charity event, but after this workshop I’m very scared of a repetition of that day.