My experience is that pairing is deeply disruptive to my exploration of a design. It forces me to slow down and verbalise something that I can clearly visualise in my mind, when the fastest way to externalise it for me is often to write the code and show it. I'm happy to walk people through a prototype afterwards and discuss it and if necessary throw the thing away and start over or significant revise it. I'm not happy to have someone disrupt my thinking about a problem while I'm trying to focus.
Fundamentally I tend to think that people who insist pairing is ok to impose on people think everyone is like them, and don't see that it's forcing out people with different ways of thinking and processing problems. Ultimately I think it's bordering on discriminatory in that it's selecting for extroverts who don't burn out by the extensive amount of interpersonal contact pairing forces rather than selecting for results.
For my part I will never work somewhere that imposes pairing. I'd rather leave software development altogether than suffer through that, because it's not worth the exhaustion and the reduction in throughput other than occasionally (e.g. while training someone or walking people through a prototype). Thankfully I have the luxury of not having to take that shit.
Fundamentally I tend to think that people who insist pairing is ok to impose on people think everyone is like them, and don't see that it's forcing out people with different ways of thinking and processing problems. Ultimately I think it's bordering on discriminatory in that it's selecting for extroverts who don't burn out by the extensive amount of interpersonal contact pairing forces rather than selecting for results.
For my part I will never work somewhere that imposes pairing. I'd rather leave software development altogether than suffer through that, because it's not worth the exhaustion and the reduction in throughput other than occasionally (e.g. while training someone or walking people through a prototype). Thankfully I have the luxury of not having to take that shit.