I can handle the shop-talk, but what bothers me about tech-guys (I've never had problems with female co-workers) is that they have their self-worth tangled up with their being the most-correct. They just can't handle being disagreed with.

> entire personality with video games / following the latest tech releases / anything related to their job.

Sounds like me if you throw in anime :) But, what's wrong with that? Other people do the same thing but with sports or music or raising kids or "hanging out with friends" or whatever else they fancy, but one is no more a "real personality" than the other, though, people with other interests always seem to have no real personality and be all about that lame thing they like, don't they? :)

> I find that often tech people replace an entire personality with video games / following the latest tech releases / anything related to their job. Almost all "water cooler chat" at tech companies is what game they played on the weekend, what the latest steam sale is, what the latest tv show is, what new programming language they're learning. Like, please. Can we talk about something else?

Interesting. I've worked at plenty of companies and I rarely met people like that. Maybe it's an American quirk (I've mostly worked in Europe) or perhaps it's specific to tech companies? I've mostly worked in non-tech (government, banking, telcos, with some simple web startups) and people there are fairly well-rounded. It may be that big tech is selecting for the biggest brainiacs in their hiring process, and being a brainiac correlates with having a one-dimensional personality? I've certainly meet a couple of people like that when interviewing at some of tech's household names.