I haven’t been able to post to reddit in years now, because I refuse to browse it without a VPN, and while it still lets me in, any account that I make immediately gets shadowbanned as soon as I make a post or a comment.
I can’t tell if it’s because their bot filter is just terribly implemented, or because they don’t want me on their platform if I don’t surrender my public IP address.
I’m pretty sure they just use a “how many different accounts under the same public IP” type of logic, because even if I create an account on a 4G network (no VPN) and post, this happens. Cellular networks often use double NAT (unique internal/carrier IP, shared public IP) to avoid allocating a public IP to each mobile device.
I’ve given up a long time ago. My only exposure to reddit now is when a search results page links me to a post. The most helpful stuff is usually from a decade ago or earlier.
He is being childish, but if I am completely honest, it sounds like you are a little too. Not in how bothered you are by the situation (understandable), but more how you perceive it.
I totally understand wanting to just do the work and cut the meaningless chatter, but the reality is a job usually has more abstract requirements outside of specific job tasks. One of these is getting your manager to like you. Social cohesion is one of the things workplaces tend to look for.
Not every manager cares about small talk perhaps as much as yours does, but that’s the situation you are in.
My advice would be to decide on one of the following 1) work elsewhere where you can thrive without this obstacle, 2) develop the skill of faking being interested, or 3) do nothing but get frustrated and possibly miss out on promotions or similar.
Wishing you the best, from a socially inept person with autism who relates to that dread, haha.