[mjevans]

A phone ringing is an interruption.

Being expected to check your emails is an interruption.

Someone entering or leaving past you is an interruption (this is why open plans and shared offices of any sort don't work well for tasks requiring open ended concentration).

I don't actually believe that most people understand these issues, they don't understand the difference between the simple menial tasks, the small steps of implementing little details you've done a thousand times, and the large leap to actually keeping your mind full of a problem to solve.

[studentrob]

> I don't actually believe that most people understand these issues

Right. What I'm asking is, why don't people and organizations understand these issues?

There is a solution. I'm not sure we've identified all the details of the problem.

[p4wnc6]

I think many organizations only pay lip service to the idea of valuing productivity. The management and executive layers have all kinds of opportunities for weird forms of rent seeking based on status, often boiling down to viewing their subordinates as a collection of pretty office decorations or the human equivalent of trading cards. They talk a lot about productivity, but actually don't care to consume productivity out of you, so they don't want to pay any costs related to productivity.

Staffing up for an acquihire event is a form of this. Designing a gaudy open-plan office with ridiculously opulent amenities yet no privacy is a form of it. Even the long-known fact that physically attractive people get hired, paid, and promoted more than equal-or-better performing, less attractive colleagues is a form of it.

[studentrob]

Yeah I hear you on the "short term thinking" mindset of management

I think there is something intangibly great about making something that is built to last, and that some people don't recognize the value of such a thing

Best of luck finding an environment that suits you. You will!