[scarface_74]

> As someone new to my organization and team I’ve greatly benefited from a partial rto mandate. There’s something about being able to quickly bounce ideas or questions off a team that physically sits around you that slack can’t quite emulate

Well, you know who doesn’t benefit? Me with your constant interruptions. With remote work, I’m able to control when I want to respond and when I want to do deep work.

[FirmwareBurner]

Even when working in office, when I have questions, I always ping my colleagues on IM first, instead of directly walking to their desk or shouting at them.

It's respectful and could be turned into a policy.

[hoffs]

Not really, also what kind of office setup you have where you don't sit next to your colleagues? Ambient interruptions also are a thing

[FirmwareBurner]

Yes we're next to each other, but if the person has his headphones on I don't want to disturb him so I write first a message.

[DiggyJohnson]

> Me with your constant interruptions.

You're assuming the worst in the person you're reply to. My team and I are extremely respectful of each other's focus, and yet we all still prefer the office for the same reason's as GP. Do you not see how there's a middle ground, whether you agree with it or not? Or do you think every interaction you have with a colleague that you did not initiate is a burden?

[scarface_74]

Serious question, what do you call respect? My idea of respect is that conference calls or any phone calls should not happen in public spaces. If someone has their headphones on send them a message and let them respond asynchronously or schedule time with them.

[DiggyJohnson]

I agree with that for the most part. But that's not what was being suggested by the GP.

[blub]

Based on previous comments, I think you’re in a sort of architecture / lead role. Interruptions are part of the job description :)

[scarface_74]

Yes, at n-3 and n-2 job I was the dev lead and de facto “cloud architect” and it was mostly in office. When I wanted to do “deep work”, I would either come in late and do my deep work from home or find some place to hide at the office and set my status to “doing deep work”, close Outlook and Slack. I would check my messages at least once an hour.

If there is ever an emergency that only I could handle, I was doing my job wrong.

My n-1 job was at AWS working in Professional Services. There everyone was juggling multiple projects, on customer calls, in planes, on-site with a customer, etc. No one expected an immediate response. Almost every interaction was either asynchronous or you would ask someone a question and the answer would be “my calendar is up to date. Send me a meeting request”.

I also first learned the concept of “office hours” there where the lead would just block off time on the calendar where the people could just join an open Chime (does anyone outside of Amazon use Chime?) if they had any questions.

I don’t know what things are going to be like at my current company once things fully ramp up. But I suspect as the person who is responsible for cross team architectural guidance, I will need to be able to handle the chaos using what I learned from my past three jobs.

[elhudy]

In my personal case, it has been an investment my colleagues have made in me that has paid significant dividends. I can now quickly take huge loads of work off their backs, and have more than made up for a a few interruptions or conversations during lunch / after work.

Sure you could argue that the same investment could be made remote. But the reality is people are more likely to be walking their dogs or cooking lunch, and that’s why they wont have time for you.

At the end of the day it’s not really about whether YOU benefit or not during work hours, its about whether the organization benefits. They’re paying the bills for your stretch of time. But even if it was all about you and your protected time, theres an argument to be made that you benefit as well in the long run.