[dathos]

I mean interrupting is one of the harder social actions in my opinion, especially in the workplace. So much of this comes from culture, family and your personality.

I say this as someone who interrupts, and loves to be interrupted. Am I a kid in an adult body, or are my norms different than yours?

[gwbas1c]

Well that depends on your ability to self-regulate!

Do you constantly interrupt people and prevent them from doing work? If someone says they are busy and need a few minutes, do you ignore them and continue to interrupt what they do? Do you get angry if someone can't drop what they are doing to cater to your impulse?

Do your co-workers feel like working with you is like working with a child?

That is what my children do to me, and that is what "children in adult bodies" do in the workplace.

[wesselbindt]

On behalf of humanity I ask you to please stop interrupting us.

[eric_cc]

> “I … love to be interrupted”

Can you elaborate on this?

[sharkjacobs]

The imagined exchange is something like this

"To get you up to speed on foo I'll explain some important ways it differs from bar. First, of all—"

"Wait, I'm not familiar with bar, can you use a different frame of reference or briefly explain bar to me first?"

"Oh, I'm so glad I didn't waste your time and mine trying to give you information you don't have context to make sense of."

[gwbas1c]

I'll try to explain it a different way:

I once had a manager who, after working with for 6-8 months, gave me the impression of "working for a child."

He would interrupt me all day for very trivial matters, and insist that I drop what I'm working on to address some email that just came in. (And what I was working on was from email that came in yesterday, that I dropped what I was working on yesterday to start...)

Any time I started any task that required any significant concentration, I'd start to panic that I'd be interrupted before the task was complete. (And if you understand concentration, you realize that you just can't pick up an interrupted task where you left off.)

---

Where it came to a head was, late one Friday afternoon, I realized I needed to cherry-pick or revert something in Git. At the time, I was a bit of a novice to Git. I skimmed an article on how to do what I needed to do in Git, decided it would take me ~10 minutes, and that I'd leave when I was done.

No sooner did I make it through the first paragraph did my manager interrupt me with a question. I answered it, and tried to find where I was reading (in the article that explained what I was trying to do). Then the guy next to me interrupted me with a technical question. The two of them continued, ping-ponging each other, me being stuck trying to read a paragraph, until I was able to construct one single command.

Then my manager pulled me into his office. I saw that he was putting together a presentation, and I spent 10 minutes answering his questions.

I thought I was done and could complete my ~10 minute task, but no. After I constructed the 2nd Git command, my manager and the guy next to me resumed ping-ponging me with questions.

Finally there was a lull, and I started constructing the 3rd git command. My manager comes up behind me, and in a rather condescending tone, said to me: "What are you doing here? It's a long weekend, go home!"

I responded, "I'm just trying to complete a 10-minute task before I go home, but I keep getting interrupted!"

My manager didn't apologize. He grunted, and then ran out of the door, like a child caught making a mess, but not owning up to it.

---

This manager, BTW, is why laws in the linked article exist. He once "forgot" to tell me he wanted me to work on a Saturday. I had plans so I ignored his Saturday morning call. Thankfully he was fired (or quit, it was ambiguous) about a month or two later.

---

So, are you like my old manager, constantly interrupting someone, and not having the emotional intelligence to apologize or to pace yourself? Or, do you think before you interrupt, give people a chance to pause what they are doing, and pace yourself so you aren't monopolizing others' time?

[MrDarcy]

That depends entirely on if you ask permission before you interrupt another person.

[dathos]

I really don't mean to be pedantic, but that would already be interrupting someone right?

[mylies43]

Eh I mean it would depend on how your doing it really, Im thinking its the difference between "hey sorry to interrupt, I have a question do you have a minute?" vs "hey {question}"

[Linux-Fan]

What became of "don't ask to ask" (https://dontasktoask.com/)? Although it may take some getting used to, I find it convincing that one shouldn't need to ask about whether it'd be OK to ask for short questions because the question for permissing is interrupting just as much as the actual question except that with the former it may be impossible to estimate how complex it is whereas it may be much easier to decide if the question is known.

For longer issues, could it make more sense to schedule an (online) meeting?

And on the receiving side of interruptions: Ocasionally it has helped me to just keep the "chat app" closed when I want to concentrate on something. If anyone has something urgent, they could always elevate to performing an old-style synchronous phone call, but interestingly this rarely happens with "text-chat" people :)

[Suppafly]

that's similar to the no hello movement. if you're going to ask a question over chat, just ask it, we don't need the pretend conversation around it, and by saying hello you've already interrupted me.

[renewiltord]

Not to worry, I usually just say "hi" and wait for them to respond before asking the question.