[arzig]

Async communications can be exhausting. It’s infuriating to need some bit of information and be stuck with chat because 1. People are terrible at organizing things like slack as far as I can tell. 2. Walking over to someone and having a 15 minute conversation is less disrupting to the day than tossing a mention into the void and then having responses dribble in over the next hour and a half.

A work from home full time and don’t want to go back to the office, but the periodic need for unscheduled ad-hoc communication is absolutely the most exhausting part of it.

[acdha]

> Walking over to someone and having a 15 minute conversation is less disrupting to the day than tossing a mention into the void and then having responses dribble in over the next hour and a half.

There’s a balance here, as the 15 minute conversation is often a 45 minute disruption for the target and often the people around them. The other challenge is in my experience the trade off wasn’t “this information cannot be obtained any other way” but more along the lines of “it’s easier to walk over than read the documentation/make any attempt to answer the question on my own”.

Asynchronous shifts the downsides to the person asking, so people tend to have strong opinions if they tend to be on one of those sides a lot more than the other.

[nottorp]

Of course, you can also ask about the blockers ahead of time or just do something else. This does require your org to trust you with more than one strictly defined ticket at a time though.

[acdha]

> Of course, you can also ask about the blockers ahead of time or just do something else

Sure, but that’s going to impact the claimed time differential if you have to schedule it and wait.

I think both approaches have their merits but unless you’re in a group focused on the same goals I prefer the approach of trying to solve it yourself and trying an asynchronous message first, possibly turning into synchronous if needed, because the first two steps don’t have dependencies and will make the last more productive.

[nottorp]

> if you have to schedule it and wait

I mean you ask away... asynchronously... then do some other task or part of task that doesn't require the blocker. By the time you're done with that you may have your answer or whoever's attention that you need.

[dickersnoodle]

Less disrupting the day for who?

[piva00]

> 2. Walking over to someone and having a 15 minute conversation is less disrupting to the day than tossing a mention into the void and then having responses dribble in over the next hour and a half.

I fucking hate this, it's less disrupting for you but the person you asked might be like me and need another 15-30 min to get back into the same focus state they were before your question came through.

If you think it's hard to go do something else while you are waiting for a response to not lose context the same applies to the other side, it can be hard to get back into the context they were pulled from.

At least with async communication I can reply when I get unfocused or finish what I was working on, even just saying "sorry, can't answer you right now" when in a state of deep focus takes me out of that state...

It's extremely exhausting being the person who gets asked multiple times a day about things outside of the current context, switching them to answer your inquiries is not effortless, it just looks that way to you.

[bitlax]

You just set up a quick video call. I do it all the time.

[nunez]

Zoom calls are 10,000% more mentally draining than desk interruptions, for me.

[cassianoleal]

Same here. The commute and being at the office are 100000% more mentally and physically draining than working from my own desk at home though.