[gosub100]

I don't think you have the right to tell your coworkers to leave you alone. Part of working means collaboration and if you're unwilling to do that, you don't belong on a team. You're not doing brain surgery that will permanently alter the life of some helpless patient. you're not meticulously stacking the last card on top of a 10 ft house of cards exhibit where tens of hours of work will be completely lost if your concentration strays to show your face to another human being and utter a few words.

[ggiesen]

You absolutely do. Many coworkers will bug you to ask instead of doing their own research, bug you to chitchat, etc.

They can always book time with you, send an email/IM, etc if there's something they can't resolve on their own.

You have your own deliverables and being interrupted every 10 minutes with inane questions that a web search or a look at the internal wiki/KB would have resolved is not a productive use of anyone's time.

Also, forcing them to wait produces better quality, better researched questions as hopefully they should make some attempt to resolve things on their own.

[gosub100]

You had to ask people things when you learned. It's not different now that you're the one with the knowledge. And sometimes people not using the docs means your documentation sucks or needs updating

[rgrmrts]

The problem isn’t people or colleagues asking for help, the problem is feeling entitled to your time exactly when they want it. No one would get any work done if no one had schedules and respected meetings at pre-arranged times.

Also, no one I collaborated with or on my team was ever the issue (except that one time at my first job when someone lied their way into a role, and constantly asked me to do their job). If my team member ever wanted to chat or distract me I had no issue.

It’s the fucking CEO who hasn’t bothered to talk to you for a month and ignore every email walking up to your desk, literally knocking on your table to get you to take your headphones off and give them your attention and saying “hey, when is this new feature gonna be done” when the project management software shows very clearly that everything is on track to ship at X date.

Really this isn’t about collaboration, it’s about people being entitled.

[nine_k]

It's about politeness. If somebody took care to produce a sign asking to avoid interruptions, I will think twice whether my inquiry is both urgent and important. If it is not, I will postpone it. If it is, I'll beg for pardon but interrupt.

But no, a context switch required for uttering a few words can absolutely topple the tower of concentration somebody has spent last half an hour building. Certain occupations, engineering among them, require ingesting a large amount of context and making sense of it before productive work can start. My lack of patience with a question which I could answer with 10 minutes of research (or asking someone else) may cost my colleague an hour of lost productivity. Being mindful of this helps everyone, including yourself when the roles are swapped.

[farts_mckensy]

I hope you're not a manager, because this is horrible guidance. For starters, there are some neurodivergent people who really get thrown off by interruptions, especially if they are really focused on the task at hand. It is entirely unreasonable for you to expect that your coworkers should be available at your beck and call. And you are totally ignoring the fact the countless studies showing that workplace interruptions cost companies money.

[gosub100]

If a worker needs disability accommodations they can get them from management. We're not all going to walk on eggshells because someone might be neurodivergent. If they are present in the office they are part of a team and that requires interaction.

[farts_mckensy]

Walk on eggshells? Schedule a designated time to talk. It's not that difficult. Are you that disorganized that you need to share your thoughts the second they occur to you? Even for neurotypicals, it takes some time to refocus after interruption. Your approach has been proven to lower productivity and its costs companies serious money.

[gosub100]

Tell the person who is trying to talk that you're busy and you'll get back to them later. It's part of the interpersonal skill of learning to say no.

[IIsi50MHz]

Displaying a "Busy" signal is a way of implementing "No.". Another part of personal skills is learning when to not interrupt. Implementing an unambiguous signal can help. Learning to not ignore the signal helps. As long as the signal isn't abused or isn't "always on".

[farts_mckensy]

That would require them to be interrupted, which would subsequently require them to refocus. Your time is not more important than your coworker's time.

Each interruption is a drain on productivity, which costs the company money. What part about this do you not understand?

[gosub100]

It's not a lack of understanding, it's a difference in belief. I believe you are self-aggrandizing by pretending that you're some rain man whose superhuman skills, not found anywhere else or under any conditions other than pretentious "focus mode" - will evaporate if you're forced to be held to standard of common decency. Sorry dude, nothing you work on is that important.

[gregmac]

All of this entirely depends on your company culture. And for every choice you make (conscious or not) there are consequences.

Perhaps the culture within the company / department / team is to allow interruptions in the name of "collaboration". Hopefully the increased value gained by "collaborating" that way is worth the cost. Some of that cost is time (productivity), some is people literally quitting. Eventually you're left with a company full of people who don't mind being interrupted and I would assume are interrupters themselves, and I'd assume this effect is exponential, causing lower and lower productivity.

As a manager, you can't have this culture and then also complain about the lack of productivity, missed estimates, etc. (Well, you can, but that in turn will increase stress levels and unhappiness and cause more people to quit.)

Your competitor who sees collaboration is possible with planning, proper async communication channels, and some specific culture choices will have a nicer environment and happily hire away your most talented and knowledgeable people.

> where tens of hours of work will be completely lost if your concentration strays to show your face to another human being and utter a few words.

After being interrupted, it takes on average over 23 minutes [1] to get back on track. The average time lost is almost 3 hours per day, or 60 hours per month [2].

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/944128/worker-interrupted-cost-t...

[2] https://www.talkboxbooth.com/post/shocking-cost-workplace-di...

[yard2010]

> You're not meticulously stacking the last card on top of a 10 ft house of cards exhibit where tens of hours of work will be completely lost if your concentration strays to show your face to another human being and utter a few words.

You have no idea.

Thank god we have this WFH thing now. I can build this house of cards without anyone interrupting me saying I'm not building a house of cards.

[tshaddox]

But really, as a software engineer you should not be building a house of cards, right? Surely you should not boldly insist that you never be subjected to collaboration from other members of your team because you are intent on building a system that is in constant danger of collapse.

[bloppe]

In my experience, the house of cards is usually debugging, not building. I've had to do some pretty crazy debugging, stepping through deep call stacks frame by frame, keeping track of big data structures as they change along the way. This can take a huge amount of focus that would absolutely be ruined by even a 5 second conversation.

[hackable_sand]

With my experience now..

I fully accept that programming is purely a mental task. I choose to think with others and then code in my own time. The tasks are now so short that there is literally no space for someone to interrupt.

Everything else is productivity theater.

[servercobra]

I don't think the suggestion is to "never" be subjected to collaboration, but certainly there should be a balance between collaboration and deep work that shouldn't be interrupted if possible.