One thing that really bugs me is when you tell somebody about some entertaining or worthwhile pursuit of yours, and they reply saying 'It sounds interesting, bu

One thing that really bugs me is when you tell somebody about some entertaining or worthwhile pursuit of yours, and they reply saying 'It sounds interesting, but I don't have time for it unfortunately.' Thereby implying that you are lazy, and they are busy. Argh! I totally agree and have heard that before and thought the same thing. I've walked through large offices and seen nothing but Lotus Notes on peoples' screens (and I don't mean frivalous emails either, these are 'important' emails/memos). My experience: productivity == 1 / count(email + phone calls) This may be something that is specific to programmers on small teams. I think many of these metrics apply to other areas in business such as Sales where there may be a relation between phone calls or emails and results (Or similarly in customer relations or customer service). A common exception when programming is fixing bugs. When progress is being made there may be a flurry of communication as the source of the bug is identified and fixed.