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An app that lets you pretend to receive a call when a co-worker distracts you
- Markoff 10y agopretty standard feature on Japanese phones for unemployed people or people who wanna look more busy or important, I guess people in West don't care do much about losing face our impression
- JoshTriplett 10y agoAmusing idea. Absolutely no good reason for this to require a Chrome-specific extension, though; this would work in any browser.
- dovdovdov 10y agoResume your focus! ...until our partners call you on a hourly bases for the rest of your life. ;)
- chillaxdude 10y agolol so true.
- Raed667 10y agoI think this works only for US and Canadian numbers. Which isn't mentioned anywhere on the website.
- empressplay 10y agoNeeds a time delay function (+5 minutes for example) That then gives a limited window for a brief discussion.
- scandox 10y agoI created a version of this in 2006 (I think), called Getmooh.com - Get Me Out Of Here. The idea was to get people out of bad dates with an automated call. I used the Skype API with VB6 and some natural voice libraries from AT&T. We mostly got used for prank calls with pre-recorded messages we had. Worked OK. But cost us money and I got bored once it was built. We got maybe 60,000 sign ups I think.
- tragic 10y agoI'm pretty sure this was a feature of an old dumbphone, you could set it up so that holding down the number 5 (say) on the key pad would trigger a 'call'. Might have been a Samsung?
- scandox 10y agoGuess it could have been. Our system didn't just call though, you could answer and it talked to (well, at) you.
- erlehmann_ 10y agoI have a Samsung GT E1200 and the fake call is triggered after a configurable timeout by pressing the down button four times while the screen is locked.
- nathancahill 10y agoMy old Nokia had that. Used it sometimes for sure.
- Raed667 10y agoI hand an old Nokia (That had a sliding keyboard !!) with this feature (press down volume 4 times), it also had a scheduling feature with personalized ring-tone, number and display name!
- taneq 10y agoOn the one hand, seems like a funny solution to a real problem. On the other hand, it might be more productive in the long run to just directly tell the coworker to JFGI themselves (or link them to lmgtfy.com) Is there any protection against using it to spam call someone else's number? (I'd test it myself but I'm outside the U.S.)
- libeclipse 10y agoWhy not just honestly say you're busy? Works for me. There's quite a few versions of this. I think a cheaper option is an app on your phone that imitates a phone call.
- blowski 10y agoJust be honest and say "please don't think I'm being rude, but I really need to get on with this work." You can be assertive without lying or being nasty.
- cheriot 10y agoThat's ideal and needs to be the first approach. In practice, people that communicate all day don't always understand than other jobs require uninterrupted focus. That's why engineers try things like no-meeting-wednesdays and schedule blocks for coding. I wouldn't use the tool in question, but I relate to the motivation.
- Xylakant 10y agoif you need to use this tool, the uninterrupted focus is most likely already gone, damage done. it's even likely that the person will return once your call is done to interrupt you again.
- mgkimsal 10y agoor.... they'll learn that you prioritize answering calls over f2f, and they'll start calling you all the time. easier to 'avoid' to some degree, but you're just shifting the interruption.
- jmkd 10y agoOne thing often overlooked about work interruptions: interrupting one person's flow is usually to aid another's. So as others have suggested the response can be prioritised according to importance and urgency. While flow is critical for productive work, it should be directed to the highest priority tasks.
- cmdrfred 10y agoIn construction we have a phrase "a dime holding up a dollar". It is up to you to decide if you are a dime or a dollar in each situation.
- gherig4 10y agoThis is a blatant advertisement
- veli_joza 10y agoIt's a quick side project that might be useful to some, presented in quirky and humorous way. Why does it bother you?
- gherig4 10y agoIt is a way to collect phone numbers disguised as an outlet for passive aggression.
- coldtea 10y agoAnd your point is? Advertisements can still be useful to discuss. And commercial products and services are featured on HN all the time. Plus, it's not like HN is anti-commercial either.
- bigbugbag 10y agoThis is a blatant advertisement for a way to collect phone numbers. I'm not sure breaching privacy and social engineering scheme are welcome or else HN would be filled with malwares and the likes.
- tyre 10y agoThis isn't an advertisement, it is a marketing program. they aren't advertising Breather itself, just a side-project. As for HN and marketing programs, you may notice that Hacker News is run by Y Combinator. YC has a considerable interest in owning the news platform for startups and engineers. This is not a coincidence.
- coldtea 10y ago>This is a blatant advertisement for a way to collect phone numbers. Not anymore than any other service that to work asks for phone numbers or email addresses. You might not appreciate or have a use for the service, which is tongue in cheek, but that doesn't make it "malware" or "social engineering".
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mhd 10y agoReminds me of the "Boss Key" you had in earlier games (or as a TSR in DOS), that showed some fake spreadsheet instead of your game screen. This is basically its cubicle cousin.
- andrewflnr 10y agoWhat an outrageously annoying website. I love it!
- cyberferret 10y agoI was going to jump on this before I realised that (1) I have my phone on DND when I am 'running silent, running deep', and (2) I found out from the comments here that it doesn't work outside the US. Perhaps to address both issues, there could be a version of this that doesn't actually make a physical call? Perhaps a pairing of an iOS/Android app to a button on the browser which send a standard in app message (free) to the phone associated with the button. The app could then simulate a ring tone, which would be enough to complete the illusion of an incoming call?
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y agoYou can also use something like Google Voice or True Caller and block all other calls to your phone except for that one
- bigbugbag 10y agoThat's a clever social engineering scheme to collect phone numbers.
- edsykes 10y ago"i'm sorry, i'm on a deadline"
- random_upvoter 10y agoI never understood why a telephone gets precedence over somebody who made the effort to come to you in person.
- dazc 10y agoBecause after 6 or 7 rings the person calling you will go away, while the person who has come to you will, usually, stand and wait. I agree with the sentiment though, that it does often give the impression of being bad mannered.
- dazzawazza 10y agoJust let them go to voice mail. If it's important they'll leave a message.
- staunch 10y agoJust yell "I'm wired in!" and get back to it! (teehee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=942sTOBISQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=942sTOBISQs)
- mysterydip 10y agoRelated but with a different focus, Chelsea Handler made an app called "Gotta Go": https://gottago.io/ https://gottago.io/ The process was detailed in one of her Netflix episodes IIRC.
- mikhailfranco 10y agoFalse premise - a phone call should never be allowed to interrupt a real conversation.
- AndrewKemendo 10y agoSurely you don't mean never.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kozak 10y agoThe problem of being distracted when coding was greatly reduced for me when we moved to Git from more ancient version control tools. With faster/easier committing and history browsing, I can now make smaller and more logically divided commits, and thus need to keep less context in my head at every single moment.
- taksintikk 10y agoSimple but powerful. Great job.
- annerajb 10y agoThis seems great for those situation where telling the person that you are busy, or cannot attend them anymore wont cut it. Usually a phone call is the only detractor for them to interrupt me. at the end it ended up being just to let me know something like i got this to compile!! which could have been done on slack or lync.
- spb 10y agoI made a similar app to this for Pebble at a hackathon in 2015: https://github.com/phoneyscape https://github.com/phoneyscape We got an offer from Madrona Ventures for it that I never ended up following up on.
- tvaughan 10y agoIf you don't have your phone on airplane mode then you do want to be distracted.
- ninju 10y agoNote the fine print in gray (or is it grey) text at the bottom the page (Any discount code associated with this experience will expire on December 31, 2017.)
- raarts 10y agoI just say: i'm going to get me a coffee (water, restroom) and when i return they're gone.