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With remote work being so common, I regularly think about this section: Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about p

With remote work being so common, I regularly think about this section: Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame. Possibly the best essay in the Stripe book of Richard Hamming's essays/articles.

jimsimmons 5y ago
This makes sense when there was no internet. We are in the age of sensory overload. Back then you had to network to get the juice. Now the juice finds you
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  You'd be surprised how little of the important research information makes it onto the internet in an easily digestible format. I work with battery researchers and there's a huge amount of collective knowledge about what papers are fake, which researchers are frauds, or can generally be trusted etc. that is not documented anywhere online but easily available through in-person conferences and coffee chats. The fact that the internet makes information widely available to everyone is exactly why this kind of critical information about who should and shouldn't be trusted never gets shared, it'd lead to immediate heated conflict that would consume the participants' lives. So (generally) no one shares these things. But without that knowledge you're wading through a sea of plausible looking garbage.
  - jimsimmons 5y ago
    Fair point. We really have done a terrible job at building online communities for professional discussion. Such a shame really
honie 5y ago
Maybe it was a different time and/or environment, but that couldn't be furthered from the truth according to my experience — even if I read that as a metaphorical door. Many of the people I have worked for/with who are amazing in objectively measurable ways, including fame, appear to balance their open- and closed- door times well. If you're just chasing after fame and want to work on what "everyone" thinks is important, then I don't disagree that keeping your door opened and getting "all kinds of interruptions" is likely the way to go. Also anecdotally, the "forever-open-door" people I have worked with who are always talking about "important problems" to solve; have huge networks; and are hopping from collaboration to collaboration working on a completely different domain of expertise every other year: they seem important to the community but, often on closer inspection, they don't actually produce much that is of substance. Edit: added "I don't disagree" for clarity.
- PennRobotics 5y ago
  A wise professor I knew always scheduled a one-on-one research meeting directly at the end of office hours. If office hours was an hour long, students come and go for an hour with questions plus some overtime duration of extra clarifications. If office hours was four hours long, students come and go for four hours plus the same bit of overtime. With no bookend between office hours and everything else, students would beg for one more question and push the boundaries of the open-door policy. In their eyes, the instructor who slams the door in the student's face because, "It's two o'clock, I need to work," is impolite and insensitive. Putting an unavoidable, important meeting at the end of office hours suddenly put the burden of being impolite on the students. Suddenly, office hours became more efficient and students, more punctual. The professor was no longer so unbelievable cruel for ending the open-door session (gasp) on time. And, most importantly, research could get done at a normal hour.
  - anonymousDan 5y ago
    Interesting. In my experience the one time you are least likely to hear from students these days is during office hours!
spaetzleesser 5y ago
It's probably a matter of moderation. Having the door closed all the time has a set of potential problems but so has having the open all the time as we have found working in open offices. I like interacting with people but I also need to be able to have peace from time to time. A door allows me to choose when I want to interact and when I need peace.
- mnahkies 5y ago
  It's not a perfect solution but I use headphones as a symbolic door. Headphones on means sending me an email or slack that I can respond to in my own time is preferred, off means I'm fair game.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    Headphones don't work for me. First, I don't like having them on for a long time and, second, I find people constantly moving in my peripheral vision very distracting and stressful. I can't focus in such an environment.
itronitron 5y ago
or the offices with closed doors are in higher traffic sections of the building

jimsimmons 5y ago

This makes sense when there was no internet. We are in the age of sensory overload. Back then you had to network to get the juice. Now the juice finds you

Hermitian909 5y ago
You'd be surprised how little of the important research information makes it onto the internet in an easily digestible format. I work with battery researchers and there's a huge amount of collective knowledge about what papers are fake, which researchers are frauds, or can generally be trusted etc. that is not documented anywhere online but easily available through in-person conferences and coffee chats. The fact that the internet makes information widely available to everyone is exactly why this kind of critical information about who should and shouldn't be trusted never gets shared, it'd lead to immediate heated conflict that would consume the participants' lives. So (generally) no one shares these things. But without that knowledge you're wading through a sea of plausible looking garbage.
- jimsimmons 5y ago
  Fair point. We really have done a terrible job at building online communities for professional discussion. Such a shame really

honie 5y ago

Maybe it was a different time and/or environment, but that couldn't be furthered from the truth according to my experience — even if I read that as a metaphorical door. Many of the people I have worked for/with who are amazing in objectively measurable ways, including fame, appear to balance their open- and closed- door times well. If you're just chasing after fame and want to work on what "everyone" thinks is important, then I don't disagree that keeping your door opened and getting "all kinds of interruptions" is likely the way to go. Also anecdotally, the "forever-open-door" people I have worked with who are always talking about "important problems" to solve; have huge networks; and are hopping from collaboration to collaboration working on a completely different domain of expertise every other year: they seem important to the community but, often on closer inspection, they don't actually produce much that is of substance. Edit: added "I don't disagree" for clarity.

PennRobotics 5y ago
A wise professor I knew always scheduled a one-on-one research meeting directly at the end of office hours. If office hours was an hour long, students come and go for an hour with questions plus some overtime duration of extra clarifications. If office hours was four hours long, students come and go for four hours plus the same bit of overtime. With no bookend between office hours and everything else, students would beg for one more question and push the boundaries of the open-door policy. In their eyes, the instructor who slams the door in the student's face because, "It's two o'clock, I need to work," is impolite and insensitive. Putting an unavoidable, important meeting at the end of office hours suddenly put the burden of being impolite on the students. Suddenly, office hours became more efficient and students, more punctual. The professor was no longer so unbelievable cruel for ending the open-door session (gasp) on time. And, most importantly, research could get done at a normal hour.
- anonymousDan 5y ago
  Interesting. In my experience the one time you are least likely to hear from students these days is during office hours!

spaetzleesser 5y ago

It's probably a matter of moderation. Having the door closed all the time has a set of potential problems but so has having the open all the time as we have found working in open offices. I like interacting with people but I also need to be able to have peace from time to time. A door allows me to choose when I want to interact and when I need peace.

mnahkies 5y ago
It's not a perfect solution but I use headphones as a symbolic door. Headphones on means sending me an email or slack that I can respond to in my own time is preferred, off means I'm fair game.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  Headphones don't work for me. First, I don't like having them on for a long time and, second, I find people constantly moving in my peripheral vision very distracting and stressful. I can't focus in such an environment.

itronitron 5y ago

or the offices with closed doors are in higher traffic sections of the building