6 ms·

Are there really work environments so distracting that 8 hours in the office equals 1 hour at home? That seems crazy. If so, there's is something seriously mess

by jbail 15y ago

Are there really work environments so distracting that 8 hours in the office equals 1 hour at home? That seems crazy. If so, there's is something seriously messed up at that office. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for telecommuting and did a 100% telecommuting gig for 3 years straight, but there's no way to get a days work done in 1 hour.

silverbax88 15y ago
I'd say it's unfortunately accurate.
stricken 15y ago
Yes, I work in an open plan office so because they can see me they think it's OK to interrupt me whenever they feel like it. I'm in a room with the support guys and testers so all their phone calls I get to hear. Especially distracting if they're talking to a user about something I've worked on. Sometimes I manage to space out and not hear it but then you look up and people are staring at you "what do you think Bob?" Headphones only go so far.
- mkopinsky 15y ago
  I worked for about 6 months in an office with an open floor plan, and the noise did get to me sometimes, but at those times I would undock my laptop and find an empty desk in some other division where people didn't have conference calls going on speakerphone. (BTW, hearing a conference call coming out of two speakerphones - or hearing a person speaking to your left and then their voice coming out of a speakerphone on your right half a second later - is perhaps the most distracting thing ever.)
mcantor 15y ago
You have a daily stand-up at 9:30, so even though you get in at 9, you don't bother starting anything because the stand-up will cut it short as soon as you get rolling. The stand-up is supposed to be 10 minutes, tops, but regularly balloons into a half-hour behemoth. You make your daily sojourn to Starbucks with the other developers and get back to your open work area at 10:15. There's a business user waiting for you. You develop internal tools and the brass is too cheap to employ a support staff, so you are level 1. They're supposed to open a support ticket and assign it to you instead of walking over to your desk, but you've already sent them packing the same way three times this week, and it looks like they're ready to cry, so you open a new browser window and ask what the problem is. You end up having to pull in a sysadmin, and after an hour, the two of you determine that it's a problem with a third-party service, so you open a support ticket with them and tell the business user you'll keep them updated. It's now 11:15. The developers start lunch at around 11:30 - noon every day, so there's no reason to get started on anything now. You get back from your hour lunch break at 12:45. There's a meeting on your outlook calendar at 1 o' clock, but you read the description and decide to skip it since there are already enough developers on the docket to give enough input. You're just gathering momentum at 1:05 when the Project Manager who organized the meeting appears at your desk, asking you to come to the meeting. "I have a lot on my plate; the other two devs know enough about the system to keep the ball rolling." "Well," she counters, "I really need everyone's input for this meeting." (Just like every other meeting.) "There are 20 people on the invite list... if there are any problems, I'm sure I can just follow up with you after you send out the meeting minutes." "Look, I really need you here for this; this isn't a skippable meeting." (None of hers are.) Finally you fold--you didn't take this job because you were a go-getter who knows how to tell people "no" repeatedly. The meeting is scheduled for 1PM - 2PM, but (like most meetings at this company), it goes until 2:30. You get back to your desk and there are a dozen new IMs and e-mails blinking on your screen. You fantasize about just closing everything and working, but you've been here long enough to know that un-answered IMs and e-mails will result in people walking over to your desk, just like the jilted business user from this morning. For a couple of months you managed to put your foot down, mark yourself as "busy" in Outlook for the afternoon, and tell people that you simply won't deal with any non-critical problem during that period, but hearing complaints about issue turnaround time come through your boss was too much of a drain. You answer IMs, follow up on e-mails, flip through high-priority code reviews and take care of other necessary busywork for about an hour and a half. At 4PM, you get started on your work.
- mkopinsky 15y ago
  Until 4PM, you've also been working on things that are value-adds on some level. Your choice not to make use of the small time windows (which aren't actually so small) is your own choice, not a direct function of the office.
  - mcantor 15y ago
    You're right! However, it's inefficient for a developer to always be doing that much non-development work. And it is possible to get real work done during the small windows, but only certain types of real work. Occasionally you can fit in a bunch of good bug-fixes. Other times you're able to organize things into discrete small tasks up-front, and you can get a few of those things done with each small window. But, it's impossible to really achieve flow in those circumstances. The lack of flow is really the gist of my argument.
    - mkopinsky 15y ago
      With the schedule you described, it doesn't sound like you're purely a developer. Either a lot of this stuff needs to move from your plate to someone else's, or you need to accept that you do a lot of non-development work. Note that of the distractions you describe, a lot of them are things that you would have still had if you were working from home. The emails and the IMs are still there, although I guess they might be more ignoreable since you don't have the threat of the person showing up at your desk. :-)
  - Retric 15y ago
    Depending on what you are working on 15 minutes may be enough time to make some progress, but anything with a moderate level of complexity is going to take longer than that before gain enough context to start.
    - mkopinsky 15y ago
      If you take notes, you can gain context from 9:00-9:30, and rev up again quickly from 10:00-10:03. The time doesn't need to be wasted time. (Not that this is necessarily easy to do, or perfect, but I think we can accomplish more than we think in this manner.)

by jbail 15y ago

silverbax88 15y ago

I'd say it's unfortunately accurate.

stricken 15y ago

Yes, I work in an open plan office so because they can see me they think it's OK to interrupt me whenever they feel like it. I'm in a room with the support guys and testers so all their phone calls I get to hear. Especially distracting if they're talking to a user about something I've worked on. Sometimes I manage to space out and not hear it but then you look up and people are staring at you "what do you think Bob?" Headphones only go so far.

mkopinsky 15y ago
I worked for about 6 months in an office with an open floor plan, and the noise did get to me sometimes, but at those times I would undock my laptop and find an empty desk in some other division where people didn't have conference calls going on speakerphone. (BTW, hearing a conference call coming out of two speakerphones - or hearing a person speaking to your left and then their voice coming out of a speakerphone on your right half a second later - is perhaps the most distracting thing ever.)

mcantor 15y ago

You have a daily stand-up at 9:30, so even though you get in at 9, you don't bother starting anything because the stand-up will cut it short as soon as you get rolling. The stand-up is supposed to be 10 minutes, tops, but regularly balloons into a half-hour behemoth. You make your daily sojourn to Starbucks with the other developers and get back to your open work area at 10:15. There's a business user waiting for you. You develop internal tools and the brass is too cheap to employ a support staff, so you are level 1. They're supposed to open a support ticket and assign it to you instead of walking over to your desk, but you've already sent them packing the same way three times this week, and it looks like they're ready to cry, so you open a new browser window and ask what the problem is. You end up having to pull in a sysadmin, and after an hour, the two of you determine that it's a problem with a third-party service, so you open a support ticket with them and tell the business user you'll keep them updated. It's now 11:15. The developers start lunch at around 11:30 - noon every day, so there's no reason to get started on anything now. You get back from your hour lunch break at 12:45. There's a meeting on your outlook calendar at 1 o' clock, but you read the description and decide to skip it since there are already enough developers on the docket to give enough input. You're just gathering momentum at 1:05 when the Project Manager who organized the meeting appears at your desk, asking you to come to the meeting. "I have a lot on my plate; the other two devs know enough about the system to keep the ball rolling." "Well," she counters, "I really need everyone's input for this meeting." (Just like every other meeting.) "There are 20 people on the invite list... if there are any problems, I'm sure I can just follow up with you after you send out the meeting minutes." "Look, I really need you here for this; this isn't a skippable meeting." (None of hers are.) Finally you fold--you didn't take this job because you were a go-getter who knows how to tell people "no" repeatedly. The meeting is scheduled for 1PM - 2PM, but (like most meetings at this company), it goes until 2:30. You get back to your desk and there are a dozen new IMs and e-mails blinking on your screen. You fantasize about just closing everything and working, but you've been here long enough to know that un-answered IMs and e-mails will result in people walking over to your desk, just like the jilted business user from this morning. For a couple of months you managed to put your foot down, mark yourself as "busy" in Outlook for the afternoon, and tell people that you simply won't deal with any non-critical problem during that period, but hearing complaints about issue turnaround time come through your boss was too much of a drain. You answer IMs, follow up on e-mails, flip through high-priority code reviews and take care of other necessary busywork for about an hour and a half. At 4PM, you get started on your work.

mkopinsky 15y ago
Until 4PM, you've also been working on things that are value-adds on some level. Your choice not to make use of the small time windows (which aren't actually so small) is your own choice, not a direct function of the office.
- mcantor 15y ago
  You're right! However, it's inefficient for a developer to always be doing that much non-development work. And it is possible to get real work done during the small windows, but only certain types of real work. Occasionally you can fit in a bunch of good bug-fixes. Other times you're able to organize things into discrete small tasks up-front, and you can get a few of those things done with each small window. But, it's impossible to really achieve flow in those circumstances. The lack of flow is really the gist of my argument.
  - mkopinsky 15y ago
    With the schedule you described, it doesn't sound like you're purely a developer. Either a lot of this stuff needs to move from your plate to someone else's, or you need to accept that you do a lot of non-development work. Note that of the distractions you describe, a lot of them are things that you would have still had if you were working from home. The emails and the IMs are still there, although I guess they might be more ignoreable since you don't have the threat of the person showing up at your desk. :-)
- Retric 15y ago
  Depending on what you are working on 15 minutes may be enough time to make some progress, but anything with a moderate level of complexity is going to take longer than that before gain enough context to start.
  - mkopinsky 15y ago
    If you take notes, you can gain context from 9:00-9:30, and rev up again quickly from 10:00-10:03. The time doesn't need to be wasted time. (Not that this is necessarily easy to do, or perfect, but I think we can accomplish more than we think in this manner.)