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> I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person, not over voice call or slack.. Isn't this the main problem? I hate everyone who comes barging in a

> I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person, not over voice call or slack.. Isn't this the main problem? I hate everyone who comes barging in and wants to "resolve issues" quickly. Not saying I love remote work, but I cannot stand working a place where people are "allowed" to disturb me. I don't even log into Slack/Teams/Skype or any of that nonsense; I don't even want to be disturbed in my virtual wold. Onsite is ideal for management; endless meetings about progress/status, we can all "align". Issues can be resolved quickly. But for those who need to concentrate for long periods at a time; this is hell. And during the pandemic, many people got used to not being interrupted all the time, and I don't think any of them want to go back to that hellhole.

refurb 5y ago
I get the need to have uninterrupted time, but if others are depending on you to get their job done, it's kinda dickish to complain about people being "allowed to disturb you".
- iLoveOncall 5y ago
  When people don't havr access to you they quickly realize that never actually depended on you to get the job done.
  - LilBytes 5y ago
    Username... Doesn't check out.
  - ubercow13 5y ago
    I’m not sure most juniors starting their first job during the pandemic would feel that way. Imagine being in that situation and all your colleagues are never logged in to Slack, don’t reply to your emails until the end of the day, expect to never be disturbed, don’t attend any meetings..
    - gbear605 5y ago
      I’m a junior who started my first job during the pandemic (well, I had one month in the office before the pandemic). That wasn’t be experience at all. Slack and email were much easier to use for getting used to the job than being in person was. Of course, yes, some people need to be online to answer questions, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to be available all the time. Being online also encourages good documentation, which is a better habit to be in anyway.
IshKebab 5y ago
If you're in a position of some power that's maybe what you'd prefer. I'm on the bottom rung and being able to walk up to someone's desk so they can't ignore me would be extremely helpful. Been WFH for a while and it is not uncommon for people to ignore requests, never reply to messages etc. Yes that is a problem with my current team, but I can't really do anything about it. Working from an office would mostly sidestep it. I feel like most people are in agreement - commuting really sucks but working in an office is generally better. I suspect if teleporters existed barely anyone would WFH.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Your last sentence sparked some reflection for me. I would absolutely teleport somewhere for a team meeting rather than play Zoom Brady Bunch. I would 100% do all my coding from home though, unless work returned to the “good old days” of offices with full walls and doors that closed.
  - ihateolives 5y ago
    > I would absolutely teleport somewhere for a team meeting rather than play Zoom Brady Bunch. Imagine Scotty beaming the team down for a meeting and all of them are in their pajamas, unshaved and groggy, some still holding their cereal bowls.
- matwood 5y ago
  > I'm on the bottom rung and being able to walk up to someone's desk so they can't ignore me would be extremely helpful. Been WFH for a while and it is not uncommon for people to ignore requests, never reply to messages etc. TBF, that's not a problem with remote work. If the only way people will respond to a valid inquiry is through in person harassment there are much bigger issues at your employer.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >I feel like most people are in agreement - commuting really sucks but working in an office is generally better. I suspect if teleporters existed barely anyone would WFH. depends on office space and potential home accommodations. Like, if you have a dedicated 8m^2 office room in your house, it still may not be worth teleporting into an open space office. But if everyone can get a small private room to some more open floor structure for collaboration, it sounds like the perfect solution.
underdeserver 5y ago
That's great, but I don't want to work with you, because something you're working on or something you're responsible for is blocking me and I have no way of making progress.
- lstodd 5y ago
  So distracting people who work on something that blocks you is "making progress"? That's rich.
  - boopmaster 5y ago
    apparently doesn’t want to work with anyone that won’t jump up and cater to every urgent need. A real charmer!
- Terretta 5y ago
  Local vs. global optimization … You sure your priorities are of so much more significance than what the person is working on that they justify destroying the concentration of intellectual property creation and forcing a preemption of this other person’s task or reorder of their stack? If you’re blocked for lack of a task switch, what are you blocking in turn by causing a new interrupt and switch? Instead of crashing the thread they’re on, why not go to the scheduler and reorder the queue or better re-weight the threading so priorities are worked more optimally? If in attempting that, you find you run into contention, it could be the most effective overall output is if your task is the one in an occasional wait state.
  - underdeserver 5y ago
    I hope this will answer all comments below as well. Being a productive member of a team is about finding balance between what you're personally trying to get done and helping your teammates accomplish their tasks. Like everything else, it's a trade-off. Your formulation of local vs global optimization of priorities is exactly the correct way to view this problem. My priorities and my colleague's priorities are approximately the same priorities, assuming we're on the same team or on adjacent teams. We are both shipping the same product and serving the same users at the end of the day. That's why, like everything else in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle - interrupting someone 10 times a day for trivial stuff you can look up yourself by reading code or documentation is a waste of the other person's time. But wasting four hours running around looking for an answer to a question that your teammate can answer in two minutes is also a waste of time. The end user is not well served by either behavior. My rule of thumb is 30 minutes. If I can't find an answer in 30 minutes, and I think a teammate knows the answer and can answer immediately, I will ping them or come to their desk. Obviously you have to read the room. If the teammate you want to bug looks deeply concentrated in what they're doing, they're in the middle of typing, or you ask and they say "sorry I'm in the middle of something, come back in an hour", I'll leave them alone and probably take a break or something. But if they're just back from a coffee break or a meeting, or finished up a discussion with someone else at their desk, there's just no reason to keep banging your head against your desk. And of course I hold myself to the same standard. Being dismissive to someone who needs your attention is immature. I always assume good intent, and if someone bothers me too often, I just tell them; for some people I will ask they show me what they've already tried. I find this almost always works.

refurb 5y ago

I get the need to have uninterrupted time, but if others are depending on you to get their job done, it's kinda dickish to complain about people being "allowed to disturb you".

iLoveOncall 5y ago
When people don't havr access to you they quickly realize that never actually depended on you to get the job done.
- LilBytes 5y ago
  Username... Doesn't check out.
- ubercow13 5y ago
  I’m not sure most juniors starting their first job during the pandemic would feel that way. Imagine being in that situation and all your colleagues are never logged in to Slack, don’t reply to your emails until the end of the day, expect to never be disturbed, don’t attend any meetings..
  - gbear605 5y ago
    I’m a junior who started my first job during the pandemic (well, I had one month in the office before the pandemic). That wasn’t be experience at all. Slack and email were much easier to use for getting used to the job than being in person was. Of course, yes, some people need to be online to answer questions, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to be available all the time. Being online also encourages good documentation, which is a better habit to be in anyway.

IshKebab 5y ago

If you're in a position of some power that's maybe what you'd prefer. I'm on the bottom rung and being able to walk up to someone's desk so they can't ignore me would be extremely helpful. Been WFH for a while and it is not uncommon for people to ignore requests, never reply to messages etc. Yes that is a problem with my current team, but I can't really do anything about it. Working from an office would mostly sidestep it. I feel like most people are in agreement - commuting really sucks but working in an office is generally better. I suspect if teleporters existed barely anyone would WFH.

sokoloff 5y ago
Your last sentence sparked some reflection for me. I would absolutely teleport somewhere for a team meeting rather than play Zoom Brady Bunch. I would 100% do all my coding from home though, unless work returned to the “good old days” of offices with full walls and doors that closed.
- ihateolives 5y ago
  > I would absolutely teleport somewhere for a team meeting rather than play Zoom Brady Bunch. Imagine Scotty beaming the team down for a meeting and all of them are in their pajamas, unshaved and groggy, some still holding their cereal bowls.
matwood 5y ago
> I'm on the bottom rung and being able to walk up to someone's desk so they can't ignore me would be extremely helpful. Been WFH for a while and it is not uncommon for people to ignore requests, never reply to messages etc. TBF, that's not a problem with remote work. If the only way people will respond to a valid inquiry is through in person harassment there are much bigger issues at your employer.
johnnyanmac 5y ago
>I feel like most people are in agreement - commuting really sucks but working in an office is generally better. I suspect if teleporters existed barely anyone would WFH. depends on office space and potential home accommodations. Like, if you have a dedicated 8m^2 office room in your house, it still may not be worth teleporting into an open space office. But if everyone can get a small private room to some more open floor structure for collaboration, it sounds like the perfect solution.

underdeserver 5y ago

That's great, but I don't want to work with you, because something you're working on or something you're responsible for is blocking me and I have no way of making progress.

lstodd 5y ago
So distracting people who work on something that blocks you is "making progress"? That's rich.
- boopmaster 5y ago
  apparently doesn’t want to work with anyone that won’t jump up and cater to every urgent need. A real charmer!
Terretta 5y ago
Local vs. global optimization … You sure your priorities are of so much more significance than what the person is working on that they justify destroying the concentration of intellectual property creation and forcing a preemption of this other person’s task or reorder of their stack? If you’re blocked for lack of a task switch, what are you blocking in turn by causing a new interrupt and switch? Instead of crashing the thread they’re on, why not go to the scheduler and reorder the queue or better re-weight the threading so priorities are worked more optimally? If in attempting that, you find you run into contention, it could be the most effective overall output is if your task is the one in an occasional wait state.
- underdeserver 5y ago
  I hope this will answer all comments below as well. Being a productive member of a team is about finding balance between what you're personally trying to get done and helping your teammates accomplish their tasks. Like everything else, it's a trade-off. Your formulation of local vs global optimization of priorities is exactly the correct way to view this problem. My priorities and my colleague's priorities are approximately the same priorities, assuming we're on the same team or on adjacent teams. We are both shipping the same product and serving the same users at the end of the day. That's why, like everything else in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle - interrupting someone 10 times a day for trivial stuff you can look up yourself by reading code or documentation is a waste of the other person's time. But wasting four hours running around looking for an answer to a question that your teammate can answer in two minutes is also a waste of time. The end user is not well served by either behavior. My rule of thumb is 30 minutes. If I can't find an answer in 30 minutes, and I think a teammate knows the answer and can answer immediately, I will ping them or come to their desk. Obviously you have to read the room. If the teammate you want to bug looks deeply concentrated in what they're doing, they're in the middle of typing, or you ask and they say "sorry I'm in the middle of something, come back in an hour", I'll leave them alone and probably take a break or something. But if they're just back from a coffee break or a meeting, or finished up a discussion with someone else at their desk, there's just no reason to keep banging your head against your desk. And of course I hold myself to the same standard. Being dismissive to someone who needs your attention is immature. I always assume good intent, and if someone bothers me too often, I just tell them; for some people I will ask they show me what they've already tried. I find this almost always works.