I think if we constantly interrupt each other, we should very critically ask ourselves if that's the proper way forward. Often people physically being there is

I think if we constantly interrupt each other, we should very critically ask ourselves if that's the proper way forward. Often people physically being there is used as a "crutch" or a "band aid" to bad onboarding practices and big knowledge gaps. I am tired of people seeing their team drowning, distracted, noise, responding to the same question 31040041 times and then simply saying: "well, I need to be there in person to help Josh, he just started". While that's a good team spirit, you gotta look beyond that. There are things you can do to make it easy for yourselves and the new starters. Of course, people are responsible for their own productivity, but there is also such a thing as a team. And the team itself will benefit if people are less disruptive of each other. My point is that teams should retrospect aggressively on where they spend their time, and if they find that lots of their time is spent on answering questions to onboarders or big knowledge gaps between one another, they should do something about it. I won't waste space here outlining what can be done, but there ARE things that can be done. Do those things, and then the argument that you: A) "must" be in the office to do good collaborative work B) and you "have" to ask 5 min questions all the time loses any validity and becomes just corporate laziness and bad management.