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Thank you for your comment, it provides perspective other than my own which is refreshing and valuable. I think one of the OPs points touches on this directly

Thank you for your comment, it provides perspective other than my own which is refreshing and valuable. I think one of the OPs points touches on this directly though. What is the ratio of questions asked to answers provided, or to put it another way, how many questions are you asking vs how many people come to you for help with their own question? I humbly submit that perhaps you are asking more questions than you are answering - and there's nothing wrong with that, but IMO it does explain a bit why we don't see eye to eye about this. Have you thought about asking one of your subordinates about their perspective on this? With respect, I disagree about the cost of context switching being BS. I think it heavily depends on the complexity/sensitivity of the task being interrupted, but for any non-trivial task there is almost always a non-trivial cost as well. > I've never been offended when someone stopped by to discuss a problem they're having... I just wanted to clarify, I think it would be rather unreasonable to actually feel offended because someone asked your help or advice. I never feel offended in those situations. I do sometimes feel a bit frustrated or aggravated, but it's always about the fact that I was interrupted and never towards the colleague asking for help, and I take extra care to make sure that this frustration or aggravation never shines through to the person I'm helping because that would discourage them from asking for help and I would rather they asked for help than make an incorrect assumption (for example).

rattray 12y ago
Regarding "interruption deficit", or open-plans being important only to those who ask a lot of questions, I think their experiences _do_ matter. I would guess that these people are mostly junior developers, project managers, or simply people (extraverts?) who prefer social interaction as a part of their work. Their opinions matter too. Junior developers will probably suffer without easy access to those around them (yes, it's annoying for the senior devs, but that's part of the job). PM's, similarly, need to be effective; in a well-run company, they're there to help and if open-offices are important to that, well, there you go. I'm a fan of slack etc, but I'm also an extravert. If I'm not talking to others as a part of my job, I'm going to be miserable and leave. I don't think I'm the only one.
- click170 12y ago
  I don't disagree with anything you've said, it is important that the job is fulfiling for both introverts and extroverts and that's a very difficult balance to strike. It's important to point out though that if you make asking questions too easy for new employees, they can end up leaning on that as a crutch instead of developing the troubleshooting skills necessary to solve problems independently. I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been that new colleague hunting for info that isn't clearly documented, and I've also been the senior colleague who was the go-to person whenever a problem came up that didn't have an immediately-clear answer. I was lucky in that shortly after I started my only senior resigned leaving me with nobody to ask, which forced me to get good at that kind of troubleshooting. It makes me wonder if new colleagues should be given a time period for when they are allowed to ask any question no matter how stupid. After that time, they can of course still ask questions but it's expected that they try to find an answer before asking. Along the same lines of pair-programming for colleagues who have been here less than 1 year.
  - rattray 12y ago
    Yes, this definitely makes sense.
ryandrake 12y ago
Ratio changed as I grew up. As a fresh junior dev, you ask all the questions, as you get more and more senior, it inverts. I consider mentoring the junior folks and passing along whatever tribal knowledge that's not documented yet part of growing into a senior role and have no problem doing it. In fact, I'd rather someone ask me and break my concentration than not ask and go off re-implementing a linked list or something.

rattray 12y ago

Regarding "interruption deficit", or open-plans being important only to those who ask a lot of questions, I think their experiences _do_ matter. I would guess that these people are mostly junior developers, project managers, or simply people (extraverts?) who prefer social interaction as a part of their work. Their opinions matter too. Junior developers will probably suffer without easy access to those around them (yes, it's annoying for the senior devs, but that's part of the job). PM's, similarly, need to be effective; in a well-run company, they're there to help and if open-offices are important to that, well, there you go. I'm a fan of slack etc, but I'm also an extravert. If I'm not talking to others as a part of my job, I'm going to be miserable and leave. I don't think I'm the only one.

click170 12y ago
I don't disagree with anything you've said, it is important that the job is fulfiling for both introverts and extroverts and that's a very difficult balance to strike. It's important to point out though that if you make asking questions too easy for new employees, they can end up leaning on that as a crutch instead of developing the troubleshooting skills necessary to solve problems independently. I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been that new colleague hunting for info that isn't clearly documented, and I've also been the senior colleague who was the go-to person whenever a problem came up that didn't have an immediately-clear answer. I was lucky in that shortly after I started my only senior resigned leaving me with nobody to ask, which forced me to get good at that kind of troubleshooting. It makes me wonder if new colleagues should be given a time period for when they are allowed to ask any question no matter how stupid. After that time, they can of course still ask questions but it's expected that they try to find an answer before asking. Along the same lines of pair-programming for colleagues who have been here less than 1 year.
- rattray 12y ago
  Yes, this definitely makes sense.

ryandrake 12y ago

Ratio changed as I grew up. As a fresh junior dev, you ask all the questions, as you get more and more senior, it inverts. I consider mentoring the junior folks and passing along whatever tribal knowledge that's not documented yet part of growing into a senior role and have no problem doing it. In fact, I'd rather someone ask me and break my concentration than not ask and go off re-implementing a linked list or something.