Can you jump on a zoom real quick

“Sorry, I need to focus on something right now. Try asking [person]”

Or if I’m already on DND? Ignore, and create an appointment for later.

This is a great way to get management up your ass and get fired.

End of the day, it’s all about the culture of your workplace. No one here really understands that. I’ve been interrupted more during remote work at some companies than when in person at others. It’s entirely culture dependent.

> This is a great way to get management up your ass and get fired.

If you get fired for doing that sort of thing, the company is doing you a favor.

Status on IM platform set to busy, notifications suppressed unless from a select group (direct manager, etc).

So uh no. Can’t jump on a zoom real quick, I’m doing work.

Easy, just learn to push back or setup mechanisms like office hours to attend for folks whom are in need of support.

Like security, the human chain will always be the weakest link here. If you don't have backbone to stand up for your own time, that's on you - not the remote work inherently IMO.

“Nope.”

Sorry already in a meeting, can we chat here?

"Sorry, you'll have to give me 15. I'll send you a message when I'm available, OK?"

"let me finish this email, i'll poke you in 10"

10 might actually be 2 hours, but whatever.

Well, ideally you follow through. The only way to get people to respect the social contact is by honouring it yourself.

I've literally never said yes to this question unless it was something incredibly urgent like prod being down or whatever.

It's always my direct manager that does this.

or just "Hello, dekhn" without any additional context.

...and when you stop what you're doing and reply they don't follow up for 10 minutes, just a moment after you go back to your work.

I don't understand this way of looking at things. I sometimes learn something new by answering a question from someone who is looking at things from a different direction than I am, or discussing something I don't have a quick answer to. That helps both of us. If I don't even have to think about it, it helps the other person be immediately productive (and learn something) at the cost of taking me out of "the flow" as opposed to having them beat their head against it for who knows how long while I get a a couple more minutes of uninterrupted time. I can hop back into "the flow" pretty much immediately.

If it happened every five minutes that's a different story.

> I sometimes learn something new by answering a question from someone who is looking at things from a different direction than I am, or discussing something I don't have a quick answer to

This can happen on Slack or whatever too, but with much less friction. I'm not ignoring teammates for days - I just want to be able to take 10 minutes or whatever to reach a reasonable place to context-switch versus being forced to do so right now.

> I can hop back into "the flow" pretty much immediately.

I envy you, but I very much cannot do this. If I'm working on something of sufficient complexity, I'm going to lose at least 15 minutes every time I'm forced to make a substantive context-switch. It's a huge drain for me.

Your lack of communication can hurt others. One person being 'productive' while causing blocks for others isn't good for the team.

Why do you assume he's causing blocks?

I don't see what he said as lacking communication. It's enhancing it by allowing them to "schedule" it according to their workflow.

Very rarely does anything actually need an immediate response, and when it does, just call the person.