How do you actually get any work done?
Having to wait for 5-10 minutes for an answer in Slack breaks the concentration of the person asking the question, _and_ your concentration because you still need to get distracted and answer the question.
Async communication is great in many cases, likely most cases. Sync communication does have important uses, though.
I'm going to argue that their concentration is already broken because there's a problem, needing remediation and help from a colleague on to the point of bothering to ask in the first place. And if you're sitting three feet away from me, I'm sorry but I'd much rather just flip around, ask if you have a minute, answer the question, and drive closer to the desired team outcome.
Change my mind.
The only reason would be actual urgency (not the pretend emergencies that businesses claim, either).
Merely curious.
Saying “I’ll help you later” usually comes with 5-15 minutes of lost productivity while you try to get your concentration back for what you were just doing.
Also, it’s often better to bundle questions together, usually at the end of the day, and document them like with an internal Q&A board, to reduce future needs to interrupt over that same question.
But, to put some number on this, I’d say later in the afternoon, if I’m not busy for a deadline, I’ll jump up and help on all questions.
Between 7 am and lunch, I will not help you unless it’s an absolute emergency. I simply can’t afford to if I am going to do my job. Between lunch and 4pm, say, it’s a crapshoot based on what I’m doing, but generally I would say I respond with “I’ll help you later” to 90% of interrupting questions.
Interestingly, on my year end reviews one of the most consistent pieces of positive feedback I’ve gotten across several different employers, is that I am extremely helpful and generous with explaining things, and that my explanations are usually exceptionally clear and offer insight that quickly clears up confusion and leaves impressive documentation behind for people to reference later.
It’s about communicating smart, not communicating constantly. I defer about 90% of the questions I’m asked, yet people look to me as “the guy who always answers everybody’s questions.”
I'm a bit confused by this. It is selfish, in the workplace to ask a colleague for help who sits an arm's length away?
Be it via Slack or shoulder tap, you're breaking their concentration regardless. Whatever task they were doing, is now being stopped because of the ask for help.
Maybe I'm looking at this from too high of a vantage point. Help me out here.
>It is selfish, in the workplace to ask a colleague for help who sits an arm's length away-Slack or shoulder tap, you're breaking their concentration regardless
Not really, because you can disable notifications and check when you have free time. A physical interruption is abrupt and for sure will distract.
If this is how you're about to start discussing this, then I'll just bow out right now.
>It is selfish, in the workplace to ask a colleague for help who sits an arm's length away?
Because I haven’t said that, at all. I’ll bow out myself.
dvtrn have I misunderstood your posts? Sorry to put words in your mouth if I have.
There's a very simple way to not interrupt someone working: try to catch their eye. If you can't, they're probably busy. Write down your question and move onto another aspect of what you're working on. You might even realize the answer to your own question while working. Maybe you will collect multiple questions, and you can ask them all at once rather than interrupting someone multiple times.
I've certainly had days where I got nothing done because people asked me a question every 10-20 minutes.
S/he is not the one asking for help. He is the one being asked for help. Their attention and focus is the one being interrupted (or at least that's what their first comment said, that they receive numerous requests from help from someone who sits directly behind them via chat). And on that note, I actually find myself taking his or her side on this. They are being asked for help by someone who sits close enough away that they can quickly provide an answer verbally and return to their chores/duties.
That seems more efficient than hammering at the keyboard given the recipient can very likely hear the sound of one's voice with the response to the inquiry for assistance.
Why are so many comments to this problem being presented as if this person is the one who needs their behavior rectified, when they are not the source of the interruption, but the recipient of?
> I'm a bit confused by this. It is selfish, in the workplace to ask a colleague for help who sits an arm's length away?
> Be it via Slack or shoulder tap, you're breaking their concentration regardless. Whatever task they were doing, is now being stopped because of the ask for help.
I was responding to this. They are now asking from the point of view of the person doing the interrupting. The statement about Slack vs shoulder tap is not true for me, and I would guess it is not true for a lot of people. Someone asking a question via Slack does not break my concentration.
You can still send me a message on Slack, and I’ll respond in a few hours when I can.
But if you speak verbally directly to me at my desk or tap me on the shoulder, then I have to break my concentration, engage in social norms about hearing out your question. Even if I instantly tell you I can’t help right now, I’ll lose 5-15 minutes getting back to concentration every time you do this.
You have a very unusual and incorrect understanding about how much more severely distracting itbis to receive a verbal / shoulder tap interruption for a question than something asynchronous like Slack or email.