How to run a calm workplace | Hacker News Reader

How to run a calm workplace

economist.com

The HN discussion of the book in question:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18128063

"Another criticism of corporate culture levelled by the book is that offices have become interruption factories. People are working longer and later because they cannot get stuff done at the office any more. At a conference attended by 600 people, the authors asked how many had recently enjoyed 3-4 hours of uninterrupted work; only 30 hands went up."

That's my main complaint all the time and somehow managers just shrug it off as if there is nothing that can be done. Interruptions plus constant noise make real focused work almost impossible for me.

That's because a manager's job is all just interrupt driven.

It takes good management to realize that their direct reports need a different environment to thrive.

Very true. I can do architecture meetings or dealing with marketing and project management easily in 1 hour chunks. But actual coding needs full days or even weeks without interruption to be at full performance.

I find that the higher you climb in the corporate ladder the less actual work hours I have because my calendar is filled with meetings and the remaining hours are scattered everywhere throughout the day.

Nowadays, I am just trying to get my developers productive by trying to my best to give them uninterrupted blocks of work either in morning or afternoon but it's not easy.

"Nowadays, I am just trying to get my developers productive by trying to my best to give them uninterrupted blocks of work either in morning or afternoon but it's not easy. "

It's totally insane that you have to do this. We have to try to make people DESPITE the workplace instead of setting it up in way that people can perform at their best.

Mid-level managers often cannot do anything about it. It’s the CEOs and other high level management who have a concept of what they want the office to look like, usually driven by what they read in some magazine with nice pictures. They will claim things like having to keep up with industry trends and being able to look a certain way to attract talent. These people also spend their whole day in meetings while also responding to email at the same time. Their entire life is one distraction after another, and they really have no idea what kind of environment is really needed for their employees to accomplish deep work. They seem to think that “fostering creativity” is the goal above all others, whether or not modern office layouts actually even do that to begin with.

Sometimes I have fantasies of modifying my headphones with two small flags.

A green flag means it's safe to approach me for a code question/office banter/TPS sheet.

A red flag means do not disturb

make it a bluetooth-conneted LED indicator and you've probably got a solid kickstarter project.

And add some hooks so that it can automatically flip the LED red when you are actively typing code...

My current group and area at work are super quiet. It's what I've always dreamed of but at the same time it is almost too quiet.

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