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Comment by tduberne | Hacker News Reader

> Also, it is work time, you have to expect to be on the ready, and answer people that needs something from you, so they can get their work done, too. It is not your leisure time.

I do not agree with that statement. In lots of roles, it does not matter whether you answer now or in one hour, but being constantly disrupted unexpectedly can have a dramatic impact on concentration and productivity. I cannot do any substantial programming or data analysis if I expect to be disrupted. The problem is not someone calling because the house is on fire and I am the only one who can fix it; the problem is someone screaming for my attention to e.g. know if I will participate in an event in 2 months time. Avoiding unnecessary disruptions is not letting people have leisure time, it is allowing them to do their work properly.

On that topic I really like that piece: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

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This, please. Why on earth EVERYONE is expected to be "on the ready" all the time? I understand it may be the case for some people but...not being on the ready means you're on your leisure time?

Somewhere along the road we failed to grasp the idea that some jobs require extreme doses of concentration, and being highly available is a counter to those jobs. Don't pretend that customer support and chess players have the same needs to excel at their jobs.

I have a theory that certain job titles are amenable to people with poor boundaries. The first Pointy Haired Boss I encountered was a customer. Dumber than a post, his primary skill seemed to be in getting things he didn’t deserve.

Salespeople often worry far more about Face than Physics. If they told a customer something was easy, then you have to cobble something together quickly no matter what. Which means massive tech debt, huge time sinks, and later questions about why you guys are so slow now? That only stops when the engineers find solidarity, and agree to always say no.

And there are plenty of shops where the engineers are perceived to always say no, and to be unresponsive to management needs.

It's a spectrum, and requires managerial talent to still the right balance. Letting the engineers just say no is not the solution.

If you find someone who tells you they can violate the laws of physics, they're lying to you, and they'll be gone before you ever figure it out.

> I cannot do any substantial programming or data analysis if I expect to be disrupted.

Yet when you're in an office, you can always be interrupted by anyone coming up to you (and that's usually true even if you have your private office). That doesn't mean we don't reduce the actual number of interruptions. The same applies when working remotely.

Which is why we can duplicate a team of 20 by a team of 2 and get roughly the same output.

It's a matter of cost-to-interrupt. IM substantially lowers that, the same as home visit is more expensive than snail-mail spam is more expensive than e-mail spam.

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