Now that the pandemic is over, we're back to mandatory 3 days per week, minimum, with more for higher level roles. Yet except for a recently acquired employee my entire team is remote. So, WFH and meet on Zoom or sit in an office and meet on Zoom.
Unfortunately the sales people are the policy makers and they can't seem to wrap their heads around doing anything that isn't face to face. Yet we started on this investment in remote work to control travel costs.
A workplace’s culture of consideration is expressed through communication channels, but is not determined by the choice of channel.
But instant messages? Everyone expects instant responses. Even when their message is something like, "hey,I see you have your door closed. Are you busy?"
FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU
My understanding is people don't expect instant responses, but that's never been made explicit. What do you base your understanding on? Do folks tell you?
Pre-covid you could tell when someone was busy based on body language and avoid interrupting them.
You gotta game the system and learn some basic acting skills. Twitch your face. Pause just a little too long before responding. Get up in the middle of a sentence to stare out the window and just stop talking, forcing the other party to ask you to continue. Laugh obnoxiously loud at your own jokes. Stall, delay, confuse, whatever you do: make the experience not worth repeating for the offender.
Get bipolar: be the very best person you can be on Slack. But be a complete hebephrenic bug eyed lunatic when someone interrupts you IRL.
I’m a huge proponent of async messaging (email) over sync… but if you are in the office, turn that nonsense off if you need to get work done.