> Need to get in touch with Bill? Just stroll over to his desk.
Sorry to be flippant, but to me this is one of the worst parts of office life summed up in one statement. The bar for other people to carelessly interrupt you can be unbelievably low sometimes.
I am a fairly high level engineer. People would come over to my desk all the time to either discuss work or shoot the shit.
However I still have my own work to do. Most of the questions they came to me for are a short slack message. I’d often literally have a queue at my desk of people. I’d also be constantly running between meetings.
Having me work from home is better for everyone who deals with me.
I’m more reachable all the time. That queue of people no longer waste their time waiting on my time.
I’m insanely more productive because I am great at multi tasking when I’m not having to simultaneously hold a discussion in person.
It’s not hyperbole on my part to say that having me shift to working from home has been a force multiplier for everyone who depends on me for something.
It does make some sense to me! It's a lot easier to manage several slack messages simultaneously than several in person conversations (although the image of an engineer helping a bunch of juniors like Magnus Carlson playing a bunch of chess tables in a line is funny!)
I also like to move conversations to group channels so that even more people benefit from the conversation. It really is a force multiplier.
Sorry to be flippant, but to me this is one of the worst parts of office life summed up in one statement. The bar for other people to carelessly interrupt you can be unbelievably low sometimes.