←back to thread

Busy Status Bar

(busy.bar)
1366 points aleksi | 3 comments | 14 Oct 24 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
Aurornis ◴[14 Oct 24 23:58 UTC] No.41843535[source]▶
This is at least the 3rd version of this product idea that I’ve seen in the past decade. Certainly the nicest design!

The first time I saw this was some friends of friends who were trying to make it into a startup. They quickly discovered that their users liked the idea of a busy light for the office, but didn’t like to update it on or off throughout the day. So after the first few days people just defaulted to leaving it marked as “busy”. Within a week or two their coworkers realized that the light was always on busy, so they started asking if they were really busy.

At that point, the entire busy light idea had been defeated.

This product looks more versatile. Being able to automatically tie it to meeting status or set pomodoro timers could make it more interesting.

However, I predict the same fate: Eventually people will realize the light is busy when the person isn’t really busy, and then return to the old habit of interrupting to ask if they’re busy.

replies(11): >>41843620 #>>41844268 #>>41844355 #>>41844469 #>>41844780 #>>41845367 #>>41845909 #>>41846157 #>>41847362 #>>41847546 #>>41854478 #
Suppafly ◴[15 Oct 24 02:13 UTC] No.41844268[source]▶
> Eventually people will realize the light is busy when the person isn’t really busy

Like the geniuses that block off their whole day everyday on their calendar or set their Teams status to unavailable all day.

replies(3): >>41844951 #>>41846723 #>>41847796 #
jareklupinski ◴[15 Oct 24 04:30 UTC] No.41844951[source]▶
> the geniuses that block off their whole day everyday on their calendar

as someone who leaves themselves open to hear out others with their "hey do you have a second to check this out" ideas

y'all are missing out

replies(3): >>41845610 #>>41845816 #>>41850431 #
zwnow ◴[15 Oct 24 06:36 UTC] No.41845610[source]▶
True, and if someone tries to avoid communication in whatever way I highly doubt they actually work on meaningful tasks...
replies(2): >>41845637 #>>41845751 #
y1n0 ◴[15 Oct 24 06:42 UTC] No.41845637[source]▶
Or we work on meaningful tasks that require extended periods of focus and concentration.
replies(2): >>41846656 #>>41847099 #
zwnow ◴[15 Oct 24 10:34 UTC] No.41847099[source]▶
Unless you are some cerrah i highly doubt this.
replies(1): >>41847989 #
Uptrenda ◴[15 Oct 24 12:45 UTC] No.41847989{3}[source]▶
No one who is in engineering would say something like this. I can only conclude your job is auxiliary to engineering. In which case: I don't think someone who isn't an engineer should be talking about what is and isn't possible with respect to how engineers work. It's also a good idea that when engineers do tell you how they work -- not to ignore everything they say. Since Afterall -- you're not actually the one doing the job.
replies(1): >>41849267 #
1. zwnow ◴[15 Oct 24 14:55 UTC] No.41849267{4}[source]▶
I am a software engineer and most of them I have met throughout my career do not work on tasks that require 24/7 silence. Basic communication is important for every task and if you cant handle that you are simply not suited for the job.
replies(1): >>41850992 #
2. michaelt ◴[15 Oct 24 17:38 UTC] No.41850992[source]▶
In my experience a lot of large corporations are absolute distraction machines.

Urgent message! It's time to complete your annual anti-bribery training refresher.

Urgent message! It's World Mental Health Day, and we're rolling out a new employee health and wellbeing policy.

Urgent message! Don't click 'yes' if you're offered an OS upgrade, crowdstrike doesn't support the new version.

Urgent message! All employees are required to complete mandatory training on chair usage. Click here to get started now!

Urgent message! The production website is down, please join the conference call we'd like to ask you about query explain plans.

Urgent message! Would you recognise a phishing attempt? Take 5 minutes to run through this refresher training and keep our corporate data secure.

Urgent message! The lyon office squash club is looking for new members.

A professional needs a strategy to stay productive despite the noise, while not missing the occasional needles in the message haystack.

replies(1): >>41856637 #
3. TeMPOraL ◴[16 Oct 24 07:52 UTC] No.41856637[source]▶
Also don't forget the cow-orkers:

Urgent message! Do you have a moment for a quick call? [It's never quick.]

Urgent message! Hi $yourname.

Urgent message! Hi, so I hit this problem where this-and-this doesn't work. Here's an irrelevant part of the logs. We need to sort this before deployment tomorrow. [After couple of these, eventually your PM tells your team to stop fulfilling such requests from other teams, and instead first ask what the billing code for that is, or if they wouldn't rather file a Trac ticket.]