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The cost of interrupted work (2023)

(blog.oberien.de)
282 points _vaporwave_ | 2 comments | 23 Aug 25 21:45 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Simon_O_Rourke ◴[24 Aug 25 04:51 UTC] No.45001503[source]▶
As a manager a lot of the annoying interruptions I put down to, and I chafe at using the word, a lack of hustle.

Okay, so I view my job as primarily giving devs some strategic direction and priority, but also unblocking them from getting work done.

On the later, the kind of interruptions I get are from folks who just don't want to do and figure some things out for themselves. Need access to a database... Go ask infra support. Don't know who wrote this API client, go look in git. There's folks who just don't bother to go search for these things themselves.

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forgotusername6 ◴[24 Aug 25 17:32 UTC] No.45006038[source]▶
If you're a manager, and those requests are coming from your team, isn't that just part of the job and not an interruption? Giving direction and priority is not a full time job, surely.
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1. kelnos ◴[24 Aug 25 19:27 UTC] No.45006938[source]▶
It depends on the question and situation, though. If someone comes and asks, "hey I need access to the Foo database", and your answer is, "you need to talk to the ops team about that; there's a form on Jira for that", and that fact clearly documented and easily discoverable on the internal wiki (or whatever), then this is just a case of a lazy person who wants someone else to solve their problems for them.

But sure, if internal documentation is garbage and it's difficult to find information or understand who needs to be asked to get something done, then yep, manager is gonna get hit with these sorts of requests all the time, and just has to deal with it. Part of the job.

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2. machomaster ◴[24 Aug 25 21:41 UTC] No.45008067[source]▶
But how large is the internal wiki, how well is it updated, how easy is it to find the information?

If it takes 10 minutes to search for info and 1 minute to ask, then the latter is a more efficient way. That's the job of the manager, to make developers more efficient, give them more time, preferably uninterrupted.