<story><title>Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)</title><url>https://contextkeeper.io/blog/the-real-cost-of-an-interruption-and-context-switching/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ChrisMarshallNY</author><text>Sadly, the cost of context switching is well-known, and has been proven, over and over again, for decades.&lt;p&gt;But managers don&amp;#x27;t care (and many co-workers also).&lt;p&gt;A quick shufti at most modern open-plan offices, shows the contempt that managers have for developer context. They know better, and have made the conscious decision to go open, anyway.&lt;p&gt;I remember visiting the Facebook&amp;#x2F;Instagram building, in NYC, and was aghast at the huge, noisy, crowded office. I would &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; be able to get any work done, in that environment.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m grateful to be in a position, where I work alone (mostly), as I can keep all those balls in the air, and the difference in productivity is &lt;i&gt;amazing&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>giantrobot</author><text>This killed me my last few years at Apple in the spaceship. Everything in the fucking building is a distraction and most of it is constantly in your line of sight at all times.&lt;p&gt;Even if I managed to angle my monitor right, put on headphones, and pull my hoodie up to reduce distractions some side conversation or impromptu stand up would inevitably distract me and pull me out of my flow. I tried to come in as late as practical in order to stay late so I could get work done for a few uninterrupted hours. I found myself going in a day on the weekend to actually get the previous week&amp;#x27;s work finished. Unfortunately management doesn&amp;#x27;t like people coming in &amp;quot;late&amp;quot; because they can&amp;#x27;t lord over them from their offices during the day and constantly interrupt them with meetings.&lt;p&gt;It was downright insulting that a $5b building intended for professionals didn&amp;#x27;t have real offices with fucking doors. At the upper management level the fact the company worked as well if not better with WFH policies must be incensing. It makes plain the insipid claims about &amp;quot;collaboration&amp;quot; in that stupid building. Collaboration happens when engineers &lt;i&gt;want&lt;/i&gt; to share ideas, not because they&amp;#x27;re imprisoned in a glorified fish tank for eight hours a day.</text></comment>
<story><title>Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)</title><url>https://contextkeeper.io/blog/the-real-cost-of-an-interruption-and-context-switching/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ChrisMarshallNY</author><text>Sadly, the cost of context switching is well-known, and has been proven, over and over again, for decades.&lt;p&gt;But managers don&amp;#x27;t care (and many co-workers also).&lt;p&gt;A quick shufti at most modern open-plan offices, shows the contempt that managers have for developer context. They know better, and have made the conscious decision to go open, anyway.&lt;p&gt;I remember visiting the Facebook&amp;#x2F;Instagram building, in NYC, and was aghast at the huge, noisy, crowded office. I would &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; be able to get any work done, in that environment.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m grateful to be in a position, where I work alone (mostly), as I can keep all those balls in the air, and the difference in productivity is &lt;i&gt;amazing&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mrighele</author><text>&amp;gt; But managers don&amp;#x27;t care (and many co-workers also).&lt;p&gt;For the majority, the cost is not that well known and in general they are not the ones paying for it, you are.&lt;p&gt;In particular for your colleagues it may be beneficial to disturb you because when they disturb you, you may lose concentration but the may in fact avoid losing it by quickly get an answer to their pending problem.&lt;p&gt;This is one aspect where LLMs may be very useful: asking something to a tool like ChatGPT may not be faster than asking a colleague, but if it avoids ruining the colleague&amp;#x27;s concentration it will be a net positive for the company. This is even more true if&amp;#x2F;when those model will incorporate specific internal knowledge (code, documentation) of the company.</text></comment>