spontaneous expressions of mediocrity
When I worked for Valley Media, I remember all of the programmers and business analysts sealing off their cubicles with caution tape when they were in hardcore programing/analyst mode. It was sanctioned by the upper management as an economical alternative to putting all of these people in offices with locking doors. I used to balk at the Nessman solution (as in Les Nessman from WKRP In Cincinnati). It seemed like a petty attempt at the classic “busier than thou” attitude that completely drives me crazy in the workplace. That is, until I became something of a programmer myself.
It’s pretty difficult to get anything done with a constant stream of interruptions. Programming (at least writing PHP and SQL) requires lots of concentration. If you loose your train of thought, you often have to back track through a complex series of functions and conditional statements just to find where you left off. It’s sort of like reading the same chapter of a novel over and over, because you forget to pay attention when you were reading it the first time.
I already take a fair amount of shit from some of the print designers in my department. They like to poke fun at the fact that I spend more time working in text editors than in Illustrator and Photoshop (regardless of the fact that I still spend more time in Illustrator and Photoshop than they do). Caution tape wouldn’t exactly go over very well in this situation, so I have taken the more subtle headphone approach.
Headphones work well for drowning out audible distractions, like marketing coordinator gossip and telephone ringing. They also provide a subtle visual deterrent to people who just want to come by and waste my time with small talk.
I still have trouble with people outside of my department. My desk is the first one you come to when you walk in, so I suppose I’m a natural target for inquiries. The bigger issue is that these outside people seem to view headphone use as an obvious bending of the rules. I get the impression they think that I should instantly pop them off to address their every need, lest they report me to my manager. My manager, by the way, is polite enough to alert me via iChat if he has a something to say to me.
To their credit, it’s not entirely obvious to outside people that there is a workflow system in place to maximize productivity in the design department. My manager actually goes out of his way to filter everything that lands on my desk. Doing my part to defer as many of my distractions to him as possible, only improves our extremely efficient workflow.
I spend all day with my headphones on, cranking out his every internet request, and he spends most of his day talking people out of frivolous things they only think they need. We don’t miss deadlines, and we offer the most cutting edge multimedia resources in our industry.
This Monday has had a particularly high distraction ratio. With my manager out of the office, my challenge has been to find a way to deflect distractions in a more obvious manner. Since there isn’t a person here to deflect too, my strategy is more repellant in nature—I turned on my speakers.
Ion Dissonance, a wonderful group of boys in Montreal QC, have been a great deal of help to me today. Their 2003 album, “Breathing Is Irrelevant,” has been the perfect complement to my workflow, by providing motivating music to code to, and ample reason to steer clear of Mark’s desk. I think I may have even left a lasting impression on some of my more conservative would-be visitors.
I recently had a conversation with a coworker about the problem with getting any programming work done from an open cubicle. I think that cubicles should have lids.
Basically, you mash a giant button (probably named “Lid”), a top slams down on the cubicle, and a door swings shut. Lights and an air tube are connected to the lids, so that cubicles don’t get stuffy or dark.
The other suggestion was to have each cubicle sit on a hydraulic lift. When you’re busy, you simply raise your cubicle seven feet off of the ground and out of harms way.
This idea led to another, in which cubicles were stacked up instead of laid out on a horizontal plane. Each worker would simply be ferried up to the appropriate cubicle for a trouble-free work environment.
Perhaps my last idea might be better suited for the Japanese.
I would patent that elevated from reach idea ASAP if I were you. It’s and obvious winner. I see the lid idea causing unwanted prolonged exposure to your own farts. This would have to be addressed before any real testing could be done.
This applies to systems administration as well. I even have my own office (I’m very lucky), but I was interrupted twice just getting through this article. It’s not so bad when I’m just reading, but when I’m trying to hunt down a server issue, or troubleshoot a workstation, or (maybe more akin to programming) write a shell script, it’s VERY difficult when people are constantly knocking on the door with every tiny little thing. I’ve tried signs, I’ve tried not answering. Nothing seems to do the trick, except maybe yelling at someone. That seem to be the only way I get any peace, even if it is only temporary at best.
I guess it’s the nature of the beast.