sometimes there needs to be more obstacles

Sometimes, having the ability to instantly communicate with someone is a bad thing. Sometimes, a few extra steps need to be involved before disturbing someone else pointlessly.

Where I work, for instance, used to be in a cramped workspace where most people were in earshot of each other. Everyone else was a 10-15 second walk away. I would get disturbed for every little thing. No synapses would fire before making the decision to interrupt my work. It was effortless to turn around and ask instead of trying to figure things out. Besides being entirely annoying, it was very unproductive.

Now I find myself in a new, larger building. People can’t even tell if you’re at your desk,so they don’t bother taking the 5 minute walk over to my desk just to blurt out the problem they haven’t given any thought. They have extra obstacles in the way which requires thought. It requires a decision since there is some amount of effort required. Often the result is they figure it out for themselves. Or they take the action required to track down the answers.

I found a similar problem with the aim to mobile feature that people like to use. It’s effortless to send someone an aim. People don’t even think before they disturb you on your personal time. Hell, I accidentally send coworkers an SMS message through aim not realizing how early it is. But if I had to take action to look up a phone number or even to go so far as to pull out their phone and send an SMS, then certain parts of the brain get involved and they start to think about the critical (usually lack of) nature of the interruption.