lifebsideben

The signal/noise ratio of IM conversations is usually pretty poor to start with, but I’m continually amazed by the initiations that I’m subjected to for these interchanges, anyhow. In the excerpts below, CTSRN stands for “Coworker That Shall Remain Nameless”.

CTSRN: hey ben - got a second?
Me: y
CTSRN: mind if i stop by?
Me: k
CTSRN: cool - thx - i’l;l be there in a sec

Now, understand that this person sits about 50 feet from me. Aargh. Just come on by dammit rather than interrupt me twice, to say you WILL come by. If I’m busy, you can probably tell just from looking in my cube. Sigh.

Then there’s another person who almost always starts IM conversations like this:

CTSRN: hey
Me: hi
CTSRN: can i ask u a question?
Me: shoot

The second part of my last response there was “me”, because at this point, the person has already basically asked me TWO questions. Just ask the question!!

One more, yet another person, with timestamps:

CTSRN (2:26:19 PM): hey ben
Me (2:26:21 PM): y
CTSRN (2:26:36 PM): i sent a note for the [project meeting] tomorrow, but can you still do today at 4pm?
Me (2:26:43 PM): y
CTSRN (2:26:50 PM): cool
CTSRN (2:26:59 PM): lemme sort it all out

So here there was an actual, valuable, business reason for the ping–could I still make a meeting (although, I rarely don’t attend meetings I agree to, anyhow). But it was ping-then 2s for me to reply. Then 15 (!) more seconds for the question, during which time, what, I am supposed to stare at the window awaiting the question? Then 7 more seconds for my reply, which seems reasonable to consider if I had a new conflict at that time slot or not. But then, 7 more seconds for the “cool” acknowledgement (when none was needed at all), and then dammit, 9 seconds later than that, a followup that was useless to me. A transaction that could have taken a total of 7 seconds of my attention took 40 seconds, 75%+ of which was me theoretically staring at my screen. In reality, I was doing other things simultaneously during that time, but it then involved at least 2 additional context switches for me than necessary. Sure, it’s not a lot in one instance, but it all adds up.

Alright, I feel better now. Oh and by the way, this is only a couple weeks after I sent out an “IM etiquette” email rant to several internal maillists about the way to properly use IM, and why. Maybe I should have sent it via IM instead.

Tags: bitching, Life, work