How to deal with interruptions

How can you handle an interruption to your work, especially if it is an urgent request for help? We discuss how to do this without derailing your planned work for the day.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Aaron Saray

Host

Joel Clermont

What is No Compromises?

Two seasoned salty programming veterans talk best practices based on years of working with Laravel SaaS teams.

Joel Clermont (00:00):
Welcome to No Compromises, a peek into the mind of two old web devs who have seen some things. This is Joel.

Aaron Saray (00:07):
And this is Aaron.

Joel Clermont (00:15):
Today we're going to talk about fire and by that I mean developer fires. Which is something lands in your email inbox, or you get a phone call, oh, that's the worst, or somebody comes up to you that, "This isn't working," and there's a sense of urgency in their voice or their words. And how do you respond to that? Whether you work in a company or you work for yourself with clients, managing that sort of interruption and urgent fire is a valuable skill. So I thought we could talk about that today, Aaron.

Aaron Saray (00:48):
That sounds good. I think one of the things that's important to know is when people come to you with like the fire, the urgency thing, a lot of times the first thing they want to do is just be acknowledged and have you kind of step alongside them and agree with them, even if you disagree, that this is important. Right?

Joel Clermont (01:06):
Or if you're unsure, right?

Aaron Saray (01:07):
Yeah, its empathy really is like... I learned that in tech support. My first job was in tech support. People would call in like, "I can't get my email." And I'm thinking like, "Oh, because you're a heart surgeon and your email's that super important that you're calling me at 9:00 at night screaming into the phone?" But you just kind of learn to, "You know, that does sound frustrating. I know that I hate it if I can't get my email when I need it, let's look into that." I think when you talk about the fires that we get, so often as developers we're in the middle of something. I got my headphones on, I'm programming or an email pops up or someone walks up and they're like, "Hey, there's a problem." It's like the first thing you want to do is like, "Why don't you just shut up? Why don't you just leave me alone?" You know? Or even other people are like, "I got to jump on this right now."
But really the first thing I would say is to acknowledge that it's a thing and hear the person out or read the email don't respond to it right away. Just gather your thoughts, if you're talking to that person empathize with them and find out. Because a lot of times these are huge issues until someone says, "I understand." And once they know they've been understood and heard, the issue actually goes a little less on fire.

Joel Clermont (02:17):
Yeah, that's a good point. And I think I'll probably take... I don't want to say the opposite viewpoint, but just sort of the opposite attitude and I've caught myself doing this. Which is, sometimes that "emergency" is like shiny and exciting and that feature you've been working on for two weeks that you're kind of like at the hard part now and maybe you're stuck on something, you're looking for an excuse to not work on that. I've caught myself doing this too where something comes up and maybe you even switch too quickly into it just because it's almost a form of procrastination or a form of putting something off that is posing a challenge to you right now. You probably have never experienced that, Aaron, but maybe you've seen it in me.

Aaron Saray (03:05):
Yeah, I think it depends on that type of person, what your personality is as a programmer and just in general. Like as you were saying that I was just like biting my tongue. Like, "Why Joel? Why do you do that?"

Joel Clermont (03:18):
You've used this question, "Joel, don't be a hero." Or that phrase, "Don't be a hero." But that is part of it, it's there is an excitement, at least for me, in, "Oh, that thing's broken. Oh, that's bad. I can fix that for you." And often we can, right? Like, maybe it's even something we've already formed an opinion. Like, "Oh, I bet it's this thing that isn't restarting right," or something. And you think, "Oh, just take an hour." And that's also part of the rationale, is like, "I can fix this quickly and then I'll be right back to what I was doing."

Aaron Saray (03:46):
So let me ask you a question then. Do you then continue to get all your projects done on time when you act that way?

Joel Clermont (03:53):
Absolutely.

Aaron Saray (03:53):
Yeah, right.

Joel Clermont (03:56):
No. I mean, I think that's why I wanted to talk about this, is because it's such an easy trap to fall into and if you're not at least aware of what you're doing it's going to be hard to correct that. But I think the way you framed it at the beginning is also valid too. Because there's a lot of developers that would prefer to just stay heads down on what they're doing and maybe they're too far in the other direction where they need to have some balance and know when it is a good time to interrupt what they're doing and look at this other "emergency".

Aaron Saray (04:25):
I think a lot of it has to do with consequence too. So that's a thing I preach a lot is, there's a consequence for every action that we do, right?

Joel Clermont (04:33):
Yeah.

Aaron Saray (04:33):
First of all, as the developer that's excited about fixing something, there's a consequence to your actions in going and doing that. Which is, your project might get behind or you'll have to work extra and you got that little hero spike for a little minute there, but then is your family happy that you have to work an extra hour tonight instead of spending time with the kids and all those different things, right? Or are you going to let the client down, be like, "I was late." The opposite consequence or the opposite thing on that too is when a client comes to me I first of all... Or anyone, even if you're working in a business, boss comes to you and you say, "All right, that does sound important and urgent, and I understand that that's frustrating."
I mean, you don't have to say it like a robot like I just did. But you kind of acknowledge those things and you say, "You know, do you want me to look at that now if? If I do, I can probably get it fixed right away, but that's going to push behind the current project by an hour or two or however long. Just so you know, that'll slip out or I'll miss a deadline on that one." Or, "Is it really that important or should I look in it when I need a break and when I have some time?" And you'll be surprised when you start to say those things and demonstrate that there is consequence and you're willing to do whatever they want, but they have to make the decision, how those things that are on fire are now down to a smoldering coal.

Joel Clermont (05:55):
Sure. Yeah, exactly. And I like that idea of consequence because it's not necessarily even a negative thing but it's a reality. It's like cause and effect, something's going to happen. What I've done too is, and this works over email especially. If, "Hey, this isn't working." Like, I'll try to gauge it, is it the system's down completely? To me that's different than this one person says they're not getting a notification email. Like, you have to try to weigh the urgency of it. And assuming it's not a mission critical thing, like a business is losing money or has annoyed customers, I'll just say, "Hey, yeah, I can take a look at that. I'll get back to you," let's say today is Tuesday, "I'll get back to you on Thursday with what I found." And there's been times where I've typed that because I was in the middle of something that actually was time sensitive and I felt bad sending it and then they reply, "Okay, that's great."
In my head I had worked it up like they had this expectation, "You have to look at this today," or, "you have to look at this right now." And in reality they were just letting me know this thing was happening, they didn't really have any urgency attached to it and they were more than happy that I said I'd look at it in the next day or two. So that's another skill too is, don't try to read into somebody's intentions. Sometimes just tell them what you can do and let them push back if they actually need it sooner than that.

Aaron Saray (07:13):
Yeah, that's a good point. Because what are they supposed to do? Preface every email with, "This is not urgent."

Joel Clermont (07:18):
Exactly.

Aaron Saray (07:18):
It's, "I'm just going to let you know and you can deal with this information I've given you." You know, a lot of people shovel information at the next person to get it off their plate and there wasn't even an urgency about the thing. The urgency was to get it out of their hands into someone else's hands.

Joel Clermont (07:35):
Yeah, exactly. And that is what it is probably most of the time actually.
This morning I was looking at a bag of pretzels sitting on the counter and it's on the back. You know, they have the nutrition info and they have the story of the Pretzel company, which is riveting. But I was kind of noticing that it was odd how many things on the back of the pretzel bag were things that they were not. So I'll give you an example. This was not produced in a facility that processes peanuts. Good to know.

Aaron Saray (08:14):
Oh, yeah.

Joel Clermont (08:14):
Good to know. I get why they put that there because some people have peanut allergies and even if this thing doesn't have peanuts, like if it was even peanut adjacent it can hurt you. I'll tell you the brand of pretzel, it was Snyder pretzels. There was another sign on the back that said, "We are not affiliated with Snyder of Berlin, Germany." Good to know. I mean, I thought that was a little weird. I'm guessing maybe there was some like legal thing that happened where they hadn't put that on the bag, I don't know. You know, a lot of times items will have recycling information on it and it said, "This bag is not recyclable," and I'm like, "Okay, good." Again, I'm not sure why they felt the need to put all those things on there, but I just thought it was a weird observation. Like, they're telling me a lot of things that it's not.

Aaron Saray (09:04):
It's a real negative bag.

Joel Clermont (09:06):
Exactly. Like, "We're not this, we're not that." All right, what are you? "Well, we're delicious. Thank you." I never thought to recycle a bag from snacks.

Joel Clermont (09:18):
No, me either.

Aaron Saray (09:19):
Like, "Oh, this looks a little like what a water bottle might look like so let me put it in the recycling?"

Joel Clermont (09:25):
Sure.

Aaron Saray (09:25):
So we've said a lot about what we think and answered questions we've made up for ourselves, but do you have any questions or what do you think?

Joel Clermont (09:37):
If you'd like us to talk about a topic or have a question, contact us by going to masteringlaravel.io and click in the contact us link at the top.