I had a conversation on Friday with one of my supervisors (have I mentioned previously how difficult I am to supervise? and how incredibly patient and tolerant my supervisors are?). I hijacked the conversation to discuss my obsession of the moment, which boils down to: how do I prevent endless interruptions when I come into the office during the day?
Since the new appointment, interruptions have been the bane of my existence – I literally can’t be in my office for more than a few minutes before someone knocks on the door. And the things people will knock on a closed door to ask! The other day, I had: “I just wanted to know: what does ‘prelapsarian’ mean?” And, when I decided that answering truthfully would be quicker than the various sarcastic responses that sprang to mind, I got, “So, is that some American word or something, because I’ve never heard it before…” Then there is the recent burst of interest in: “Could you give me, like, an example of ontology?” (It’s getting out somehow that I’m a “theorist”, so I suppose such questions now belong in some natural way to me…) Then there are people who, having forgotten to add me to the invitation list for some important meeting, decide that collecting me with no notice is the right way to compensate for this oversight. And then there are what seem to be endless social invitations – which I appreciate, and my intention is honestly not to become the departmental hermit, as much I have been behaving this way of late. But I still can’t help but be irritated when I’m working with my office door closed, and someone knocks to ask: “Are you busy right now?”
Individually, none of these interruptions is that time consuming but, by the end of day, the cumulative effect is that I feel I’ve been working under a strobe light – my actual work blinks in and out of my concentration, and it becomes impossible to string together a continuous chain of thought. I have no idea whether my lectures are at all coherent, or how many important concepts I’ve forgotten in getting up repeatedly from my desk.
I’ve been trying to minimise this by asking people please to email, instead of knock, when my door has closed. My thought had been that email is less intrusive, and would allow me to decide whether I have the time and focus to deal with a particular query. It had never occurred to me how people would interpret this request. I’ve started getting strings of little cryptic emails that say nothing but: “call me”. Or, worse: “call me ASAP”. I don’t know how other people react to amorphous communications like this, and I’m sure my own reaction to them is quite pathological, but these kinds of emails terrify me. I think, “Oh God! I must have done something terrible, for them not to spell out in the email itself what they want to say!” And my mind, unfortunately, is quite imaginative in wondering what that terrible thing might be… The consequence is that I’ve somehow managed to create email communications that are even more disruptive than knocks on my door, because of course I’ll drop everything I’m doing to find out what it’s about – and then sit obsessing when, inevitably, the person’s not in when I try to call…
So that strategy isn’t helping, either.
My supervisor and I have discussed this issue before, so his response began where our last conversation left off: “You need to be more rude!”
“But I am being rude,” I swear to him. And, when he looks sceptical, I add, “Seriously: people have begun leaping backwards in fear when I answer the door – I’m worried that I’m making people think I’m antisocial.” (I keep to myself the fact that I think that I’m antisocial, as it doesn’t seem relevant to this particular conversation…)
He offers: “Rules. You need rules: door closed – fuck off!”
“I have asked people not to knock when my door is closed,” I offer.
“No – you need a sign: ‘N’s Three Rules’, you can call it. (1) Door closed: do not disturb; (2) Door open a crack: disturb only in an emergency – knock first; (3) Door open – come on in.”
“No one else seems to need a sign to keep people out of their office when their door is shut,” I worry.
“You need a sign,” he insists.
I remain noncommittal, and our conversation ranges onto other topics. As he is leaving, he returns to the issue. “You put a sign up right here,” he points, “Take this other stuff down, and put up a sign – ‘N’s Three Rules’ – just there.” He walks out, catches sight of the “Nullius in Verba” sign currently on my door, and turns back, suddenly worried, “Oh, and N? Your three rules: just… just… don’t write them in Latin, okay?”
What is it about me, that people assume I would do such a thing?
I dunno, NP; there might not be anything you can do about it. Once you’ve developed a reputation for being helpful and clear in ways that other people aren’t, you get pigeonholed there. While our colleagues don’t get knocks because no one expects to find help on the other side, our closed doors start to represent some kind of perverse barrier to desired assistance.
However, it is genuinely frustrating when people are interrupting you to ask for answers that could be found in any dictionary. Please tell me this was an undergrad asking about “prelapsarian.”
Fellow faculty. And 20 years older than me. (I should indicate that the irritation I’ve expressed above is not directed at students – I have a lot of patience with students dropping in on me – and I’m also not frightened by students sending “call me” emails… ;-P)
The other thing that irks me, in a different way, is people plunging in when the door is open, regardless of what’s going on inside. I’ll be meeting with some student who has actually done the right thing and made an appointment, and a colleague will poke in and interrupt. As chaotic as my attention span is at the moment, I try to give my full attention to students when they’ve requested it, and, honestly, someone’s burning desire for an example of an ontology can wait for a moment when I don’t have someone else in my office…
But you’re right about the closed door being perceived as a kind of affront. I’ll admit that the door has been closed much more often lately than it has been in the past – but what can I say? I have a full-time appointment now; I didn’t then… And I’m being stupid and still trying to cover some research work for two other large projects in which I’ve been involved (not my personal research). So it’s a simple equation, really: full-time job + research consultancies + dissertation = closed door…
But can you tell I’m a walking rant right now? ;-P Sorry about this – it obviously doesn’t take much of a provocation to set off a minor flood…
Oh, that other-profs-barging-in thing is awful. I had a meeting with my director last week, and we started the meeting with a little chitchat about how teaching is going. Unfortunately, my director is the kind of guy who will accidentally fly off into an impromptu lecture on some random thing. I like to ride it out, be polite, and move on. But this time, another prof was passing by, heard the name of her favorite book, and propped herself in the doorway as they went back and forth about it for half an hour–half my meeting-time gone. I was sitting there not saying a word. Arg.
And I didn’t mean to imply that it’s even remotely reasonable that your door is an affront–I’m just trying to imagine what in the hell people are thinking when they knock like that. Maybe if you open it, and just say, “I can’t, I just can’t,” and close it. Then, if you somehow get a reputation for tetchiness, all the better.
Oh my rant wasn’t directed in any way at what you said – I’m replying to those fantasy objectors in my head in that paragraph, not to your comment… ;-) I have to admit, I’ve actually been doing the “I can’t, I just can’t” thing – and it has worked to some degree, although something about the expression on people’s faces when I do it makes me feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown in public or something…
Funny. Don’t really have the problem myself. That’s mostly, I suspect, because I project an air of unapproachability.
Some suggestions:
1. Work from home more, if that’s practical and conducive to industry.
2. When there’s a knock at your door, don’t answer it.
3. If the phone rings, don’t answer it.
4. Should people come in despite your having ignored their knock, lock the door if you can do so. If you can’t lock the door, then do not turn your body away from the computer when people burst in. If you can bear it, don’t even look up at them. If that’s too much for you to handle, then turn only your head and keep your fingers hovering above your keyboard.
5. Show the minimum of politenes by half-smiling wordlessly and by merely grunting or “mmm”-ing in response to rants, chit-chat, etc.
6. Never, NEVER try to close a conversation with a jovial or ironic remark; in fact, avoid any statement that is in anyway related to the topic of conversation. Instead, learn the art of inserting the phrase, “anyway, I’ve got to get back to this”, at the slightest hint of a topic coming to a close.
7. Do not get involved in any committees, working parties, or any other form of departmental administration.
8. Refrain from any kind of collegiality. Never, NEVER tallk to staff from outside your immediate section/department. Start ignoring any interdepartmental colleagues you might have already befriended.
Follow those tips and I think you’ll find yourself relatively interruption-free.
LOL! Yes, well… I can see why I’ve been having problems… Clearly there are possibilities I haven’t contemplated…
Of course, I might find myself both interruption and tenure free, if I take this approach… ;-) (At the moment, that almost feels worth it…)
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