Faux Emergency

Two things that have always sort of annoyed me with academic culture is the interruptions and the faux emergency. The two are related.

First, there is an underlying understanding that if you are on your office, you are approachable. Some academic institutions have an open door culture where no one closes the door. This is impossible right now with a busy lecture room right outside my door. Even with the door closed it's plenty distracting. One thing that I really like about the new place is the fact that everyone knocks. It's a little thing but it allows me to disengage and focus on the visitor. Want me to do a thing? Knock on the door first.

Secondly is the faux emergency. This happens when a deadline or requirement has been poorly communicated and suddenly it's an emergency. Not only am I now interrupted for a thing but a "drop everything and do this RIGHT NOW".

So tempted to blow this sort of thing off. The issue is however often that if I do, it's some poor student that suffers. These are often not the creators of the faux emergency however.

These two issues completely shred my ability to do much focused work (e.g. Writing) during business hours.