An app that lets you pretend to receive a call when a co-worker distracts you | Hacker News Reader

An app that lets you pretend to receive a call when a co-worker distracts you

nopebutton.com

116 pointsr0muald63 comments

Just be honest and say "please don't think I'm being rude, but I really need to get on with this work." You can be assertive without lying or being nasty.

That's ideal and needs to be the first approach. In practice, people that communicate all day don't always understand than other jobs require uninterrupted focus. That's why engineers try things like no-meeting-wednesdays and schedule blocks for coding.

I wouldn't use the tool in question, but I relate to the motivation.

if you need to use this tool, the uninterrupted focus is most likely already gone, damage done. it's even likely that the person will return once your call is done to interrupt you again.

or.... they'll learn that you prioritize answering calls over f2f, and they'll start calling you all the time. easier to 'avoid' to some degree, but you're just shifting the interruption.

One thing often overlooked about work interruptions: interrupting one person's flow is usually to aid another's.

So as others have suggested the response can be prioritised according to importance and urgency.

While flow is critical for productive work, it should be directed to the highest priority tasks.

In construction we have a phrase "a dime holding up a dollar". It is up to you to decide if you are a dime or a dollar in each situation.

+1 to you friend, there is no problem in saying: can not now please. People will understand you.

   please don't think I'm 
   being rude

By saying that you remind the interlocutor that being rude is in fact an option (indeed a widely used one) and you may simply be rude ... ah the subtleties of communication.

> no offence, but [offensive remark].

With all due respect, [respectless remark]

Sorry, not sorry.

I'm not racist but... [racism]

It's a great idea but...

yes, but no

But that particular remark wasn't offensive, no? Sorry, I'm not implying anything, just trying to understand your logic.

Can't speak for the others, but by merely saying "please don't think I'm being rude ..." you explicitly remind the other side that being rude is an option, and that what follows should not be taken literally. Indeed why would you say "don't think I'm being rude" except if you already anticipated that the other side will take it as being rude.

Trust me on this, I'm not lying to you ...

A small variation to this is to ask "Hey, sorry is it important?"

People tend not to think themselves or what they're doing as important for whatever reason.

It also sets the scene for future interactions. Oh and sometimes it really is important..

I think that would offend my British sensibilities. Unless delivered with a winning smile. It's amazing how much a smile can solve.

might not work in all cases..

+1. I don't understand why we need a Chrome plugin to act like an adult. Or, on the flip side, why you can't be an adult and not distract a co-worker. ha

That's a clever social engineering scheme to collect phone numbers.

I never understood why a telephone gets precedence over somebody who made the effort to come to you in person.

Because after 6 or 7 rings the person calling you will go away, while the person who has come to you will, usually, stand and wait.

I agree with the sentiment though, that it does often give the impression of being bad mannered.

Just let them go to voice mail. If it's important they'll leave a message.

Reminds me of the "Boss Key" you had in earlier games (or as a TSR in DOS), that showed some fake spreadsheet instead of your game screen. This is basically its cubicle cousin.

Resume your focus! ...until our partners call you on a hourly bases for the rest of your life. ;)

lol so true.

I was going to jump on this before I realised that (1) I have my phone on DND when I am 'running silent, running deep', and (2) I found out from the comments here that it doesn't work outside the US.

Perhaps to address both issues, there could be a version of this that doesn't actually make a physical call? Perhaps a pairing of an iOS/Android app to a button on the browser which send a standard in app message (free) to the phone associated with the button. The app could then simulate a ring tone, which would be enough to complete the illusion of an incoming call?

You can also use something like Google Voice or True Caller and block all other calls to your phone except for that one

Why not just honestly say you're busy? Works for me.

There's quite a few versions of this. I think a cheaper option is an app on your phone that imitates a phone call.

Just yell "I'm wired in!" and get back to it!

(teehee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=942sTOBISQs)

The problem of being distracted when coding was greatly reduced for me when we moved to Git from more ancient version control tools. With faster/easier committing and history browsing, I can now make smaller and more logically divided commits, and thus need to keep less context in my head at every single moment.

What an outrageously annoying website. I love it!

I created a version of this in 2006 (I think), called Getmooh.com - Get Me Out Of Here. The idea was to get people out of bad dates with an automated call.

I used the Skype API with VB6 and some natural voice libraries from AT&T. We mostly got used for prank calls with pre-recorded messages we had. Worked OK. But cost us money and I got bored once it was built. We got maybe 60,000 sign ups I think.

I'm pretty sure this was a feature of an old dumbphone, you could set it up so that holding down the number 5 (say) on the key pad would trigger a 'call'. Might have been a Samsung?

Guess it could have been. Our system didn't just call though, you could answer and it talked to (well, at) you.

I have a Samsung GT E1200 and the fake call is triggered after a configurable timeout by pressing the down button four times while the screen is locked.

My old Nokia had that. Used it sometimes for sure.

I hand an old Nokia (That had a sliding keyboard !!) with this feature (press down volume 4 times), it also had a scheduling feature with personalized ring-tone, number and display name!

Amusing idea. Absolutely no good reason for this to require a Chrome-specific extension, though; this would work in any browser.

Any browser with extensions support, you mean.

Why not a simple bookmark? No extensions required.

This seems great for those situation where telling the person that you are busy, or cannot attend them anymore wont cut it.

Usually a phone call is the only detractor for them to interrupt me. at the end it ended up being just to let me know something like i got this to compile!! which could have been done on slack or lync.

I think this works only for US and Canadian numbers. Which isn't mentioned anywhere on the website.

I think that's because other cultures don't mind telling others that they are busy /s

There are other countries?!

I made a similar app to this for Pebble at a hackathon in 2015: https://github.com/phoneyscape

We got an offer from Madrona Ventures for it that I never ended up following up on.

Related but with a different focus, Chelsea Handler made an app called "Gotta Go": https://gottago.io/ The process was detailed in one of her Netflix episodes IIRC.

False premise - a phone call should never be allowed to interrupt a real conversation.

Surely you don't mean never.

This is a blatant advertisement

It's a quick side project that might be useful to some, presented in quirky and humorous way. Why does it bother you?

It is a way to collect phone numbers disguised as an outlet for passive aggression.

And your point is? Advertisements can still be useful to discuss. And commercial products and services are featured on HN all the time.

Plus, it's not like HN is anti-commercial either.

This is a blatant advertisement for a way to collect phone numbers. I'm not sure breaching privacy and social engineering scheme are welcome or else HN would be filled with malwares and the likes.

This isn't an advertisement, it is a marketing program. they aren't advertising Breather itself, just a side-project.

As for HN and marketing programs, you may notice that Hacker News is run by Y Combinator. YC has a considerable interest in owning the news platform for startups and engineers. This is not a coincidence.

>This is a blatant advertisement for a way to collect phone numbers.

Not anymore than any other service that to work asks for phone numbers or email addresses.

You might not appreciate or have a use for the service, which is tongue in cheek, but that doesn't make it "malware" or "social engineering".

pretty standard feature on Japanese phones for unemployed people or people who wanna look more busy or important, I guess people in West don't care do much about losing face our impression

Note the fine print in gray (or is it grey) text at the bottom the page

(Any discount code associated with this experience will expire on December 31, 2017.)

"i'm sorry, i'm on a deadline"

I just say: i'm going to get me a coffee (water, restroom) and when i return they're gone.

If you don't have your phone on airplane mode then you do want to be distracted.

Simple but powerful.

Great job.

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