As a front-end developer, sometimes the hardest part about my job isn't the work, it's dealing with people and the complications that come with them. Followed by the processes that surround the work, it's a lot to deal with.

When you see me with headphones on at my desk, don't come and tap me on the shoulder unless you're telling me there is a fire and the office needs to be evacuated. If you need help, send me a Slack message or email. Better yet, wait until you see me get up from my desk for a moment.

In my long career I have worked in a wide variety of different environments. The Agile/Scrum environments, open plan offices, closed plan and offices with sales teams ringing stupidly loud bells when they make a sale to the roar of applause from the office.

Distractions are everywhere, which is why all reasonable developers will eventually realise they need to own a good pair of noise cancelling headphones. The kind that could drown out the apocalypse.

So, if you see me wearing headphones don't make me take them off, I'm most likely in the middle of something important.

Don't force me to participate in stand up meetings every morning which serve absolutely no purpose other than to give status updates to micro managing bosses wanting round the clock updates, not much changes in a day.

Let me come in late and miss the peak hour traffic, let me finish later for the same reasons.

Don't expect me to respond to your emails as soon as you send them.

Don't expect me to respond to your Slack messages right away either.

For an industry that has so many tools for managing work flow from project management to communication, it's still incredibly distracting. Use the tools or don't, you can't have it both ways.