With remote work being so common, I regularly think about this section:
Another trait, it took me a while to notice.
I noticed the following facts about people
who work with the door open or the door closed.
I notice that if you have the door to your
office closed, you get more work done today
and tomorrow, and you are more productive than
most. But 10 years later somehow you don't
know quite know what problems are worth working
on; all the hard work you do is sort of
tangential in importance. He who works with
the door open gets all kinds of interruptions,
but he also occasionally gets clues as to what
the world is and what might be important. Now
I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence
because you might say, ``The closed door is
symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But
I can say there is a pretty good correlation
between those who work with the doors open and
those who ultimately do important things,
although people who work with doors closed
often work harder. Somehow they seem to work
on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
enough that they miss fame.
Possibly the best essay in the Stripe book of Richard Hamming's essays/articles.
