Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. And then they stand the chance of losing anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of productivity thanks to your interruption. Part of the reason remote work appeals to so many of us is because we don't deal well with the constant stream of interruptions that occur in many office environments. I don't beli…
If you can't deal with interruptions, maybe teamwork is not for you. I agree that it's distracting and irritating at times, but that's the nature of working with other people.
I have discovered, however, that since I do not work for an emergency room, my context-switching-skills are rather undervalued by the free market. The value I generate for clients and employers is very much correlated to my ability to train clients & colleagues to let me focus on solving one problem completely before moving on to the next problem.
I find when you describe the effect of interruptions in terms employers understand — "working this way costs you money, both directly, because I charge a not-insignificant amount per hour, and indirectly, because there are opportunity costs to my working on emergencies instead of farther-reaching goals" — they will become your allies in fighting off interruptions. If you just complain that interruptions are distracting and irritating, well, you're just gonna get a prima-donna label for yourself.
I love working as a team. My creatives can make something look more visually appealing in a few hours that I could in a few months. I can develop the functionality in a few days when they wouldn't know where to start. We all have our strengths. But creative work is inherently a selfish, individual act requiring concentration, and interruptions, in most instances, don't help the team meet their goals.