They can also go too far in the other direction...
Cow-orker in other department always leaves their ${company internal IM client} status as "Away" because they are 'tired of those marketing ppl always bugging them'. This, of course, misleads everyone else in the company, not knowing if they are even working that day.
Sometimes they change it to "Away - Here, but working" which I guess deters only the ppl that look at the colored dot, not the text. This is exactly what the DND (different color) is for, but they cannot seem to comprehend that either, even after an explanation.
Like many things...it is a powerful tool that produces catastrophic results when wielded by those who do not understand how it works.
I did that - my IM client was on permanent 'away' status. I was tired of being 'green' and people would send multiple messages if I didn't respond instantly to their IMs.
Being permanently 'away' meant people could still contact me and I could respond when convenient without disrupting my work.
I very much subscribe to the convention that proximity should determine how much communication should interrupt what you are doing. Face to Face > Phone/video Call > IM > Email
How do you manage this expectation when working in an environment where part of the office is in the physical building and part is fully remote? When we were all in the office (pre-covid), anybody could walk to your desk to have a face to face conversations.
My manager warned us not to deprioritize IM/calls or it could be used to justify reducing remote privileges (since there isn't a good face to face walk-up equivalent when remote).
I personally hated when people walked up to my desk without messaging me first, and I view unsolicited video calls the same way.
During the peak of the original lockdowns I liked setting my "away" message to something comedic - the trend caught on with a few people I worked with.
This was inspired by an email signature I saw years ago from a coworker who is a super successful writer for a well known comedic TV show - it was a riff on the standard iOS email signature - instead hers said at the very end of every email:
Cow-orker in other department always leaves their ${company internal IM client} status as "Away" because they are 'tired of those marketing ppl always bugging them'. This, of course, misleads everyone else in the company, not knowing if they are even working that day.
Sometimes they change it to "Away - Here, but working" which I guess deters only the ppl that look at the colored dot, not the text. This is exactly what the DND (different color) is for, but they cannot seem to comprehend that either, even after an explanation.
Like many things...it is a powerful tool that produces catastrophic results when wielded by those who do not understand how it works.