Especially during work hours

Yesterday I got called by my dentist, my cat’s vet, an apartment I had emailed inquiring for an interview. All within 5 minutes of each other! Talk about anxiety overload.

it's either 3 things at the same time or nothing for 4 hours

Does everyone have this one friend, who instead of typing out one message, splits their thoughts into 6-32 smaller messages sent in quick succession?

Also, I wish there was a way to throttle or debounce notifications on my phone.

I used to be that friend, then I stopped. Learned to put order in my thoughts before sharing them. If not out of self respect, at least out of respect for my friends.
- I genuinely like this about you now
I don't know why in 2023 we still can't debounce notifications. It should be simple to say if I get 3 messages in the same conversation in 120 seconds, silence the conversation for an hour.
- And people like you wonder why you have no friends lmao.
  "If my friends message me too much, silence them for an hour".
“Hey, guess what, I got free text messages now.”
3 days later I contemplate blocking them.
I do it right back to them
Oops. I’ve b come that person.

One time at work I had five different people at my cubicle all trying to talk to me at the same time.

I've blocked out what happened next.

I’ve blocked out what happened next.
That sounds ominous.
- I probably just had a mini meltdown while my manager ran crowd control.

The whole point of text messages are that they are asynchronous - you don't actually have to answer them right away, take your time.

Anyone in need of an immediate answer should choose a synchronous mode of communication.

To add to that: Configure your notifications. Anything that isn't urgent doesn't need to vibrate or make a sound. It can just sit there until you look at your phone. Also, use do not disturb for things like work.
It's funny how I can recognize other programmers just from how they speak lol

I take chats for customer service. We're expected to help two people at the same time. This is me when two people who work from home lost internet at the same time so they're in crisis and as ending message after message and won't follow directions because they're desperately trying anything to get back online because they could get fired.

The cynic in me is like "this is karma for the previous 3 times you told your boss the internet was down when it wasn't."

when I get emails from 2 PMs at once

Especially when they are about the same fucking thing. So you know they were texting each other about texting you and both decided they should text you about it right now

Bonus points: Neither of those texts would exist if the sender had just listened to you any of the first two or three times that you told them.

yaaay troubleshooting. I have to say though, on the bright side, it's doing wonders for improving my patience.

My tits are calmed