That is a bit of a you-problem though. Pointless interruptions are bad of course, but if you not being responsive blocks other people, that is a problem too. You write that you also have an issue with synchronous meetings, which would be the alternative to get input from you in a plannable way. Doing all communication asynchronously is not acceptable if you are at all involved in team work.
I'm not saying I'm blocked or blocking someone, I'm saying I'm tapping out. At 4pm-something I'm not going to spend the next half hour reloading the context in my head and getting back to where I had been before the 2-minute (i.e. 15-minute) call, not because I can't, but because I'm tired and don't want to.
If I were working at a hospital and debugging a medical device that somebody needed to have online that evening, then you can be darn certain I'd reload that context in my head over and over until the work was done.
But for shipping widgets back and forth, there's no point in making myself tired and resentful. I can pick it up the next day.
Jfc. I'm going to slap the next person that claims they're blocked.
Blocked means that you've tried solving the problem and that you've tried in multiple ways. Also you can be blocked because production is burning down or "blocked" since you give 0 fucks and have zero incentives to try.
If you claim you're blocked and I get a blank stare when I ask you what the problem is, what have you tried and what is your current hypothesis on why thigs are not working I am going to slap you so hars that you'll be back to using RCS for source control.
You must really be a hot shot to afford this attitude, or you are one of these passive aggressive types that express it in subtle ways that do not get you fired. Let me explain something from the employers perspective. If you expect people to spend hours trying to figure out something that is not obvious, that could reasonably be cleared up with a five minute conversation with the expert (you, presumably) then you are wasting my money. I am paying both of you. I expect you to cooperate. I do not accept a toxic communication environment. Minimizing communication may increase productivity, but massively raises the risk of producing the wrong thing.
Let me explain something to you: if every time you don't know something you start bitching about it and ask everyone around you until you wear them down to ELI5 you are dragging everyone down.
This is not about that one instance where 5 minutes saves you days of struggling. This is about becoming and being self sufficient to the point you are an asset to the business, not your liability. In your convoluted example: how do you know who the expert is?
I agree with all of this. With the caveat that "resolved with a 5-minute meeting" isn't "my inbox is full of garbage so I'm too overwhelmed to read your 4-sentence email answering my question, therefore I'm phoning you to reiterate the problem you already fully understand and have dealt with, just to remind myself of what was in my email to you, before asking you to read to me verbally what you wrote in your email."
That is a bit of a you-problem though. Pointless interruptions are bad of course, but if you not being responsive blocks other people, that is a problem too. You write that you also have an issue with synchronous meetings, which would be the alternative to get input from you in a plannable way. Doing all communication asynchronously is not acceptable if you are at all involved in team work.