Social robots and smart assistants are increasingly finding their way into our society. For social robots to be accepted in everyday life, it is essential that they adhere to social norms. The timing of message delivery is crucial, influenced by the message’s urgency and context, as well as the user’s current activity, to minimize distracting or disrupting the user. Vice versa, the timing can also affect how users perceive and evaluate a robotic assistant. In a user study, we investigated different timings of interruptions by a social robot during an office task, and how participants subsequently rate the robot’s social capabilities. For this, we asked participants about the main task’s workload, the stress level before and after the task, the social robot, and additional questions about the notifications. The subjective data is enhanced by objective measurements from log files and eye tracking recordings. The results show that the interruption timing can influence how participants perceive the notifications and the robot. This highlights the importance of context recognition and appropriate timing of interruptions in human-robot interaction.