I really don’t want to leave the people I care about hanging, but I haven’t seen any native way to let them know I may be gone for a while, and to perhaps try me elsewhere. People are very used to messaging me (directly or publicly) whether I’m online or not, so there’s a heavy social expectation for me to keep those conversational plates spinning on an ongoing basis, even if I’m signed out of all your clients. I belong to roughly 10 different Slack teams. More and more, you’re becoming something of a black hole for attention, sucking discourse and activity alike in with your massive (and very charming!) gravitational pull. This is awesome for speeding up the tempo of company directives, but it also places a ton of pressure on everyone involved to maintain even MORE Slack omnipresence if any discussion might lead to a decision being made, that provides a whole lot of incentive to be available for as many discussions as possible.Įven worse, those with the least on their plates can maintain the most Slack presence, which leads to the most gregariously unengaged representing the majority of the discussion base while penalizing those who are fully engaged in their “real” work.
In you, though, people can convene and decide on anything at any time. When work gets done over email, there’s a general expectation of a response buffer of at least an hour or two. There’s also a subtle side effect to asynchronish business, and that is its effect on the decision making process. Will they respond in 5 seconds or 5 hours? Who knows! It’s like getting caught in one of those support chats from hell with a Comcast rep who’s clearly trying to simultaneously jockey a dozen text conversations like some kind of bargain basement Bobby Fischer, except that it’s all day long and with everyone I know.Īll-day meetings every day of the week are substantially more “meetings” than the ones you’re saving me from.
This leaves people spinning their wheels waiting for a response from someone who may or may not have already moved on to another discussion, with the problem only exacerbated by the fact that you don’t provide an indication as to whether that person is even currently in the same channel anymore, like by simply dimming their status dot. It leads to everyone having half-conversations all day long, with people frequently rotating through one slow-drip discussion after another, never needing to officially check out because “hey! it’s asynchronous!”
Issues with slack free#
Email may have had its flaws with its “FWD: FWD: CC: FWD You have to read this!!1!” jokes sent from distant family members, but my god in heavendo those sound like the halcyon days of tranquility compared to the Diet-Coke-and-Mentos-like explosion of cat gifs, bot feeds, and emoji mashups you’ve brought into my life.Įven your summaries of each week - the ones where you remind me about how our relationship is going - are all predicated on its volume of messages, which was kind of the opposite of what I thought you and I were all about.Īt first I thought this sounded delightful - it would be the best of both worlds! I was always free to drop someone a line, and if they were feeling chatty, a full-fledged conversation could simply spring up, with no need to switch platforms.Īfter getting to know you better, though, I’ve found that your “asynchronish” side is less impressive than I first thought. This really lowers the bar for what’s considered message-worthy to begin with. The more conversations, the more everyone’s expected to participate.
I’m finding that “always on” tendency to be a self-perpetuating feedback loop: the more everyone’s hanging out, the more conversations take place.
Issues with slack software#
I understand that it’s my responsibility to set boundaries in all my relationships, but every software product comes with its own bias towards supporting some human tendencies over others, and I don’t think it’s arguable that you skew pretty hard towards “always on” over “dip in every so often”. And while it’s been awesome to have such a connection with you, it has been absolutely brutal on my productivity. With you in my life, I’ve received exponentially more messages than I ever have before. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
0 kommentar(er)
