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Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

bigtechnology.substack.com

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Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#111

Post by core-questions »

at_a_remove wrote: post #104

At first I was prepared to despise Slack as it being part of the baggage of that job's sudden interest in Agile Cosplay, but then it looked IRC-like and I figured I would give it a chance. Ah, I should have known. My reasons, in no particular order: First, it was Yet Another Communications Channel to Check. You know, email, phone, voicemail, meetings, standups, calendar appointments, and so on. It was one more place…

> have no idea what roughly half the emojis meant,

I really honestly am curious which ones confused you

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#114

Post by Loughla »

dleslie wrote: post #43

> “They create problems, high-school-type problems,” one CEO of a midsized firm told me. “People are making fun of co-workers, they’re acting unprofessionally, and it’s technically a company system.” The crux of this is that Slack enables long, heated arguments that normally would be defused by: 1. Being surrounded by your coworkers 2. The frown of your manager 3. The strain on the faces of those around you It basica…

>If you have an employee who is prone to ridiculing others and won't desist from doing so when asked...

>FIRE

>THEM

Honestly, why does this have anything to do with slack. If it's not there, it will be in the break room or hallway or bathroom or wherever. That's a toxic person being enabled by technology. Not toxic technology magically transforming a person.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#115

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

core-questions wrote: post #111
at_a_remove wrote: post #104

At first I was prepared to despise Slack as it being part of the baggage of that job's sudden interest in Agile Cosplay, but then it looked IRC-like and I figured I would give it a chance. Ah, I should have known. My reasons, in no particular order: First, it was Yet Another Communications Channel to Check. You know, email, phone, voicemail, meetings, standups, calendar appointments, and so on. It was one more place…

> have no idea what roughly half the emojis meant, I really honestly am curious which ones confused you

Probably most of them. The big problem with emoji is that there are a ludicrous number of them, like kanji, but unlike kanji most of them have no agreed upon semantic meaning, so everything but the basics and things that are just graphics of some every day object have meaning determined by intuition and culture.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#116

Post by at_a_remove »

core-questions wrote: post #111
at_a_remove wrote: post #104

At first I was prepared to despise Slack as it being part of the baggage of that job's sudden interest in Agile Cosplay, but then it looked IRC-like and I figured I would give it a chance. Ah, I should have known. My reasons, in no particular order: First, it was Yet Another Communications Channel to Check. You know, email, phone, voicemail, meetings, standups, calendar appointments, and so on. It was one more place…

> have no idea what roughly half the emojis meant, I really honestly am curious which ones confused you

The faces are easy enough, although some are a little odd. It's all of the other stuff that seemed a bit baffling. I can't remember particular instances now, I just flushed the specifics away into the "well, I guess this is somehow easier than words for some people who also simultaneously expect that I just know this, so if it is important they aren't doing a great job conveying it" memory hole.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#117

Post by steve_adams_86 »

chundicus wrote: post #9

A lot of my CEO and founder friends talk about this"... rephrased: "My CEO and founder friends are upset that their employees use a piece of software to talk about the toxic culture my CEO and founder friends have cultivated"

This reflects my experience. The people I work with now use slack exclusively for work and the odd share of more personal items while on vacation/weekend/walk during lunch. We have similar interests so the content is always welcomed. Any important discussion happens offline or on the phone, though. I can’t imagine us using slack for anything outside of trivial, asynchronous messages and events reported by bots.

At most other companies I’ve had people message me about salary concerns, unionization, anger towards a manager or CEO, endless banter about anything but work, etc. The main difference was that these places were run by people who really didn’t care about their employees and slack ended up a reflection of that. A lot of upset, frustrated, resentful venting in private channels.

If slack didn’t exist, these conversations would have happened some other way. There’s no way everyone could keep sane in a bad work environment without some degree of venting or comradeship.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#118

Post by wayoutthere »

aeyes wrote: post #58

Turn off Slack and you'll have your employees in WhatsApp groups. What do you prefer? Nobody is going back to email. If people behave unprofessionally on Slack then that is because they are unprofessional. I've been working with different corporate chat tools for years and haven't seen any major drama. And if the former lunchroom conversation moved to Slack, you can now hold the bad actors accountable.

Heck the WhatsApp groups probably already exist. At my last company, the malicious shit (e.g. "marry, fuck, kill" lists of coworkers, racist / casteist memes, etc.) happened on WhatsApp, not the company chat platform. If you don't discourage a "frat boy" culture, one can develop outside your control. People who do that crap aren't stupid, so they'll keep it off company systems but they'll still do it.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#119

Post by toss1 »

core-questions wrote: post #108
neves wrote: post #103

Sorry people, this isn't about about "high school" behavior. This is about preventing workers organization. They are just building the narrative for whats comes next. Just other day, The Economist also said that Google must "grow up": https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/07/30/googles-proble... It looks like, big media point of view is that it is a childish behavior to do anything against the company bottom line.…

> Combat racial discrimination Interestingly, it has been shown that more diverse groups of employees are less likely to organize and form unions or demand collective bargaining.

Interesting, got any citations handy?

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#120

Post by unethical_ban »

Minor49er wrote: post #99
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just close the app then, right? Does your job obligate you to be on Slack all the time, probably not. You get more time back, and deliver more value to your company's business.

I wish it was that simple. Questions and alerts come up frequently, and people expect as close to a real-time response as they can get.

If you are having trouble with distracting conversation or bots, but are expected to work in the channel, I would consider it the same as any in-person distraction. Loud music, nerf guns, shouting or laughing in an open office. You could politely ask them to turn it off.

Or you could mute notifications except for @mentions and @all and tell them to use that if they need you.

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