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Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

bigtechnology.substack.com

121–130 of 155 posts

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#121

At first, I thought it was a repost of an article from 2017 or 2018. But yeah, Slack sucks in many situations, especially in large companies. But it's a great tool for a small group high intensity collaboration (small=8-9 people max).

Right now, Slack and Zoom are probably the only things holding my small org's collective culture together. Email just doesn't cut it when we're not in the same physical space anymore.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#122

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…

One thing that’s problematic is that Slack has the “wrong” notification settings on by default (it notifies you of everything). You should flip the default to “mentions only” and then don’t worry about looking at a channel unless you’re mentioned. Once you’ve got that setup the channels start working to your advantage because you can use them as topic headings to just read the stuff you’re interested in keeping up with once or twice per day. Then you can press shift+esc and clear all of your unreads (or do the same in the “All Unreads” section IIRC).

As for the emoji: If you ever aren’t sure what one means, just hover over it (on desktop) or press and hold on a reaction emoji on your phone and either way will show you the its name which usually gives you a pretty good idea of its meaning.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#123

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…

> Probably the worst part was that the expectation was that always had one eye on Slack instead of, you know, focusing on programming

Haha, yes, my job is exactly like this. If I turn off Slack for an hour to write some code, I get a lot of angry emails from management about why I'm OoO without notice.

Co-workers love to complain to management if you don't respond to them immediately as well. One guy slacked me 6 times in the morning asking for help, I gave him a clear next step of adding a certain formatted section at the bottom of his spec for legal to review privacy concerns, then he never even did that work and Slacked me 13 more times that day which I ignored to get some work done, and management went ape shit.

Now I just double all my coding estimates because I know my real job is to be on Slack 8-5 answering questions.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#124
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.

What it has to do with Slack and every other social media platform is that (vs. break-room trash-talk) it magnifies the harassment - it's instantly amplified, spread more broadly, and is more durable.

It also reduces the dampening influences of people's emotional responses in meatspace.

Slack may or may not be better/worse than FB, Twitter, etc. in this regard, but all can definitely magnify divisions in any group of people, from a clique to a nation.

It is just the dark side of reducing the communication friction that helps people work together better (kind of like a hammer is better than a rock for both setting nails and breaking skulls).

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#125

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…

One thing that’s problematic is that Slack has the “wrong” notification settings on by default (it notifies you of everything). You should flip the default to “mentions only” and then don’t worry about looking at a channel unless you’re mentioned. Once you’ve got that setup the channels start working to your advantage because you can use them as topic headings to just read the stuff you’re interested in keeping up wi…

I tried that hover bit, something I have picked up off of using Discord on the smartphone, but in many cases, while a label was attached, the actual meaning was unclear, as is true of a lot of slang. Normally you can decipher slang words via what that word or phrase is embedded in, looking for context, but for simple "the sentence is the emoji" bits, that was not available.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#126

Yes. It's only a matter of time before there is a backlash to Slack. I won't understand the backlash when it comes, just as I didn't understand the excitement. Slack is just a chat client. Chat has been around forever. Corporate chat clients have been around forever. What am I missing?

Totally agree!

We recently migrated from HipChat to Slack - everyone was very excited because Atlassian is not as hip as Slack.

Well, turns out emoticons are so small you can't see them, karma works better on HipChat, the client is RAM heavy for no reason.

Overall it is pretty much the same but a small downgrade in experience and increase in cost. Oh, well.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#127

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 eggplant and all the euphemistic emojis that go with it, eye roll emojis which are so inconsistent between platforms they range from "looking at the text above" to "I'm high AF get me outta here", and most of the anger emojis which range from "gritted teeth" to "Jack Nicholson in the Shining". Just recently figured out what the Slack :tada: emoji is and it's an upside down birthday hat with confetti coming out of it which only became visible when I used a low res monitor - tada! Wouldn't have made any sense without explicit text or blown up vector graphics.

I've been using smartphones since I was a teenager and the internet since the turn of the century so I grew up without the benefit of unicode emoji. Like a sibling said, they're kanji except the cultural context that defines them is extremely fluid (and prone to flights of fancy by designers looking to get promoted).

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#128

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…

> Probably the worst part was that the expectation was that always had one eye on Slack instead of, you know, focusing on programming Haha, yes, my job is exactly like this. If I turn off Slack for an hour to write some code, I get a lot of angry emails from management about why I'm OoO without notice. Co-workers love to complain to management if you don't respond to them immediately as well. One guy slacked me 6 tim…

Yes. You now are hyper-connected and on an interrupt loop, timechucks sliced by the sum total of maximum neediness into mere minutes. No more blocks of time, no more focus, no more deep thought. It fits rather well into Agile Cosplay as being a series of not just incremental, but tiny tasks that accrete around extrusions, rather than being architected, it's all you really have time for in between interrupts, miniature functions which prevent you from pulling back to look at the big picture.

I even noticed that many co-workers added a third monitor just to have space for Slack being "up" all the time. I watched with interest as they would flick their heads to one side at any motion.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#129

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…

> Probably the worst part was that the expectation was that always had one eye on Slack instead of, you know, focusing on programming Haha, yes, my job is exactly like this. If I turn off Slack for an hour to write some code, I get a lot of angry emails from management about why I'm OoO without notice. Co-workers love to complain to management if you don't respond to them immediately as well. One guy slacked me 6 tim…

Sounds like your problem isn’t Slack. It’s an immature coworker and clumsy management using an unproductive expectation of response.

When I’m doing that kind of work, I tend to work in 1 hour blocks. Then I take a break, clear my head, check for significant comms, maybe rely to a couple, and then get back to my work. I have most notifications disabled so I don’t get that constant attention drain. This is all part of an effort to manage my time.

Re: Why a Slack Backlash Is Inevitable

#130
The biggest problem with Slack is not even the "politics" or inappropriate use. It's the fact that chat is a super-horrible way to farm out tasks.

Go ahead. Ask someone to do something over chat.

Very soon, that request is buried in succeeding messages and no one remember the original task. To me that's why we will stop using Slack, even if it causes some friction in casual communications.

The problem is that managers (i'm guilty) use Slack as a way to farm out tasks to subordinates and then we're not thrilled when those tasks don't get done.

Ssshhhhoooocking....

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