Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

I despise group chat. In 2 years, I've gone from mostly enjoying doing remote consulting/freelancing, to mostly hating it, all because most clients now want/require me to participate in non-stop chat sessions on Hipchat, Slack, or their company's internal group chat.

There's very little productive going on in those group chats. Far more socializing than anything else. Memes in particular abound. And the interruptions are constant, driving my productivity to a fraction of what it should be otherwise.

Really, email was great, and 10 years of freelancing taught me to be a very good communicator on email (maybe even over communicating).

Now all that is ruined, and I'm trying (unsuccessfully so far) to bootstrap a software company so I'll no longer have to spend my days chatting about trivial matters on Slack when I have work to do.

If they are requiring this kind of stuff you are not a contractor you are an employee. Ask them to send over a benefits enrollment package.

And before email, people expected you to be available between 9am and 5pm via phone. I think you just have to clearly communicate that the group chat, in your case, doesn't benefit the working relationship. So it has nothing to do with group chat per se, but more with how you communicate to your freelancing clients, no?

>And before email, people expected you to be available between 9am and 5pm via phone.

People were vastly more careful about interrupting you via phone, in my experience. The careless way people interrupt on group chat is an extension of the general way people tend to dehumanize others online.

> I think you just have to clearly communicate that the group chat, in your case, doesn't benefit the working relationship.

Yes, I've not only said that, but proved it (by being extraordinarily productive during a 2-week "chat free" trial period). But the clients I deal with want me to be on chat, I'm guessing for the same reason that they'd really rather I work in their office. So the managers can monitor the hours I'm "clocked in" (nevermind what I actually accomplish during that time).

Basically, chat lets employers monitor their workers (even contract workers) in the same way that they monitor their workers in the office, by observing "butts in chairs".

Same here man, I feel your pain 100%. I have to sit in their chat room(s) all day long and be available all day their time zone. I also have to do their morning standup via google hangout.

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