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The flip-side seems to be that if you close Slack for a few hours of focussed work on something tricky, that's counted the same as spending the afternoon at the beach.

Sure, communication is important, but there are relatively few things that can't wait half a day (and for those, there are alternative channels if you're not on Slack)

Not to mention that Slack is a total resource hog. I only use Slack on my phone now, for that reason. The online indicator therefore doesn't work as expected since it deactivates when the app goes into background.

I've had a manager in the recent past try to call me out on it, even though I was always in contact within seconds/minutes..."yeah but Slack doesn't show you as online..."

Write a bot to send a random /giphy to #general every 1-2 hours, you'll fit right in.

How do you use Slack to document online status? Does someone maintain a record of status timestamps? That sounds terribly degrading not to mention a bureaucratic nightmare. And it's very easily gamed. But most importantly, you should challenge the notion that time online is a good performance metric.

If terribly degrading bureaucratic nightmares are a deal breaker for you, I'd stay away from large corporations in general.

So write a bot to stay online all day? lol