Reminds me of this Knuth quote, "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things."
Source: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
Source: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
However, having lived pre- and post-Slack period, I can't say that Slack has worsened the situation. When there wasn't Slack, I had people coming to my desk to ask the question (vastly more distracting). We had meetings for tiny questions and they stretched far too long. The culture of company that is far more responsible than any single tool.
- Face to face
- Phone call
- Text message
- Slack
- Publication/memo
The rank corresponds to distraction, synchronicity, time to compose/respond, latency, and importance. Done well, Slack is a nice layer between a 10-minute email that might be forwarded on to some customer, and an "OK for demo Monday?" text message. You can include screenshots, links, spreadsheets, etc.
The problem seems to come up when it's assumed to be lower-latency and higher-priority than it is. I can take a 30-minute break every couple hours and answer a couple emails and a half dozen Slack pings, or you can interrupt me with a phone call or text that I can ignore or take and subsequently answer a quick Slack query, or you can come to my desk and bring something to my attention right now. If you think Slack is like talking to me or calling to me (or treat it like it has that real-time priority) you're going to have a significant new distraction.
Perhaps I am (really) old, but pre slack is a blink of an eye ago.
Also we are, sadly, not yet post-Slack.
> ... I can't say that Slack has worsened the situation. When there wasn't Slack, I had people coming to my desk to ask the question (vastly more distracting). We had meetings for tiny questions and they stretched far too long. The culture of company that is far more responsible than any single tool.
You're describing a work environment that bewildering appears to exclude email, or the option to explain to people how and when to use email.
There was one guy, Bill, who was an 'engineer emeritus' and an old Cold Warrior. The guy, no joke, was a genius. He was the only person in The West that knew about ablative nose-cone chemistry for ICBMs and the like. He's tell us junior engineers great stories. There was the one period of time where he'd get briefcases filled with empty steel bottles and was asked to analyze what was in them. No telling where they were from or if any of the stuff was radioactive or anything.
He taught me a great lesson in engineering management. He technically had an email address, but it just auto responded that he never checked it, call him [0] or walk on over for a chat. I remember thinking: "What a proud, old, stupid man. How regressive!". How dare he say these things! You have to respond to emails.
Well, just that little bit of friction was enough to stop all the nonsense in his product group. Just the act of having to dial in the numbers and wait, just the act of having to get up out of the seat and then go actually talk to Bill, it was enough to have most people sit and think about what they were going to ask him. Most of the time, they really didn't need to say anything at him. If it was actually important, then yes, you'd get up and talk to him or give him the files he needed or whatever.
When it came to our DoD work, friction ended up being a good thing actually. It made you think just a half-step more about what you were doing, if it really was anything.
[0] The phone number was for the bar down the street, where Bill spent many of his days. Honest to God. You'd call, a barback would answer, and then he'd yell at Bill to amble over and take the phone.