Comment by Falkon1313 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Falkon1313 | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't really sound like a problem with Slack, but rather a personal or cultural problem with a lack of setting or respecting boundaries.

Slack has options to communicate:

- that you're away

- that you're on a call or in a meeting etc.

- to pause notifications for an hour or whatever

- to star the most relevant channels

- to mute less-relevant channels

- to leave irrelevant channels

- to sideline conversations into threads

All of that is just Slack itself, in addition to things like putting meetings and vacations and other appointments on the shared team calendar. Some people where I work book meetings with themselves to guarantee focused distraction-free time. That's completely valid.

Part of being a professional is setting boundaries, communicating them, setting the expectations that the rest of your team will do the same, and of course, respecting those boundaries.

That includes not calling or pestering people that are on vacation. Which also requires that you don't "check in" while you're on vacation, because if you do, then other people will feel like they're expected to as well.

Set and communicate your boundaries, and in a team that respects each other, it shouldn't be a problem.

"You just need discipline" is a common phrase, which usually masks the root problem. Why does something need continuous effort? Is it the best place to put our energies? Are there any other ways of solving the problem?

See "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength" (https://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Huma...) on willpower as a resource that can be drained, often pointlessly. Having a constant temptation is one of the core cases (e.g. candies on your sight).

Instead of helping us, a flawed tool forces us to work against the current. For the Sauron's ring, this constant test of the hobbit's strength of will was unavoidable. For Slack... it is much easier to throw it into a volcano.

All the options you mention are designed in order to reduce the main problem: that it requires synchronous communication. That is, after you "come back" from a meeting or being away, you can't just work in peace and when you want just send a reply: no, you are expected by design to engage in a conversation.

I'm not interested in engaging in a conversation at all unless there is something really extremely important that requires my undivided attention for a specific period of time. But when companies use Slack, they integrate it as a part of the culture. You are expected to be ready to answer. Sure, you can pause notifications - but you know people are waiting. Are you a good team member if people are asking questions and you are not answering?

For contrast, I found out that many people I worked with are too lazy to write an email and will prefer to solve the problem themselves rather than write to me if I don't answer soon enough. Which shows another interesting aspect of Slack-type culture.

I don't understand the attitude where it's lazy not to write an email but it's an unreasonable chore to respond to a question on Slack? In mind Slack is preferable to email for many things because the issues are resolved in public and I can later look back on what questions have been asked etc.

For the simple reason that in my opinion it's never "answering a simple question" but more often than not having a chat, with multiple messages and the expectation of responding quickly. The worst offenders are the ones who don't even ask a question but instead write "Hello?... Dude?... Are you there?..." Just state what you want and this will allow me to answer your question in a more efficient way.

I just choose to no to respond until they come to state what they want. Some are offended but otherwise I'm stuck forever.

Teams has it solved much better with a visible "message read" indicator that can be somewhat managed on the reader side, i.e. if you only see the notification it does not count as viewing.

However, Slack doesn't allow you to a) stay alertable to a subset of the company (e.g. people you are working heads down with on a project) while b) ignoring everyone else in the company. Even if you stick those people in a common channel and mute the rest of the channels you are in, people can still jeopardize your focus with a single at-mention or DM. Just anyone can hijack your sidebar.

Slack doesn't respect something as simple and fundamental as the focus of a small team within a larger org. But if they did that, they wouldn't sell as many subscriptions, because it would be less addictive, I guess?

This isn’t a slack thing, it’s a humans thing. Whether it’s a telephone, a marked urgent email, am @mention, or whatever. If someone wants to get your attention, that’s not a technology problem.

You forgot the most important option of all: closing the window.

Unless your occupation precludes constant communication (like emergency services or such), then the expectation should be that you are generally contactable, not constantly interruptible.

And if you can't close Slack without fear of repercussions then the problem lies with your company, not Slack.

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