Tell HN: As a dev, Slack has ruined my life | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: As a dev, Slack has ruined my life

I've been reflecting over the past 2 years of covid lockdowns, the shift to remote work. I love remote work, it has given me more flexibility and made it easier for me to be better at work and better at home.

However, it has taken a significant and largely unseen toll on my mental health.

I am not sure why, I'm still trying to figure it out, but I have made one key observation. And I'd welcome either confirmation or denial from this crowd if you've experienced the same.

For context, we have shifted largely to using Slack, video call, and email for communication. Slack is the biggest culprit in the whole mess. My biggest takeaway is that text is not lossless compression for communication. Or put another way, text doesn't capture the vocal inflection and nuances that communicating by voice does. And also, for some reason, I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally.

One message on its own is not a huge deal, but across the 100+ channels I belong to and the probably hundreds of messages that come my way in a day, it adds up to a lot of added psychological burden. I think email already had this drawback, but with slack because people are empowered to just fire away a message, less thought goes into it, the frequency goes up, and the psychological toll increases.

Does anyone feel the same?

Do you have any tips to deal with this?

Sometimes I think I'm a snowflake for thinking this way, and I've definitely had to learn to toughen up during this pandemic working a very stressful job at a FAANG. But it is one of the things I think has made the largest change, as far as a psychological toll goes.

Thanks for reading.

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> for some reason, I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally.

There doesn't seem to be many responses that address this part of what you wrote, so I hope this reaches you well. Let me try to rephrase it to see if I'm understanding it. It's that you feel like the absence of vocal inflection and non-verbal cues lead you to interpreting Slack messages in a more negative light than you feel you should be? And this is adding up, yes?

If I'm in the ballpark, I might suggest chatting with a therapist. You sound like you've identified the distal cause, but understanding the root of the issue is going to be instrumental to identifying the necessary changes to get you on the right track. While I believe the responses you have received are well-intentioned, it's my belief that you'll likely make great strides by talking with someone who can engage you with real conversation and have a back and forth and cooperative approach to figuring this out.

I hope that no matter the path you follow, you end up working it out. It sounds like it's impacting your life in a pretty big way. Take care

I also found this to be the biggest clue from OP's post, not Slack specifically. You did a great job explaining why therapy could be a good answer, since what they're experiencing definitely isn't something one need always live with.

I've observed others have difficulty adjusting to WFH for the same reason; they have a hard time assuming the best intentions of their coworkers when only ever dealing with them asynchronously. Therapy, or at least mentally acknowledging where the disconnect is, could make a huge difference I think.

when you inevitably experience something like axed over zoom with no warning and good reviews you start to distrust intentions.

Reflecting on my other comment, the therapy angle I would explore is the anxiety created from a fear of failure due to not responding to all of the messages.

One way to test this is to just not respond to a slack message for say 5mins, then 10mins, then an hour, then say half a day and then a day. You will train the folks to ping you less and you will learn that nobody cares if you respond. And the benefit will be that you trained them to go elsewhere.

If anyone asks, say you were focused on a specific task (which you probably are) and muted slack or something. Remember your job is to produce dev stuff and not mediate slack or serve as an information conduit for folks. Those interactions should take place in a meeting.

Most likely your anxiety will increase at each interval but then dissipate when no negative consequences arrive. You then increase your tolerance and so forth.

Written communication can come across as cold and impolite, even when this isn't really the writer's intent.

People often forget to use basic manners and niceties online. Or they leave them out intentionally because it seems superfluous, or because they want to mimic the tone they see.

But this has a cost. It's human nature to want to be acknowledged, and to be surrounded by kindness rather than coldness.

It's amazing how far a simple gesture like a "thanks" or a "nice job" can go.

My only advice would be to pay attention to your own communication style. You may be able to influence others by communicating in the same way that you appreciate.

However, you can't change what happens in people's minds.

Therapy is worthwhile.

Therapy is a good idea, but it’s pretty universally true that written communication is more likely to be understood negatively. Good communicators understand this and strive to write less critically e.g. questions instead of commands, stating assumptions, never saying “just”… I for one use a crap ton of emojis in professional communication because otherwise messages default to sounding sour.

This the right answer. The problem could not be the inability of technology to capture nuance in written communication. The problem is with you and you need to seek therapy and get help.

You can look at my comment history to find my thoughts on individuation as a form of diversion away from systemic critique and as much as I agree with you on this I still believe OP would benefit tremendously from exploring therapy.

Great satire.

I know it’s probably not how many developers typically roll, but since working fully remote and living more in chat tools I’ve started to throw emoji around hard.

Originally the inspiration came from a consultant I worked with pre-pandemic who was very liberal with emoji. At first I wasn’t a fan but after a while he wore me down

It’s a simply way to add that missing tone back into a non-verbal message and given the changes in work environment that we’ve all been through, plus a younger generation coming through, emoji usage is definitely “professional” enough for the workplace.

I agree with the parent that speaking to a professional is probably a good idea, but you could also try to jazz up your comms. It can be fun!

I fully agree with this advice as to a way to communicate your actual feelings in a sentence. Emojis don't work here, but the difference between

"I have no idea what I'm doing... :D"

and

"I have no idea what I'm doing... :("

is a large one, and having that to communicate it is quite handy.

THAT SAID, to @ccakes -- while I agree with your statement, it unfortunately doesn't help the OP. They specifically said that they have a problem with INTERPRETING comments in the worst possible light. The solution for that will not be to use more emojis themselves -- they would need their coworkers to do so.

If you start using emojis with coworkers you interact with frequently in a way that seems useful, at least some will start using them as well.

I always use conventional comments (https://conventionalcomments.org) because of a similar issue, and whenever I join a new team, I find other people start doing it too, without even explicitly pushing it.

My take on slack is that if it is serious they'll find another way to get in touch with you.

Another thing to try to get mgmt to set up slack etiquette.

Another thing to do is to train your colleagues by only reinforcing positive behavior and ignoring things they can figure out on their own.

Honestly a slack bot gpt-3 thing that learns from a background of corp docs isn't a bad idea. Basically Anton from SV.

I'm one of those who tend not to embellish my written messages with all sorts of euphemisms and fluff. So maybe my coworkers find my written communication a bit dry.

First, I don't have very good verbal skills and second, I find certain contorted forms of language to communicate simple things disingenuous. So I'd rather say "please do X" instead of "oh there is no rush, I wanted to just give you a friendly nudge to blah blah and then circle back blah blah". It all sounds passive aggressive in the latter form IMO.

That said, you want to meet the people you talk to over a video call or even better in person in order to establish a good understanding and trust. Overall written format has a much lower bandwidth than the verbal communication. gifs and emojis do help a little communicate the tone though.

Completely disagree. Having communication in plain text for all to see has been a massive boost for my career. I don't have a problem taking on all the cognitive load of detangling and unfucking people's dumb ideas.

Before work from home, I was absolutely salivating for opportunities like this and now I get to execute. Text is far less ambiguous than speech when done right in my opinion, and for those who are poor writers, tough shit. Things are far more transparent now and incompetence might as well have neon flashing signs on it. I love it.

Disorganized writing is a sign of a disorganized mind. No regrets and see ya later!

Absolutely glorious to no longer get cut off by incompetent middle management... oh ho ho no buddy even the execs will get to hear me out. They've been just as eager to hear from the lower ranks as I've been eager to write it!

Is this a satire?

I absolutely hate Slack. I imagine every organization is like this.

- theres no way everyone can follow everything going on in multiple channels. This makes it almost bs. Theres way too much noise and is overwhelming

- Theres too much lost information in channels and conversation threads etc. At least in email things are somewhat more permanent. As the channels go and more and more people are typing, so much context is lost, and unless you're following the thread you don't know whats going on and people just skip it most of the time.

- On top of that slack threads are lost forever in time unless pinned. The conversation rarely gets translated in to wiki or email or whatever so decisions are sometimes made and forgotten.

Overall I think these are solvable problems but requires a very opinionated way to work or creative solution ( a la google wave, yes it was an awesome tool ).

Just like with all the various conversations that would happen in an office, the first thing I'd tell you is that it's ok not to follow everything in every channel. Trust that people will @notify you if your attention is needed. Catch up on the channels you want to when it's convenient for you - I often do my Slack catch-up during times I need to take a coding break or have a blocker.

As for information lossage and threads, get familiar with search. And also, when it's one of your messages, think about the words you may use to find something later and work them into your messages. Or for other messages, add a comment of your own with the keywords that should work to make things easier to find later. And if that becomes a trend for the team as a whole, everyone benefits.

I think being opinionated about "how Slack is used" can be helpful, especially if the team buys in. Hope some of the above helps somewhat.

the problem with search, is that its assuming you know what you want to look for.. which always isn't the case.

Which isn’t always the case* since sometimes it is the case

Counterpoint (from someone who highly prefers in-person communication and video/voice calls to Slack): Slack’s search feature is fantastic, and something I wish I’d discovered the benefits of earlier during Covid. It’s better than email, since I can search public channels even when I’m not included in the thread of discussion. It’s better than a Wiki if, as I believe is common, people aren’t diligent about dumping what they learn in conversation onto a Wiki page.

Searching slack is a superpower. You can solve problems you have zero domain knowledge in just by searching for past instances of that problem.

As someone not particularly social, it’s an amazing way to get unblocked without relying on another human.

search assumes you know what you're looking for. Its fine but I find it also hit or miss

> - On top of that slack threads are lost forever in time unless pinned. The conversation rarely gets translated in to wiki or email or whatever so decisions are sometimes made and forgotten.

I've literally been requesting a "export to wiki" feature from Slack, since 2016. After tracking really useful #dev chats, & then watching them disappear in the ether of subsequent non sequiturs & horrible slack search, I can only conclude Slack isn't interested?

Add in the loss of content from deactivated users, & Slack becomes the place where useful convos go to die, surrounded by giphys & emoji

You can automate this with a script or with a middleware platform of your choice. I work at a place that does this and we export answered questions into a company knowledge base.

A worthwhile message does not get ignored, especially when you "@" mention exactly the right people who need to hear it and you keep it straightforward.

Pinned messages are almost always propaganda by a product owner or similar. All the messages in between are usually useless reactionary bullshit that is neither actionable nor even informative.

Big companies, not all stakeholders are always known. sometimes they are notifying the wrong stakeholder. Its hit or miss I find.

Having worked from home for 20 years now, there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of working from home since 2020 because so many people started doing it with no background and little mentorship.

If you walked down the street and chose the first 20 people you met and threw them on an engineering team, you'd expect the engineering product to suffer. The same applies here. We threw a whole bunch of people into working from home with no skills or experience related to WFH and, as you would reasonably expect, they are floundering.

This isn't the fault of any particular tool, rather inexperienced people not understanding how to properly use the tools they have available and conduct themselves generally. I anticipate that things will improve as experience grows, but it is still early days. A few years is still quite junior. We don't expect great software from someone who has only been programming for a few years, so we shouldn't expect great WFH ability from someone who has only been working from home for a few years.

I’m actually curious as a follow-up here - what do you think are the skills people are missing or the mistakes they’re making? I’m a first-go-round wfh-er too, and while I think I’ve been fairly successful at it, I’d love to hear from someone who’s made a career of it.

Absolutely this!

As a long-time remote worker I also noticed (especially in early 2020) that a significant portion of people were struggling simply because they assumed they can continue doing things _exactly_ like at the office, only at home.

No, it's a considerably different setup, and you (and your team) have to adjust your processes accordingly:

• Slack is not a (chit)chat. Be precise about what you want and provide enough context to the reader. Small niceties are important, but reduce the overall fluff.

• Pay attention to how you structure your messages / exchanges. Take advantage of the formatting features. Make your messages easily digestible. Small things add up over time.

• Take notes / write documentation more than before.

• Embrace tools that you didn't need previously (for communication, brainstorming, whiteboarding).

I believe work in a remote setting is generally more productive if done well.

P.S. Not trying to dismiss the highly extroverted folk who _need_ human contact to feel normal day-to-day. I believe that's a separate topic entirely.

> Sometimes I think I'm a snowflake for thinking this way, and I've definitely had to learn to toughen up during this pandemic

I don't have many tips, but I would give one piece of advice: don't bury your feelings because you think others would call you "too sensitive" or a "snowflake".

This is spot on. Your are allowed to feel whatever you feel and so is everybody else

Slack is not real-time. Let the messages pile up. Respond when you have time. Let your team know not to expect instant responses. Use the status feature to give an estimate of when you'll catch up. Turn off notifications, minimize it, and go do some work.

You'd be amazed how little Slack bothers a team once you establish that such behavior is normal and expected.

I think that Slack is a very helpful tool. Working remote in the video game industry, I can't imagine having as many conversations, screen shares, huddles and files being sent around as this kind of work demands day-to-day without a tool like Slack.

However, text communication online is definitely more negatively perceived than intended - there probably are some studies about this. And the volume of communication can be a bit distracting, especially when people expect that others will respond to instant messages instantly.

But all in all, things like Slack, Teams or Discord are definitely better than not having them to my mind, even if they are imperfect.

Slack it really great for getting info but it definitely can become a firehose and a distraction. Many of those fire and forget posts are from people equally as exhausted with it as you are trying to keep up. I have also talked with plenty of people who feel the same way as you do about inflection. Some people need this more than others (myself included).

I don’t know your role or the expectations at a FAANG but chances are all these messages you are trying to keep up on are keeping you from doing something else that would be more valuable to both your mental health and the company.

If you can set boundaries I would do so. Some things that have helped me:

- Asked my boss what was absolutely important for real time communication and turned off notifications for everything else.

- Aggressively using my status for work. I block my calendar between 8am-12pm and put “programming” in my status with notifications turned off. If there’s a real fire slack lets you “send anyway”.

- I try to put time aside in my day to dedicate to paperwork type stuff. This includes slack, email, hr stuff and so on. This really helps me because I’m not constantly context shifting and can give the appropriate time towards anything being asked of me. It also helps with perceived tone as I don’t read the message feeling resentful.

This sort of stuff is easier said than done and you have to figure out what works best for your situation. At the end of the day most things can wait a bit and actually work out better when there’s a bit of time to process and think about them. A lot of people have just forgotten.

> Block my calendar between 8am-12pm and put "programming" in my status with notifications turned off.

This is the way. I'm not always in a position to be able to do this, but especially if you have a lot of people relying on you, because you manage others or are generally the focal point of a lot of organizational needs, people are simply going to be pinging you constantly. Especially when those are DMs, each individual who reaches out has no idea that you're responding to multiple messages at once. So the only way is to block it out on your calendar and only be available for emergencies. A side benefit of this that I've experienced is that others who are looking for guidance or mentorship, like with programming tasks or whatever, end up being a lot more discriminating in what they reach out and bother you for. That's a benefit not only to you, but to them as well because it forces them to question whether they've been as resourceful and diligent as they could be. Oftentimes, they are able to find the answers on their own, but if you're too easily reached, they may rely on you as a crutch. (It's for this reason that I tell my direct reports that I'm almost always happy to help them work through a problem, but they need first 1) identify what they know and don't know 2) identify what they've tried and haven't 3) be able to articulate the context very clearly and 4) generally take pride in communicating what they need assistance with in a very concise and clear matter. Holding people to that standard helps them because just dotting the i's and crossing the t's often clarifies what the problem is and very often leads them to be able to find a solution themselves)

I have found that people are generally very receptive to and respectful of the time blocking. I've never experienced anyone thinking it is off-putting or otherwise out of bounds. They simply know when you're heads down and only reachable for emergencies and when they can more freely reach out to chat or get help.

Slack can easily get overwhelming, especially at larger organization with thousands of channels.

One tip: don't install slack on your phone unless you're on call. I would check my work slack habitually and it wouldn't lead to good engagement. Read the messages when you're at your desk and you can compose a thoughtful reply.

Another tip: slack lets you organize channels into groups, use that feature heavily. I had groups for: org, sev (incident specific channels), projects etc. You can then hide them so you only engage with the unreads when you have the time to.

I've seen massive decline for me in terms of mental (and also partly physical) health over the past couple years and a half. For about 2x6 months I wasn't even working at all. So I don't think it has to do with working remote or not (when I did work half of the time was remote, roughly).

I think this whole experience was tough on everybody, my take is that especially for profiles who are a bit on the introvert side, it's harder for us to come back to offline socializing. What was a small amount of misanthropy for me has increased dramatically.

Anyway I don't think it has to do with a tool in particular, just that you are focusing on it because you hate it. I used teams then slack and didn't notice a difference in how bad they are (btw I like the way you phrase it saying it's not lossless communication). All tools now allow for voice and video and screen sharing and they are actually more convenient than "come at my desk on building 3 and I show you" (or much worse because I've worked in situations where you can't even meet the guy).

I've felt overwhelmed too - multiple companies and community workspaces add up. Here are a few of the things I've done:

1. Disconnect the community workspaces that you don't really need or rarely, if ever, participate in. You can always reconnect periodically to get caught up. 2. Leave channels that you never participate in or waste time - like joke and water cooler channels. 3. Mute channels that you rarely participate in, but don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by leaving. 4. Stay out of most conversations that aren't directly related to your work. 5. Use threads and encourage others to use threads so no one has to scroll through conversations that don't pertain to them. 6. Mark yourself as away when you need to be heads down. 7. (Maybe better) Close Slack when you need to be heads down. 8. Don't respond to channel communication immediately, unless something really requires your immediate attention. 9. Don't respond immediately to every DM, unless it's important.

Essentially, do self care and set reasonable boundaries.

I would like to add a 7.5 is possible. Run slack in a browser and disable tab notifications. The app is so jarring when it comes to stealing attention. The most I get in the browser is the favicon will have a little red dot. I miss it most of the times which is a perfect balance for catching up on slack and getting things done.

> I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally.

This is the crux of your issue, and it's fantastic that you see it.

So rethink. Adjust.

Instead of taking no vocal inflection as a negative, instead read the message as if the person had put positive inflection behind it.

Approach every conversation as if it had a friendly tone between people who get along.

When you respond, be overly friendly so people know your positive intent and hopefully respond in kind. Write every reply as if you were patiently having a relaxing conversation with your best friend.

Slack is a bullshit product. Same goes for the rest of its ilk.

Work doesn’t happen in Slack.

Something I started doing with $JOB-1 was to write a “Working with rufius” document and share it with the broader org (in slack profile or intranet profile). One of the things I provide is an SLA on responding to communication. It roughly looks like:

- phone call - synchronous

- email - if I am directly on to-line, response by end of next business day

- slack/teams - hours to never

I basically only answer slack if I’m paying attention to it for whatever reason. My typical work schedule has me open it 3 times a day - once in the morning, once after lunch, and once about 30 mins before I end my work day.

The other thing I note is I don’t make decisions in slack. Decisions happen in documents or worst case, email. Something durable.

That “Working with” doc has done wonders for setting expectations with coworkers. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from coworkers as well that they appreciate it and have created their own.

Work can absolutely happen is Slack if that is how your team uses it. Decisions can be made (and are then documented and can be referenced later, as long as your org pays for it, which they should if they expect it to be used for business/work and not just for random conversations. It's plenty durable if paid, but if it wasn't paid, I'd seriously consider one of the alternatives, even if slightly worse in some ways, of it keeps full history.

My "working with" would be almost the exact opposite of what you list (I like that idea though!). I tell people emails may get checked daily at best. We don't have a phone culture, we use huddles or video calls for synchronous conversations, but they do suffer from lack of documentation or note sometimes.

Excellent books explaining the need for face-to-face communication are "The Village Effect" by Susan Pinker (humans need face-to-face socializing to enhance mental health, and feel all the happy juices like endorphins, oxytocin, etc), and "The Master and his Emmisary", by Iain McGilchrist. Basically, all the techy geek work a dev does makes them very left-hemisphere (predominant brain region). And the left hemisphere is "sticky": once you over-use it, it's hard to stop using it predominantly. In the right hemisphere is where the empathy is, ability to catch nuance, metaphor, and facial micro-expressions, and the ability to use "Theory of Mind" - appreciating the unique individual perspectives of others.

*Too much left-brain, and communication is doomed to suck!!*

You are not alone. I also hate slack... It encourages a shallow form of communication and throw over the fence thinking.

As it has been studied: "the medium is the message."

And slack is bad medium for deep work and conversation.

Is like an open office floor were 500 people is taking at the same time, and you are supposed to react when someone screams your name.

What I want is an office with a door I can close but if I cannot get that I would settle for cubicle with a sense of privacy. So that is email.

I'm seriously considering to get a virtual assistant whose job would be to read my slack messages, emails, jira , Trello notifications and put everything in a single funnel.

If you find a solution that works for you please share it.

I treat messages like emails, they're asynchronous. I don't reply immediately if I'm busy and if it's important someone can contact me directly or call. Reading and following everything little going on doesn't seem healthy. I also don't use social media, maybe that's why I don't have the compulsion some are describing.

I generally refuse to use Slack, unless the client is worth a lot of money to me and it's only for a couple months.

An extra couple grand isn't worth the mental health blow of either 1) having to be visibly "online" or 2) going dark and wondering if that's the wrong move.

I don't like having to reply to threads just to show I'm still alive and kicking, without having anything of substance to communicate.

I love email. It's async and you know I'm online when I'm replying to your emails or sending you questions or sending calendar invites for screenshare.

No Slack = no qualms about working when I'm working and not when I'm not.

Use the channel mute feature liberally. You'll still get notified if a message tags you or your team.

Out of about 50 channels I only have 5 unmuted, and it works fine.

It's like being in a crowd. You don't need to know what everyone's taking about, just those around you and anyone who calls your name.

Slack has highly configurable notifications. Nobody sane is expecting anyone to read and react to 100+ channels in real time.

One important thing to realize is that you are ultimately working with humans. There isn't and never will be magical tool that will shield you from this.

You can either establish clear boundaries acceptable for both sides and configure notifications accordingly or change your group of humans to another, which will accept your pattern of communication.

If neither is possible, then yes - it's your problem not theirs or the tool's.

Every job I've had in the Slack era has had its own Slack culture and its own dysfunctions.

Some places it's a non-stop interruption fest from management offloading everything onto lower ranking employees as if it's a priority 1 emergency.

Some places have endless DM groups causing information to be lost and endlessly repeated, confusing the new hires, and creating cliques.

Some places are joke and meme fests, wasting time and focus with reactions and gifs.

Others are ghost towns where asking questions directly, in order to unblock you, will get shrugs and no participation.

The best ones are mostly down to business and keep all the important information in a Notion or Google Drive. The latter is also easy to mess up though because people don't categorize, and even when they do, the needs of managers are often different from the needs of workers. Nothing beats having a .txt file with all your current personal notes, linking to important reference docs.

Mainly, communicating over text requires people who are good at it, who have some proficiency in writing, and who don't treat it like a flowing conversation with a rapid back and forth. That way lies madness.

Sadly, I haven't found a good way to change Slack practices. It seems to be quite innate and incorrigible. Finding a different job is the only thing that works.

Yes, I end up editing messages 4-5 times to try to get my tone across (I agonize over if my tone seems angry or something). Also, I end up reading messages as angry or annoyed or mistaking the intention a lot.

The best way I've found to deal with this is try to avoid talking about anything other than pure code outside of Zoom calls.

But also, note that it's a mistake to call people for 1:1 meetings to discuss something. That's the way to madness.

Absolutely - on my days off I HAVE to uninstall Slack, or I find myself reading all of the channels, messages and threads I'm subscribed to.

Some colleagues of mine have always just "batched" their messages, and have timeboxed reading/replying to slack messages on a schedule, just so they can focus.

I haven't tried this yet, as it feels rude, but that's the drawback of always online IM in a workplace.

Embrace Slack being async. That is one of its huge benefits, IMO. I need to remind myself of this regularly though, but it makes my use of Slack so much better.

I addressed this in the following way:

- i read things and set reminders. I might get back to those messages later.

- prioritize, sometimes if it is important enough, they'll poke

- know who the key players are. those people you respond to. otherwise don't respond to them right away.

BASICALLY set boundaries. I had to learn and do that in order to stay sane. It was overwhelming me to extremes. You cannot answer everyone, and not every message is critical. You might just respond with "how critical is this". Work with your manager to make a ticketing system. Project managers can act as a literal buffer to protect you from this, pointing you in the direction of things that are important.

I wonder why asynchronous video communication is not used in professional settings. I am convinced many long emails and probably some Zoom meetings should be replaced with a recorded video or screencast. Videos can be paused or watched at 2x the speed, they keep most of the non verbal cues. Compared to Zoom meetings or lectures, when one person does most of the talk, a recorded video can be more polished and have better sound quality, that would prevent Zoom fatigue. Plus it's very easy to have a transcript for searchability.

http://www.Loom.com is exactly that, so it's not a totally unexplored space.

Very interesting, thanks!

In any environment synchronous communication can be an interruption. My desk phone is one for instance. You essentially have 100 desk phones ringing at any given time.

Yup I see the issue.

1. Unplug from slack for 20-30 minute intervals (set a timer) and get some work done.

2. Go back to the office (minimum 2-3 days a week). Get some face to face conversation.

3. In your free time away from the "office" join a charitable organization. Church, Food Bank, Homeless Shelter, Lions, Kiwannas, etc...

4. When you relax. Go out to eat, a football or basketball game, Mall (remember those?), hiking in the woods, walk in the park, etc...

Have Fun!

Slack definitely ruins my day to day job. I’m hoping a new software appears and replaces Slack.

I like using slack more than I thought. We do a lot of calls though (now huddles) and I think a healthy balance between calls, messages, in person (if possible) helps alleviate any miscommunication via text.

Also if someone is a dick they will still be a dick on slack. Fact of life. And a dysfunctional org will be dysfunctional on slack too. In some ways slack is just the conduit of that.

Do you absolutely have to follow/receive notifications for all 100 channels?

> And also, for some reason, I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally.

This is something that I struggle with as well. My first remote job was probably 6 years ago and the first couple weeks I was getting really down on myself because my manager would always reply to my questions with "Um" first. To me this was basically "Um.... are you really asking this stupid of a fucking question? God I am re-thinking this hire big time already". Turns out she was actually saying "Um" because she was thinking about the best answer for the question or didn't know it herself yet.

I recently started a new position where my boss ends everything with a hard period and it just kind of reads a little off to me. For instance - "No. That is not correct, we do not want to do that." To me it reads a bit harsh in my head, but I'm pretty sure he just likes correct grammar.

> Slack

Not sure how old OP might be. For those of us who grew up in the age of USENET the realities of text-based communications have been around for quite some time. You have to develop a thick skin or this stuff can consume you. I remember being there back in the day; being consumed with stress and even anger from interactions on USENET. I think most people eventually evolve to recognize it for what it is: Not a substitute for forms of communication that can deliver context. Also, people tend to be more willing to be complete jerks behind a keyboard.

As for Slack itself. I continue to be amazed by how many times USENET and similar discussion boards are reinvented. From my perspective, they haven't gotten better. We don't have much that did not exist in some form in, say, the 80's or early 90's. And, frankly, most of the interfaces just suck.

I don't know how responsive you're supposed to be towards the 100+ channels in your job, but i think notifications make a big portion of the psychological burden. This also includes visuals like 'unread' badges.

Aside from the downsides, i appreciate that you have everything said in the chat written down and searchable.

Simple solution: disable slack notifications.

For me, it is just email, but with 100x (literally) less internal spam and bot traffic.

The way I see it, Slack is built like a virtual open office, and it does that well. If you enjoy working at some open office and can focus with sales people barking close to your ear, you will enjoy Slack.

Slack may seem modern, but it became legacy software the moment WFH became widespread. It's a tool that actively works against your focus, which is one of the main benefits of not working at some office. This is not always intentional since the notification system is shoddy and struggles to sync devices.

Also, I turn off notifications for pretty much everything, but it doesn't prevent some teammate from messaging me during lunch for non urgent stuff despite having made it clear I'm "away". Slack cannot fix stupid, in fact it makes it worse. We should create tools that make us smarter instead.

In my team we treat slack exactly like an open office. So each day/week we choose a volunteer to handle slack for us, and if needed they can pull on the other team mates but in general we try to preserve a deep work flow for all the other members than the one on slack/support duty.

There are also no expectations that the one on support duty does their normal work during this time. Instead we choose to do devrel work , like outreach, polish documentation and such. We are a platform engineering team so this approach might not be possible for others but it has probably been the best thing mentally since the start of working remotely.

I have deep respect for you guys. I'm currently in backend engineering and weighing a platform engineering offer. My job is all over the place, and my values align way more with the typical platform engineering culture, so I will probably make the switch.

I hear you. I’ve had luck doing a few things:

- making a “muted” folder and muting most channels.

- treating slack as async, like email.

- forcibly removing the little notification dots from the app icon. Slack does not tell me when to look. I will decide when.

- unless I need something, I check slack once per 90 minutes. People have adapted.

- permanently setting myself as offline

I had a similar feeling about emails at my previous job. Turning off notifications didn’t really help, because when I’d see 15, or 50 emails piled up I felt this dreadful stew of emotions that I didn’t want to acknowledge and had no tools to handle. Leaving that job only partially helped me, it took weekly therapy sessions and introspection to figure out what was going on and to learn strategies to not get in the same predicament again.

Working at a FAANG you have benefit coverage to see a therapist. I highly recommend taking advantage of this to talk to a professional about the anxiety around Slack messages you are feeling.

If you don’t connect with the first therapist you find, try another. Your emotions are trying to tell you something, find someone who can help you figure out what the message is.

I don't have any specific advice, as no one solution fits all. What I can point you towards however is some resources that combined have helped me to re-evaluate my relationship with these tools.

Cal Newport's books and podcast [1], Humane Tech's Ledger of Harms [2] and their browser extension recommendations [3].

[1] https://www.calnewport.com/ [2] https://ledger.humanetech.com/ [3] https://www.humanetech.com/take-control

I am on a side which sometimes offend, mostly in non-technical details. As you don't see/hear a person, you can't adjust your expressions in real-time (and add some non-verbal layer as well). Then out of the blue your peer becomes offended by something you even did not mean - with chats/e-mails people often add missing nuances of the communication. And that extra layer is combination of their current mood, some believe or disbelieve in people, and your imagination about you.

Sometimes generated confusion is too unexpected and painful for both, so I prefer to limit online discussions to work stuff.

> And also, for some reason, I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally.

What helps me there is 30 years of Usenet and 10 years of dial-up BBSing before that. Everyone is so nice in Slack.

I did see something that raised my eyebrows once. In some Slack channel totally unrelated to my department, in some discussion about something in modern C++ among people I don't know, I saw the words slung: now you're just being stupid.

I did a double take; like, wow, tell me this comp.lang.c++ moment didn't just happen at work.

I think I once felt overwhelmed like that, and I ended up moving to a much smaller company, where I usually talk to ~4 people, and I earn much more.

Whenever I have to communicate something key, or something prone to cause tension, I just ask for a quick video call.

When I joined this company, I let my colleagues know that I prefer calls over text to avoid misinterpretation, and they understood it just fine.

Maybe it’s not just Slack, 100+ channels is just too much to bear, maybe is the dimension of the company and how stretched you have been.

1. turn off notifications 2. global channels / group channels = mute, look at max one time per week 3. react only to personal messages and internal team channel (1 max 2)

I've been working fully remotely for the past 8 years. Slack is great for sending over clear instructions for people to follow, but doesn't communicate attitude and can be slow as typing out long messages is a big time sink. I highly recommend using Huddles / Slack calls to quickly get to the bottom of things. Don't feel obligated to respond to a message immediately either. Respond when it makes the most sense for you (within reason).

My Slack notifications are on only for DMs and mentions, and only during office hours. If there is a crisis afterhours, my teammates/manager have my phone number.

Totally agree! Humans are not made to have 20+ conversations going on at the same time, especially while doing actual work. Just stop it, radically, and open Slack only two times daily: in the morning for like 20mins, and in the end of the day for 20mins. Strict Slack timeslot. It doesnt matter how many unread messages there are, just ** it and do ONE thing at a time, and totally forget about everything except your actual work. Try it out ;)

I actually have felt this, but with general discourse online[0] but what I have realized as of late is that if I actually want to talk, I tend to just send PM instead of group chats and have muted all of my groups, maybe sometimes enable chats that mention me.

[0] https://snat-s.github.io/pages/blog/digital_anxiety.html

I totally sympathise with "I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally". Yesterday I had a feedback session with my boss about it, and we agreed to call more when there could be room for tension across team members. About your slack problem, I can only imagine it, and dare advising to get coaching about how to avoid or manage toxic communication social dynamics.

I got slack removed from my organization by pointing out that it interrupts people, and causes a non-permanent record of important discussions. But a new person came in and started it up again and I can't get rid of it.

Ultimately, I just individually let it be known that I don't check Slack because it interrupts my work, send me an e-mail if you need to reach me.

> causes a non-permanent record of important discussions

That's your organization's problem, not Slack's. The same could be said of discussions in conference rooms, video calls, hallways, or email.

In fact, Slack improves on most of those situations by giving you a permanent record that can be searched.

If you're on the correct plan it's a permanent record. We insist people default to asking questions in public channels instead of DMs for this very reason (so others can search and find the answer).

The free plan (still more expensive than what this terrible software is worth) only keeps 90 days of history.

I had this problem. It wasn’t Slack’s fault. Slack is pretty great, but infinite communication doesn’t scale.

We’re only in 100 channels because there are deeper issues with how information moves around the organization.

Those problems may or may not be solvable, but if you can create proper interfaces for information you should be able to leave all the excess channels.

Teams need discipline to use Slack well, to chat in an organized and non-overwhelming way. Most teams don't do this, unfortunately. But that said hope you don't scapegoat Slack as the cause of your own psychological problems that may be aggregated by but are not ultimately caused by Slack itself.

Has anyone tried using a forum/bulletin system in place of slack? I'd be curious to hear how that went.

I don't really have any advice for the negative colouring of incoming messages.

But for the onslaught of messages I simply don't have notifications on and will only check it a few times a day when there's a natural break in my work.

Also, just leave the channels, there's no reason for you to be on 100+ channels.

Why do you feel you need to stay informed with a firehose of information constantly being transferred?

You can also work to balance how many times you open it up on a given day and push back when people ask constantly for your attention when you've got more important goals to accomplish.

The platitude "assume positive intent" helps a little bit. Especially at work, there's not a big downside to assuming your coworkers generally have positive intent. For me that saying has been helpful -- although very difficult to keep in my head when stressed.

Not a problem here. I have it on my work computer that goes to sleep about 5pm and ignored at lunch. Only subscribed to a few pertinent channels with low traffic. In a tab so doesn’t use a huge amount of memory.

I try to read comments charitably and add a smiley when sarcastic.

first killer app of ML will be a robo Slack replacement who manages all the noise and spoon feeds only the nuggets needed on a per employee level similar to what back in the days a good manager did for the team

> I tend to interpret a written message in a much worse way than I do a message that is communicated verbally.

I see this happening on Twitter a lot and I can see why it causes people to get into online arguments.

> it causes people to get into online arguments

I was unaware Twitter had any other purpose!

Just call people and talk to them, then you can get a read on their inflections etc, ask if it is ok to chat for five minutes. Don't just blast out IM's.

We use Slack only for gossip, so it's fully optional. If I was getting 100+ chat messages each day, I wouldn't be able to get any work done.

"Ruined your life" is a bit dramatic, eh? It's a messenger. Perhaps you're putting too much weight into both of them.

I don't agree with OP, but I see where he is coming from. I feel like quitting being a developer every time I enter Jira

Just turn off the notifications.

Set up for minimal notifications and when its time to focus close the app.

Text, slack for information. I am a phone person. Text is dumb pipe.

I've noticed a pattern that many people don't use periods at the end of sentences in Slack messages (or text messages, really any short-form communication medium). I also tend to avoid periods during short communications because for some weird reason they come off to me as "harsh" or "abrupt". Almost as if the person has lost patience and is becoming snappy. I don't get that same feeling for longer form communication, but short messages ending in a period definitely come of as "short" to me. I think subconsciously the lack of adding a period is my way of conveying that, "I'm not trying to be short-tempered, and I'm not annoyed. This is just a quick and informal communication with all due respect still intended."

uh, wha...??—God, Americans.

Teams is ruining lives as well

tldr; mute everything, also, you can just get another job

I only use slack on my work laptop (no work-related anything on my phone, or any other device), and mute absolutely every channel that is not with my immediate team, and I set times during the day when I check muted channels (once or twice a day), depending on your job title, that might not be viable, but if it is, I highly recommend it

if you are at a position that doesn't allow that, that's kind of the reason you get paid what you get paid, you might've heard that "engineering's all about tradeoffs", but it's really life that's about tradeoffs, you either choose to make a lot of money, or spend time with kids, you either choose to work 80h/w or to have hobbies... my point is that you have control over your life, maybe not complete control, but you can get another job, or accept that the way your life is because of the choices you've both made, and continue to make

100+ channels!!?

You are a snowflake. When your propaganda says "PC or die", weak people are born.

Stop consuming MSM completely. Volunteer for "lowly" work such as cleaning toilets. Study meditation at a religious center. You'll grow up.

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