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Comment by rectang | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile there are those who expect you to process every Slack ping, making them in some ways worse those who interrupt in person — since they don’t feel the distress of the person they’re interrupting through the screen.

A workplace’s culture of consideration is expressed through communication channels, but is not determined by the choice of channel.

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IM's and the like are the bane of my existence. If I'm busy I can close a door or put a sign up. I can close email. Nobody expects me to immediately respond to email anyways.

But instant messages? Everyone expects instant responses. Even when their message is something like, "hey,I see you have your door closed. Are you busy?"

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>But instant messages? Everyone expects instant responses.

My understanding is people don't expect instant responses, but that's never been made explicit. What do you base your understanding on? Do folks tell you?

IM software can be closed, too, and in a healthy company the expectations around IMs should not be that they are "instant", but more of an async medium like email.

In my 15 year corporate career I have never met anyone who expects an immediate reply to an IM.

Slack pings are worse than in person interruptions. The async comms still interrupt the recipient but also force the sender to wait for a response.

Pre-covid you could tell when someone was busy based on body language and avoid interrupting them.

I feel this. The, let's hash this out asynchronous synchronously over 30 minutes rather than talk for 3

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