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Well, there's also organisational discipline to consider. If the company values "being a team player" (as measured by always being on Slack) over getting work d

Well, there's also organisational discipline to consider. If the company values "being a team player" (as measured by always being on Slack) over getting work done, then the organisation has a discipline problem. You don't fix such a problem by taking away Slack, some other non-productive measure of being a team player will just take it's place -- answering email at night, always answering your phone, playing enough ping pong, being in your seat at 9am sharp etc. Figuring out the correct balance between doing directly productive work and paying the overhead tax that goes with collaboration is hard. Just like no single tool will magically fix it (hello, Jira), no tool magically destroys it.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago
> If the company values "being a team player" (as measured by always being on Slack) over getting work done I don't know what kind of place you work at, but being a team player isn't measured by always being on Slack.
- mseebach 9y ago
  Then I don't understand what you meant by this: > > But as for Slack, you DO have to be a team player.
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    Being a team player is measured by communicating and working together. It just so happens that in some organizations communicating and working together happens on Slack. That was the point of my original comment: in one of these organizations, the fact that I struggle to work because I have noise coming from Slack that I'm expected to respond to is NOT my lack of discipline. The person I was responding to just took a fashionable meme on HN which was originally meant for Facebook and mindlessly applied it to Slack. Not applicable.
    - mseebach 9y ago
      > I have noise coming from Slack that I'm expected to respond It's the external expectation to respond that I interpreted as "being a team player as measured by always being on Slack". Being a team player, broadly defined, isn't incompatible with muting Slack or otherwise managing the noise, and that then comes back to the "discipline" idea. If a person don't mute Slack because they "like" the distractions, then they have a discipline problem, if the organisation doesn't let them mute Slack because a "team player" always responds in three seconds or less, they the organisation has a discipline problem.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

> If the company values "being a team player" (as measured by always being on Slack) over getting work done I don't know what kind of place you work at, but being a team player isn't measured by always being on Slack.

mseebach 9y ago
Then I don't understand what you meant by this: > > But as for Slack, you DO have to be a team player.
- fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  Being a team player is measured by communicating and working together. It just so happens that in some organizations communicating and working together happens on Slack. That was the point of my original comment: in one of these organizations, the fact that I struggle to work because I have noise coming from Slack that I'm expected to respond to is NOT my lack of discipline. The person I was responding to just took a fashionable meme on HN which was originally meant for Facebook and mindlessly applied it to Slack. Not applicable.
  - mseebach 9y ago
    > I have noise coming from Slack that I'm expected to respond It's the external expectation to respond that I interpreted as "being a team player as measured by always being on Slack". Being a team player, broadly defined, isn't incompatible with muting Slack or otherwise managing the noise, and that then comes back to the "discipline" idea. If a person don't mute Slack because they "like" the distractions, then they have a discipline problem, if the organisation doesn't let them mute Slack because a "team player" always responds in three seconds or less, they the organisation has a discipline problem.