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No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working <- which more a cultural issue than being

No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working <- which more a cultural issue than being disrespectful of people's time in my opinion. I have nothing but respect for my coworkers personal time. I couldn't care less, personally, if you need to take hours, days, weeks, or even months off of work for whatever reason. Do what you need to do. However, if you are on Slack and suggesting to people you are available when you are not, that is bullshit to me. It's not difficult to close the app or update your status to put in an ounce of teamwork so people know how to work around your actual availability.

leetcrew 6y ago
> No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working <- which more a cultural issue than being disrespectful of people's time in my opinion. me working != available to immediately respond to your question. I'm not going to drop all the context for a bug I'm close to fixing to reply to a slack message. if I've been working on a bug for hours and I'm nowhere near a solution, I might switch gears and help you with your issue. I can't know at the beginning of investigating a bug which state I'm going to be in when you ask your question.
joshmanders 6y ago
Online status does not mean I am available, the online status tells my team that I am indeed, in my work day and they can message me and get a response when I'm actually available. Clocking in physically at your job tells your employer you're working, but it doesn't mean you're available immediately for their attention.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Yes text chat tools have too little engagement. I worked on a startup called Sococo (still exists; pivoted to be a WebRTC clone) that used a map. You could see each little bobblehead on the map, either in their office, in a conference room, in a break room, with our without their headset on. You clicked your guy into the room to conference with people in that room. If you didn't want to be bothered, you put your bobblehead into your office and closed the door, maybe took your headset off. You could see who was in meetings and with whom. You could see them flashing as they talked in turn. You wanted to interrupt somebody, you could knock on their door. They could 'let your in' or chat 'give me a minute' or whatever. It included chat tools in the rooms, so you could have text side-conversations while the talking was going on. It was very, very useful. The company that made it, had employees on 3 continents and 7 states. I didn't actually know where my coworkers lived, unless they told me. Yet I could communicate without friction. I miss the old Sococo.
  - athriren 6y ago
    i am confused. the explainer video looks like what you describe, how has sococo changed?
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      We used to support millisecond connect times, no squelching (everybody talked at any time), 100 folks in a conference, unlimited (thumbnail) videos and screen shares, always-on client that lived in your tool bar. They went WebRTC which means Chrome. So its a browser page, takes up real estate, requires the right version of the browser, doesn't integrate with your desktop controls (audio, video) tightly, has ~1 second connect times, limits to half a dozen people tops, one video at a time. Which doesn't seem terrible until you click into a meeting and the voices come in one at a time over many seconds. So large parts of the 'frictionless' are gone. You want to share something, get it to the right page, then draw attention to it - there's moderator gatekeeping, one-at-a-time rules. Instead of everybody sharing whatever they liked, more than one share per person, all set up so anybody could look at anything they wanted without some moderator orchestrating it. You want to go back and look at Lucy's spreadsheet while Alice is talking thru her presentation? Just click on it, then click back into the presentation later. We miss it.
  - jonpurdy 6y ago
    This looks... awesome, from a first glance. Takes up more screen real estate for sure, but it seems like a cool way to inject a bit of fun into remote work. I can imagine some people would totally not be into this, but I'm not one of them.
- kempbellt 6y ago
  If your status is "Online" it gives the impression that you are simply online, sure. If you are "Online" on an team-based instant messenger application, it also gives a certain impression... Life happens, focus on work happens, bathroom breaks happen... Almost no one is available "immediately" all the time. But if you regularly show yourself as online and cannot respond within a reasonable amount of time (a couple of hours?) to questions/concerns that coworkers send to you, then why are you "Online"? Is it difficult to close the app, change your status, or simply respond with "Hey, super busy today. I'll get back to you on this tomorrow", simply for the sake of building good team interactions? > Clocking in physically at your job tells your employer you're working, but it doesn't mean you're available immediately for their attention. Interesting. I figured that typically when you "clock on" for an employer, it signals that you are now engaged in a contract by which your time is now dedicated to what your employer needs you to do, including giving them your attention. Hence the term "clocking on"
  - antisthenes 6y ago
    > Life happens, focus on work happens, bathroom breaks happen... Almost no one is available "immediately" all the time. But if you regularly show yourself as online and cannot respond within a reasonable amount of time (a couple of hours?) to questions/concerns that coworkers send to you, then why are you "Online"? I think you're actually somewhat agreeing with the above poster. To me, being online means I will respond to your concern as soon as I can context switch to your problem cheaply - usually within 30 minutes, or maybe even instantly if you caught me coming off of a lunch/bathroom break. > Is it difficult to close the app, change your status, or simply respond with "Hey, super busy today. I'll get back to you on this tomorrow", simply for the sake of building good team interactions? I think it's a good habit to build. For example if it's nearing the end of the work day, and you have enough work to do, setting yourself to busy should indicate people not to expect your response until the next day.
saghm 6y ago
> No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working I think you're ascribing a bit too much intention to what most people just ignore as the default setting on an application. I've never once touched my slack status settings, and I leave a slack tab open in my browser while I work, so I assume it probably shows me as online all the time when I'm working; I can't imagine I'm the only person like this. It never even occurred to me until reading your comment that this could somehow be interpreted as a signal that I would always be able to respond immediately to a slack message. If people started assuming that I would be able to respond immediately whenever slack showed me as offline, I would probably just configure it to show me as offline 24/7 (even at times when I am online). Keeping a slack tab open is just a way for me to save time from having to reopen it every time I _do_ actually want to check it (the website often takes several seconds to load), not some way to send a signal to my coworkers.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  I do pay attention to Slack status, but I always figure it as a negative indicator -> This guy is definitely offline. It is not a guarantee that the person on the other end is going to see my message instantly.
detaro 6y ago
How do you suddenly go to "not working" and "taking time off" from this? That's a massive strawman.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working Sounds like your idea of how to use Slack is about 180 degrees out from mine. For my team, people put things on Slack and reply when they have time/ energy or holes in their flow. Sometimes you get an immediate reply, often its not for 10 minutes or an hour. I'm curious what kind of job allows you to fool people into thinking you are working be being available in Slack? Certainly software developers can't get away with that. Regardless of what your Slack hours are, you need to deliver bug fixes and new code.

leetcrew 6y ago

> No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working <- which more a cultural issue than being disrespectful of people's time in my opinion. me working != available to immediately respond to your question. I'm not going to drop all the context for a bug I'm close to fixing to reply to a slack message. if I've been working on a bug for hours and I'm nowhere near a solution, I might switch gears and help you with your issue. I can't know at the beginning of investigating a bug which state I'm going to be in when you ask your question.

joshmanders 6y ago

Online status does not mean I am available, the online status tells my team that I am indeed, in my work day and they can message me and get a response when I'm actually available. Clocking in physically at your job tells your employer you're working, but it doesn't mean you're available immediately for their attention.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Yes text chat tools have too little engagement. I worked on a startup called Sococo (still exists; pivoted to be a WebRTC clone) that used a map. You could see each little bobblehead on the map, either in their office, in a conference room, in a break room, with our without their headset on. You clicked your guy into the room to conference with people in that room. If you didn't want to be bothered, you put your bobblehead into your office and closed the door, maybe took your headset off. You could see who was in meetings and with whom. You could see them flashing as they talked in turn. You wanted to interrupt somebody, you could knock on their door. They could 'let your in' or chat 'give me a minute' or whatever. It included chat tools in the rooms, so you could have text side-conversations while the talking was going on. It was very, very useful. The company that made it, had employees on 3 continents and 7 states. I didn't actually know where my coworkers lived, unless they told me. Yet I could communicate without friction. I miss the old Sococo.
- athriren 6y ago
  i am confused. the explainer video looks like what you describe, how has sococo changed?
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    We used to support millisecond connect times, no squelching (everybody talked at any time), 100 folks in a conference, unlimited (thumbnail) videos and screen shares, always-on client that lived in your tool bar. They went WebRTC which means Chrome. So its a browser page, takes up real estate, requires the right version of the browser, doesn't integrate with your desktop controls (audio, video) tightly, has ~1 second connect times, limits to half a dozen people tops, one video at a time. Which doesn't seem terrible until you click into a meeting and the voices come in one at a time over many seconds. So large parts of the 'frictionless' are gone. You want to share something, get it to the right page, then draw attention to it - there's moderator gatekeeping, one-at-a-time rules. Instead of everybody sharing whatever they liked, more than one share per person, all set up so anybody could look at anything they wanted without some moderator orchestrating it. You want to go back and look at Lucy's spreadsheet while Alice is talking thru her presentation? Just click on it, then click back into the presentation later. We miss it.
- jonpurdy 6y ago
  This looks... awesome, from a first glance. Takes up more screen real estate for sure, but it seems like a cool way to inject a bit of fun into remote work. I can imagine some people would totally not be into this, but I'm not one of them.
kempbellt 6y ago
If your status is "Online" it gives the impression that you are simply online, sure. If you are "Online" on an team-based instant messenger application, it also gives a certain impression... Life happens, focus on work happens, bathroom breaks happen... Almost no one is available "immediately" all the time. But if you regularly show yourself as online and cannot respond within a reasonable amount of time (a couple of hours?) to questions/concerns that coworkers send to you, then why are you "Online"? Is it difficult to close the app, change your status, or simply respond with "Hey, super busy today. I'll get back to you on this tomorrow", simply for the sake of building good team interactions? > Clocking in physically at your job tells your employer you're working, but it doesn't mean you're available immediately for their attention. Interesting. I figured that typically when you "clock on" for an employer, it signals that you are now engaged in a contract by which your time is now dedicated to what your employer needs you to do, including giving them your attention. Hence the term "clocking on"
- antisthenes 6y ago
  > Life happens, focus on work happens, bathroom breaks happen... Almost no one is available "immediately" all the time. But if you regularly show yourself as online and cannot respond within a reasonable amount of time (a couple of hours?) to questions/concerns that coworkers send to you, then why are you "Online"? I think you're actually somewhat agreeing with the above poster. To me, being online means I will respond to your concern as soon as I can context switch to your problem cheaply - usually within 30 minutes, or maybe even instantly if you caught me coming off of a lunch/bathroom break. > Is it difficult to close the app, change your status, or simply respond with "Hey, super busy today. I'll get back to you on this tomorrow", simply for the sake of building good team interactions? I think it's a good habit to build. For example if it's nearing the end of the work day, and you have enough work to do, setting yourself to busy should indicate people not to expect your response until the next day.

saghm 6y ago

> No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working I think you're ascribing a bit too much intention to what most people just ignore as the default setting on an application. I've never once touched my slack status settings, and I leave a slack tab open in my browser while I work, so I assume it probably shows me as online all the time when I'm working; I can't imagine I'm the only person like this. It never even occurred to me until reading your comment that this could somehow be interpreted as a signal that I would always be able to respond immediately to a slack message. If people started assuming that I would be able to respond immediately whenever slack showed me as offline, I would probably just configure it to show me as offline 24/7 (even at times when I am online). Keeping a slack tab open is just a way for me to save time from having to reopen it every time I _do_ actually want to check it (the website often takes several seconds to load), not some way to send a signal to my coworkers.

ogre_codes 6y ago
I do pay attention to Slack status, but I always figure it as a negative indicator -> This guy is definitely offline. It is not a guarantee that the person on the other end is going to see my message instantly.

detaro 6y ago

How do you suddenly go to "not working" and "taking time off" from this? That's a massive strawman.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working Sounds like your idea of how to use Slack is about 180 degrees out from mine. For my team, people put things on Slack and reply when they have time/ energy or holes in their flow. Sometimes you get an immediate reply, often its not for 10 minutes or an hour. I'm curious what kind of job allows you to fool people into thinking you are working be being available in Slack? Certainly software developers can't get away with that. Regardless of what your Slack hours are, you need to deliver bug fixes and new code.