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Once Slack becomes the default I’m pinged from every angle all day long. I recently began work on a team that has a brief "culture FAQ" regarding things

Once Slack becomes the default I’m pinged from every angle all day long. I recently began work on a team that has a brief "culture FAQ" regarding things like Slack messaging norms and expectations. We have an agreement that @'ing/DM'ing is expected to be asynchronous unless you explicitly let the recipient know otherwise - "hey, the server's down" or "hey, I'm blocked on this" etc. (above paragraph edited for clarity) It's been awesome. Very respectful environment. People @ you but you are not expected to stop what you're doing. By the same token, I can @ others without fear that I'm causing them an undue interuption, because asynchronous messaging is the norm.

charcircuit 5y ago
Doing this reduces efficiency. You are potentially blocking someone for half of a day when you might just need to send a simple message back.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Ah, thanks for replying. I edited my post for clarity. I assure you we do not sit around, blocked, waiting for replies. =) The point being, if you need an immediate reply, you're expected to explicitly mention that. Otherwise it's assumed to be async. It's working well IMO.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Do you look at notifications or how do you manage to separate those two? Where I work people can call me on slack or otherwise of it is urgent (no one has abused it so far). If I am in hyperfocus, anything in text is assumed asynchronous and won't get looked at until I resurface.
ketzo 5y ago
Our Slack is very similar, but no one's ever laid it out explicitly (at least not to me) - I love that.
sharat87 5y ago
Could you share that FAQ here or link to it? I've been recently thinking of writing something like this for my team, so having an existing working template would be of great help. Thanks!
jjav 5y ago
> We have an agreement that @'ing/DM'ing is expected to be asynchronous unless you explicitly let the recipient know otherwise How does this work? Becuase the problem as a recipient is that now I still need to read every.single.message.all.the.time to see what it says, which is ridiculous waste of time and source of continuous interruption. I much prefer to check email + slack once or twice a day at most, batch process them then. It's the only way to get any work done.
- wokwokwok 5y ago
  I find this response (which I see a lot) mystifying. When you have a moment, read the message. Go back to what you were doing before. It literally takes seconds to read a message and decide “is everything on fire and I need to respond to this or can it wait until later”. Mostly, it can wait. If it can wait, wait. Ignore it. Go back to what you were doing. Take your time folk, you dont have to respond to every email or every message ten seconds after reading it. …to be fair, it is a bit rude to leave it for 4 hours before you even look to see what it was. But hey, as long as you set expectations with your coworkers, that’s fine too. Slack is only a problem if you can’t control your Pavlovian response to the little red icon. You’re not a dog; you can choose how you respond to this stuff.
  - majewsky 5y ago
    > If it can wait, wait. Ignore it. Go back to what you were doing. You make it sound like this part is zero-cost, when it absolutely is not. This comic expresses it more clearly than I could in words: https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...
  - jjav 5y ago
    > It literally takes seconds to read a message and decide “is everything on fire and I need to respond to this or can it wait until later”. I guess your company has a lower message rate than what I've seen. In current company there are 30+ channels and a message arrives on average about every minute. Each of those "few seconds to read" is a mental interrupt. Happening every minute. This leads to not being able to switch onto concentration mode to do actual work all day long. The only solution is to switch it off entirely, only check at specific times. But if the company culture is to expect prompt response at all times, that's a conflict.

charcircuit 5y ago

Doing this reduces efficiency. You are potentially blocking someone for half of a day when you might just need to send a simple message back.

JohnBooty 5y ago
Ah, thanks for replying. I edited my post for clarity. I assure you we do not sit around, blocked, waiting for replies. =) The point being, if you need an immediate reply, you're expected to explicitly mention that. Otherwise it's assumed to be async. It's working well IMO.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Do you look at notifications or how do you manage to separate those two? Where I work people can call me on slack or otherwise of it is urgent (no one has abused it so far). If I am in hyperfocus, anything in text is assumed asynchronous and won't get looked at until I resurface.

ketzo 5y ago

Our Slack is very similar, but no one's ever laid it out explicitly (at least not to me) - I love that.

sharat87 5y ago

Could you share that FAQ here or link to it? I've been recently thinking of writing something like this for my team, so having an existing working template would be of great help. Thanks!

jjav 5y ago

> We have an agreement that @'ing/DM'ing is expected to be asynchronous unless you explicitly let the recipient know otherwise How does this work? Becuase the problem as a recipient is that now I still need to read every.single.message.all.the.time to see what it says, which is ridiculous waste of time and source of continuous interruption. I much prefer to check email + slack once or twice a day at most, batch process them then. It's the only way to get any work done.

wokwokwok 5y ago
I find this response (which I see a lot) mystifying. When you have a moment, read the message. Go back to what you were doing before. It literally takes seconds to read a message and decide “is everything on fire and I need to respond to this or can it wait until later”. Mostly, it can wait. If it can wait, wait. Ignore it. Go back to what you were doing. Take your time folk, you dont have to respond to every email or every message ten seconds after reading it. …to be fair, it is a bit rude to leave it for 4 hours before you even look to see what it was. But hey, as long as you set expectations with your coworkers, that’s fine too. Slack is only a problem if you can’t control your Pavlovian response to the little red icon. You’re not a dog; you can choose how you respond to this stuff.
- majewsky 5y ago
  > If it can wait, wait. Ignore it. Go back to what you were doing. You make it sound like this part is zero-cost, when it absolutely is not. This comic expresses it more clearly than I could in words: https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...
- jjav 5y ago
  > It literally takes seconds to read a message and decide “is everything on fire and I need to respond to this or can it wait until later”. I guess your company has a lower message rate than what I've seen. In current company there are 30+ channels and a message arrives on average about every minute. Each of those "few seconds to read" is a mental interrupt. Happening every minute. This leads to not being able to switch onto concentration mode to do actual work all day long. The only solution is to switch it off entirely, only check at specific times. But if the company culture is to expect prompt response at all times, that's a conflict.