“ If I reach out via chat, it's because I expect a realtime exchange. ” I don’t make that assumption. My company is distributed across the globe. Some teams ar

“ If I reach out via chat, it's because I expect a realtime exchange. ” I don’t make that assumption. My company is distributed across the globe. Some teams are offset by 12.5 hours. For someone not collocated, chat (via Slack) is closer to email except more focused. I expect people to response to chats “at their earliest convenience”. If they are in different time zones, we try to pack as much into each response to maximize the communications. If they are collocated, once we start a conversation it usually continues in realtime.