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Does your company culture expect immediate response? I like it because we treat it like short-form email, maybe with a slight expectation of quicker response. I

Does your company culture expect immediate response? I like it because we treat it like short-form email, maybe with a slight expectation of quicker response. If I send you an email, it will have some detail and please get back to me within a few days. If I send you a slack message, I expect a sentence or two and a response today or tomorrow.

jedberg 4y ago
I've never worked anywhere that didn't expect an immediate response from Slack. If they wanted a delayed response, they'd send an email. Worse yet, if I try to enforce that myself by not responding, there is a whole conversation in the channel before I get there and then I have to respond to all the messages in a mess of threads or some big long response block.
- ozim 4y ago
  You know you set the expectations. Is it firing offense if you reply in 30 mins.
- scarface74 4y ago
  I very much have “deep work” time where I turn off everything. If there is a house on fire emergency, they can use our paging app that can bypass DND on the phone.
- spartanatreyu 4y ago
  You need to change your company's culture. My work uses Teams with the expectation that a message is async. Most people respond whenever they finish their current task or meeting. Response times would generally looks like a bell-curve with the peak around 30 minutes. Some messages have the expectation of requiring an immediate response (e.g. reception who may be relaying information from an external phone call). Typically when something is actually urgent, we click the call/video-call button instead of sending a message.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    > You need to change your company's culture. How would one do that exactly? Like I said, I could just not respond right away, and then I either have to respond to a whole discussion later in a mess of threads, or ignore it, but either way I'll get labeled a bad communicator and hard to work with.
    - bsuvc 4y ago
      I don't have an answer for you, but wanted to say I sympathize with what you are saying. People who hand wave and say "just change the company culture" must not have been in your shoes.
    - hallway_monitor 4y ago
      With that attitude you will. Honestly though you need to find a communication pattern that works for you and your teammates. In most situations if you communicate your needs clearly you won't get much pushback. For instance closing your instant message and email except for periodic checkins and letting people know why might improve the situation.
    - dlandis 4y ago
      You could start small and block off a certain chunk of time during which you won’t respond. And communicate that to people ahead of time and the reasoning for it. Also set your statutes msg during that period. It could catch on and more people could similarly block off certain periods.
    - aiisjustanif 4y ago
      Start advocating for the basecamp model. [1] [1]: https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate
    - spartanatreyu 4y ago
      > How would one do that exactly? Don't talk to each team member one-on-one, that'll never work. Talk to your manager, make it clear in terms they understand. That doesn't mean complain or whine to them as that will just push them away from the point that you're trying to make. You need to REALLY make it clear to them not in your terms, but in their terms. Show them that every time they do this your productivity goes down. Show them that if it's happening to you, it's also happening to others too. Show them the research that says interruptions are bad. Show them the communication models that other companies are using that work. Your manager isn't going to do the research for you, they're too busy managing others. The only thing that managers are trying to do is to reduce the complaining to a minimum. If that means the minimum is only you complaining, then they are going to optimise for only you complaining. If you actually show them the research, show them a list of rules, show them a plan that can be implemented, then you complaining is always going to be the minimum. You need to show them that if they follow these steps, then the complaining will essentially go down to zero, only then will they act on it.
- simonh 4y ago
  I think a lot of the value in both Slack and Teams is the ability to seamlessly switch from async to real-time conversation, up to an audio/video call. Async should definitely be the default expectation though. Setting status flags can be useful for this. If they want and need an immediate response, they should call me.
- michaelcampbell 4y ago
  > I've never worked anywhere that didn't expect an immediate response from Slack. Interesting; I've never worked anywhere that DID. Wonder if it's a regional or company domain thing.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Philadelphia 4y ago
Could someone explain how you don’t lose track of a message irretrievably in Slack if you don’t respond to it right away? There doesn’t seem to be any way to ever find anything again without looking through every single channel and DM conversation once it’s read — no way to see every message you’ve received by date or anything like that. And DM conversations just drop off the sidebar entirely if you have too many of them.
- darknavi 4y ago
  Honestly a lot of "Remind me in X"
- dotancohen 4y ago
  > Could someone explain how you don’t lose track of a message irretrievably > in Slack if you don’t respond to it right away? The idea behind "no immediate reply" isn't that you read a message and reply to it later. The idea is that when you're ready, you open Slack, then read and reply to messages. You then close Slack, go do a task, then come back to slack.
- simonh 4y ago
  I dislike the split in Teams between chat and the Teams tab, but at least it has the Activity stream. Also you can mark messages as Unread so you can go back later.
- dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv 4y ago
  Right click the message and choose "remind me later"

jedberg 4y ago

I've never worked anywhere that didn't expect an immediate response from Slack. If they wanted a delayed response, they'd send an email. Worse yet, if I try to enforce that myself by not responding, there is a whole conversation in the channel before I get there and then I have to respond to all the messages in a mess of threads or some big long response block.

ozim 4y ago
You know you set the expectations. Is it firing offense if you reply in 30 mins.
scarface74 4y ago
I very much have “deep work” time where I turn off everything. If there is a house on fire emergency, they can use our paging app that can bypass DND on the phone.
spartanatreyu 4y ago
You need to change your company's culture. My work uses Teams with the expectation that a message is async. Most people respond whenever they finish their current task or meeting. Response times would generally looks like a bell-curve with the peak around 30 minutes. Some messages have the expectation of requiring an immediate response (e.g. reception who may be relaying information from an external phone call). Typically when something is actually urgent, we click the call/video-call button instead of sending a message.
- jedberg 4y ago
  > You need to change your company's culture. How would one do that exactly? Like I said, I could just not respond right away, and then I either have to respond to a whole discussion later in a mess of threads, or ignore it, but either way I'll get labeled a bad communicator and hard to work with.
  - bsuvc 4y ago
    I don't have an answer for you, but wanted to say I sympathize with what you are saying. People who hand wave and say "just change the company culture" must not have been in your shoes.
  - hallway_monitor 4y ago
    With that attitude you will. Honestly though you need to find a communication pattern that works for you and your teammates. In most situations if you communicate your needs clearly you won't get much pushback. For instance closing your instant message and email except for periodic checkins and letting people know why might improve the situation.
  - dlandis 4y ago
    You could start small and block off a certain chunk of time during which you won’t respond. And communicate that to people ahead of time and the reasoning for it. Also set your statutes msg during that period. It could catch on and more people could similarly block off certain periods.
  - aiisjustanif 4y ago
    Start advocating for the basecamp model. [1] [1]: https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate
  - spartanatreyu 4y ago
    > How would one do that exactly? Don't talk to each team member one-on-one, that'll never work. Talk to your manager, make it clear in terms they understand. That doesn't mean complain or whine to them as that will just push them away from the point that you're trying to make. You need to REALLY make it clear to them not in your terms, but in their terms. Show them that every time they do this your productivity goes down. Show them that if it's happening to you, it's also happening to others too. Show them the research that says interruptions are bad. Show them the communication models that other companies are using that work. Your manager isn't going to do the research for you, they're too busy managing others. The only thing that managers are trying to do is to reduce the complaining to a minimum. If that means the minimum is only you complaining, then they are going to optimise for only you complaining. If you actually show them the research, show them a list of rules, show them a plan that can be implemented, then you complaining is always going to be the minimum. You need to show them that if they follow these steps, then the complaining will essentially go down to zero, only then will they act on it.
simonh 4y ago
I think a lot of the value in both Slack and Teams is the ability to seamlessly switch from async to real-time conversation, up to an audio/video call. Async should definitely be the default expectation though. Setting status flags can be useful for this. If they want and need an immediate response, they should call me.
michaelcampbell 4y ago
> I've never worked anywhere that didn't expect an immediate response from Slack. Interesting; I've never worked anywhere that DID. Wonder if it's a regional or company domain thing.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Philadelphia 4y ago

Could someone explain how you don’t lose track of a message irretrievably in Slack if you don’t respond to it right away? There doesn’t seem to be any way to ever find anything again without looking through every single channel and DM conversation once it’s read — no way to see every message you’ve received by date or anything like that. And DM conversations just drop off the sidebar entirely if you have too many of them.

darknavi 4y ago
Honestly a lot of "Remind me in X"
dotancohen 4y ago
> Could someone explain how you don’t lose track of a message irretrievably > in Slack if you don’t respond to it right away? The idea behind "no immediate reply" isn't that you read a message and reply to it later. The idea is that when you're ready, you open Slack, then read and reply to messages. You then close Slack, go do a task, then come back to slack.
simonh 4y ago
I dislike the split in Teams between chat and the Teams tab, but at least it has the Activity stream. Also you can mark messages as Unread so you can go back later.
dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv 4y ago
Right click the message and choose "remind me later"