I started working from home in 2020 and still haven’t found a reliable solution to the Slack status problem.
I work in STEM. My work involves a lot of thinking and research. It does not require me to be available unless I have meetings. That said, I always am available during business hours, with notifications on LOUD, in addition to the work that I do outside business hours (which is when I can focus).
Trouble is, colleagues/bosses interpret an inactive status as genuinely slacking off. I’ve been called out on it before, E.g.
“I wanted to ask you something, but you were offline, so I didn’t message you.” (????)
“I don’t know if you’re working or not, your slack status is the only indication that I have.” (What about my output?)
The slack green dot is my main performance complaint — which would be fine, except that it gets used against me when I genuinely need help or an extension.
Slack doesn’t share their algorithm for determining status availability. But afaik it basically works as follows.
On browser: turns off after 30 minutes of browser tab inactivity.
Desktop: turns off after 30 minutes of desktop inactivity or when the computer goes to sleep. Admin has set our computers to go to sleep after 10 minutes and this cannot be changed.
Phone: turns off as soon as you navigate away from the app.
It is surprisingly disruptive and draining to ensure I move a mouse every 9 minutes or make sure my phone is open to the app constantly.
Anyone got any tips? On how to keep it active — or better, how to explain this issue to colleagues who think I’m not working?