Im with you on this. It's a great product for sure - it has something about it. (Although Flowdock has way better threading).

But yes, the thing I hate is the expectation that I'm monitoring it or have notifications firing. Notifications are off all the time. If you need to tell me something important either email me or come and tell me. Slack is not the place for that.

I like Slack as a chat product, but it's very far from a productivity tool. It's often a productivity nightmare that operates to interrupt deep productive creative work.