in the age of slack, where managers about to instant message you any second, you don't really get control of your schedule

I'll never understand this sentiment. You don't have to have alerts from slack outside of business hours. Or respond in general. If I responded or looked at my messages every time I got one, I'd never get work done... so I simply ignore them until I am taking a break or otherwise at a good stopping point. It's not that hard.

Between this and the memory complaints, I have to ask: Has anyone tried closing Slack?

Oh hey, I am relevant for once. I moved to another city for university a while ago, but kept the job I had before as a half-time remote position. At first I felt extremely pressured through slack. People didnt know my exact schedule and would also write me on days off, and I felt like I should answer asap, because otherwise people would develop the idea that I slack off because I get to work remote.

Well, after a panic attack I changed my approach and asked my colleagues to write me mails instead or ask me on teams where I would only be online on certain days. Everybody just said sure, and work is finally fun again. I think I wasn't the only one either, more and more people started avoiding slack and only look into it maybe once a week.

At some companies you can get a negative performance review for not being on Slack during working hours. “Needs to be more responsive / better team player.” In other places you might be expected to be online beyond 9-5 too.

It's difficult but I'd avoid places like that. If your team won't allow you to close slack for an hour you have serious communication and planning problems. Anywhere I've worked what I do is message anyone who might need vital information from me then just close slack for an hour, do my work and check back in. When I get pulled up on it I give my explanation about focus, communication etc. If they don't like it then I leave. I'm glad it's a seller's market.

Once I was told by my manager to close Slack and focus on my work, and only check what's new about twice a day.

A week later, the same manager got angry at me for not responding to client's urgent issue which was announced by Slack an hour ago.

So... yeah, closing Slack improves things, until it suddenly makes them worse.

Too bad those cases usually don't have an email history to prove the prior ruleset... or it just disappears and anything's possible...

Worked for that kind of team before. Never again.

As if managers had no way to interrupt you before Slack came into existence.