Way to go!
4 replies (most recent on top)
A--holes!!
Huge congratulations are in order. They laid off enough people to make this possible.
I rather they keep people's jobs or increase salary than keep slack
I find Slack useless (actually, more redundant than useless, I guess) - for any company. If people would simply read and reply to their emails in a timely fashion, there is no need for Slack. Is it nice to instant message? Yes, I suppose..........but it doesn't "fix," any underlying issue. Instead of posting in Slack, "Hey, coder, can you look at question 5 in ABC book, section 2," you could simply email the coder, or send a task in any CRM. Slack is a complete waste of money for any company.
"But Slack has huddles," some may say.......okay, well, you can do a Zoom without Slack (or thousands of other video conferencing tools - for free, mind you), or simply pick up a phone and call the person instead of a huddle (pending that employee answers their calls - they may not answer the call and instead play on their cellphone or social media).....or of course send an email.
Read and reply to your emails in a timely fashion. Use your company's existing workflow / CRM. There is no need for Slack. Just my opinion. When Slack first came out, the people that liked it the most were the same people with 250 unread emails and 20 voicemails in their inbox. People that always replied to emails right away (even if the reply was, "I will look into this and get back to you"), never really saw any value in Slack. I guess Slack helps those that completely ignored emails and phone calls, and skipped meetings.
This is unrelated to Cengage and a universal truth, in my opinion, the overall waste of money Slack is.
Cengage-related - I guess tech support at Cengage really needs Slack so a tech support agent can ask permission to use the restroom (I worked tech support, yes, you had to ask in Slack to use the toilet). Again, you could ask to use the restroom without Slack in a myriad of ways.
To play devil's advocate, Slack is cheap - I think it is under $10 per user - but it doesn't solve any need - without Slack, employees already had various tools to immediately communicate with other employees.
I haven't worked at Cengage in nearly a decade - but - if they are strapped for cash (or if any company was strapped for cash), and looking to cut overhead, Slack would definetely not be something I would prioritize paying for.
As I type this rant, it occurred to me that the Slack sales team may be one of the best sales teams ever! Virtually every company has Slack, yet they have no need for it! Great job Slack sales team, you convinced companies worldwide they needed your product (when there is actually no need for it at all).
.....Slack will claim, "it helps you communicate instantly, get things done quicker than email," yet somebody could just ignore a Slack post the same way they ignored an email, or mark themselves as, "Away." Emails are pretty darned instantaneous as well. I have used Slack (I have Slack at my current company), I just find it useless. At my current company, those that like Slack are the same coders that sit on an email for 2 weeks (and if you ping them in Slack, they may reply they are "looking into it," but nothing gets done any faster).
In conculsion:
Slack
lacks
any real value
With a tight budget, Slack would be the last thing I would vote to pay for