Microprocessing

Give Workers a Room of Their Own

Constant Slack surveillance harms businesses and, more importantly, employees

Angela Lashbrook
OneZero
Published in
6 min readDec 18, 2019

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Photo: Tayler Smith. Prop Styling: Caroline Dorn

EEarlier this month, The Verge published a damning story about the luggage startup Away. Former employees alleged that co-founder and CEO Steph Korey created a toxic workplace environment by berating and belittling employees; manipulating them into working on vacation or “asking” them to cancel their vacations altogether; encouraging long hours without overtime; and posting long, vicious rants in the company’s Slack. Away’s problems weren’t limited to headquarters. As the latest Verge update revealed on Tuesday, the company’s mismanagement and neglect extended even to the company’s retail stores, where workers were exposed to noxious paint fumes and toiled often without air-conditioning in the summer or heat in the winter.

Among the many horrors at Away, one thing stuck out to me: Employees were not allowed to email each other, and private channels or direct messages were almost entirely forbidden except in very small, particular circumstances, such as asking a colleague to lunch. All other communications were to take place in public Slack channels that everyone in the company had access to. (Away did not respond to OneZero’s request for comment about its Slack guidelines.)

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OneZero
OneZero

Published in OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Angela Lashbrook
Angela Lashbrook

Written by Angela Lashbrook

I’m a columnist for OneZero, where I write about the intersection of health & tech. Also seen at Elemental, The Atlantic, VICE, and Vox. Brooklyn, NY.