When Slack went down for over three hours on Wednesday, office workers worldwide who depend on the business chat app found themselves preparing for the apocalypse.
At least that's the way they felt, based on Twitter reactions.
This was the notification no one ever hoped to encounter at work.
We're so sorry for this disruption to your day; we are doing all we can to get you back into your workspace. Thankโฆ https://t.co/dAxob8LGYXโ Slack (@Slack)1530113612.0
The panic was real. People couldn't even send GIFs, memes, or other workplace distractions to colleagues.
slack: "oops sorry can't connect" teams who all sit right next to each other but still rely on slack: https://t.co/HHKrkDUe41โ Brittney Morgan ๐๐ (@Brittney Morgan ๐๐)1530107645.0
@brittneyplz UGH I CAN'T SLACK THIS TO ANY OF THEM TO LAUGHโ anna borges (@anna borges)1530107686.0
@mzbat I can't remember how to start a conversation with someone who is sitting 6 feet away from me. How do you senโฆ https://t.co/rNHw4yL7M4โ Jacob Ingram (@Jacob Ingram)1530112340.0
@cookywook Damnit! How am I supposed to shitpost in our developer meme channel now?!โ Craig (@Craig)1530107806.0
Corporate world when Slack is down https://t.co/RGlRJmPKB2โ Joe Caporoso (@Joe Caporoso)1530107132.0
So, now what?
if slack is down for more than 15 minutes you get to go home itโs the lawโ Richard Cook (@Richard Cook)1530106317.0
@JCaporoso I actually had to phone someone today. Like a motherfucking pilgrim.โ Tammy (@Tammy)1530137032.0
oh god slack is down so i had to actually *call* someone on the phone to ask about a work thing that could've justโฆ https://t.co/xrXY2RfwRoโ bat (@bat)1530112168.0
anyone who tries to actually work during the slack downtime is a scabโ libby watson (@libby watson)1530108551.0
Some workers dramatically reverted to a more archaic method of correspondence.
Slack is down at work and my coworker just slid this to me. https://t.co/ChcrXJMeDfโ Sadie Boyd (@Sadie Boyd)1530109944.0
@Wonder_Phoenix Our coworkers think the same way https://t.co/3X3TEQuz5Zโ Dan Ciupuliga (@Dan Ciupuliga)1530110960.0
But much like the Y2k scareโโwhen the world braced themselves as the calendar reached January 1, 2000โโeverything turned out just fine.
Still, workers used to relying on the messaging app to communicate with their coworkers in neighboring cubicles had to resort to other forms of office interaction.
The staff over at Slate shared how they coped with the digital black-out. Shirley Chan wrote:
During the great slack outage I emailed a lot and tweeted about how much I enjoyed emailing. I had an email thread with the usual people I share memes and talk nonsense with on Slack, finally replied to emails I've been putting off from a police officer and someone from Panoply โฆ I think that's all. I also Twitter DM'd memes about the Slack outage to Nitish.
Rachelle Hampton had an easier solution:
I just talked out loud.
Maybe that's a good thing.
Slack is down, and people are actually talking to each other. It's like 2005 all over again.โ Cat Miller (@Cat Miller)1530111805.0
It could be a matter of time before we reconnect the old-fashioned way. Because retro is always in, amirite?
@redcat9 Will MySpace be cool again too?โ sonฮตฯ ๐ฆโ๏ธ๐๐๐ฆโบ๏ธ๐โ๏ธ (@sonฮตฯ ๐ฆโ๏ธ๐๐๐ฆโบ๏ธ๐โ๏ธ)1530125504.0
Eventually, things returned to normal and all was right with the world.
@SlackHQ You guys rock..... Been a tough day. Go have a whiskey. ๐ฅโ FreshGround Roasting (@FreshGround Roasting)1530125347.0
@SlackHQ https://t.co/BUkixpGWxAโ Charles Cormier (@Charles Cormier)1530119788.0