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. Thank… https://t.co/dAxob8LGYX— 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/HHKrkDUe41— Brittney Morgan 🆗🆒 (@Brittney Morgan 🆗🆒) 1530107645.0
@brittneyplz UGH I CAN'T SLACK THIS TO ANY OF THEM TO LAUGH— 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 sen… https://t.co/rNHw4yL7M4— Jacob Ingram (@Jacob Ingram) 1530112340.0
@cookywook Damnit! How am I supposed to shitpost in our developer meme channel now?!— Craig (@Craig) 1530107806.0
Corporate world when Slack is down https://t.co/RGlRJmPKB2— Joe Caporoso (@Joe Caporoso) 1530107132.0
So, now what?
if slack is down for more than 15 minutes you get to go home it’s the law— Richard Cook (@Richard Cook) 1530106317.0
@JCaporoso I actually had to phone someone today. Like a motherfucking pilgrim.— 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 just… https://t.co/xrXY2RfwRo— bat (@bat) 1530112168.0
anyone who tries to actually work during the slack downtime is a scab— 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/ChcrXJMeDf— Sadie Boyd (@Sadie Boyd) 1530109944.0
@Wonder_Phoenix Our coworkers think the same way https://t.co/3X3TEQuz5Z— Dan Ciupuliga (@Dan Ciupuliga) 1530110960.0
But much like the Y2k scare––when the world braced themselves as the calendar reached January 1, 2000––everything 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 … 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.— 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?— sonετ 🦋☀️🌛🌍🦋☺️😂❄️ (@sonετ 🦋☀️🌛🌍🦋☺️😂❄️) 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. 🥃— FreshGround Roasting (@FreshGround Roasting) 1530125347.0
@SlackHQ https://t.co/BUkixpGWxA— Charles Cormier (@Charles Cormier) 1530119788.0