My manager thinks asynchronous work means I have to respond to every Slack ping in under sixty seconds.
When I signed the contract for this role the recruiter spent half the time talking about how they were a pioneer in async culture. They said they did not care when I worked as long as the tickets got closed. It sounded like a dream because I am a night owl and I usually do my best work after eight pm when the rest of the world is asleep. Fast forward three months and it has turned into a total digital leash situation. My managerr acts like a sixty second delay in a Slack response is a personal insult or a sign that I am out at the beach or something. I have a red block on my calendar specifically for deep work where I am supposed to be head down in the codebase but he completely ignores it. If I do not reply to a low priority question about a Jira ticket within two minutes he starts a huddle and then he calls my actual cell phone.
It happened again this morning while I was just making a second pot of coffee. I left my desk for exactly five minutes. I come back to three missed pings and a missed call on my personal number. When I finally get back to him he says oh I just wanted to make sure you were around because I saw your status was away. It is like he is staring at the green dot on his screen all day instead of actually doing his own job. This kind of micromanagement is actually worse than being in an office because at least in an office he can see that I am at my desk. Now I feel like I have to keep a mouse jiggler running or just constantly tap the space bar while I am trying to think about a complex logic problem. It is destroying my focus and making me hate the sound of the Slack notification. Every time that little knock brush sound goes off my blood pressure just spikes.
I tried to bring it up during our last one-on-one and he just laughed it off and said he just likes to keep the momentum going. Momentum is not the same as harassment. I find myself checking Slack while I am eating lunch or even when I am in the shower because I am terrified of seeing another missed call on my phone. The whole promise of flexibility was a complete lie. It is just a different kind of panopticon where the walls are made of status icons and read receipts. I am spending more energy managing my visibility than I am writing actual code. I have started leaving my phone on the charger in the kitchen just so I do not have to look at it but then I just feel this weird phantom vibration in my pocket anyway.
The worst part is that the rest of the team has just accepted it as the new normal. They all respond instantly with those stupid thumbs up emojis like they are robots. I feel like I am the only one who remembers what actual deep work feels like. Last week I tried to set my status to on vacation just to see if he would stop but he just messaged me on LinkedIn to ask about a merge request. There is literally no escape from this guy. I am seriously considering getting a burner phone just for work and then losing it in a lake or something. Remote work was supposed to be about results but for this guy it is just about control. I am currently sitting here with a cold cup of coffee and three unread pings that I am staring at because I just do not want to give him the satisfaction of a fast respnse.
My cat is staring at me like he knows I am losing it. I am probaly just going to go for a walk and leave the laptop open with a video on loop so the screen does not lock. If he calls again I am just going to tell him the power went out or my router exploded. I did not sign up for a digital shock collar and I am definitely not getting paid enough to be on call every second of the day. I wonder if there is a way to set up an auto reply that just says I am thinking leave me alone. Anyway my toast is cold and the Slack icon is bouncing again.