Remote Worker Reprimanded for Not Being Performative Enough on Slack Despite Stellar Output

Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor

Jun 4, 2026 2:30 PM EDT

When will employers stop being so obsessed with optics?

This fully remote employee was known for being productive and efficient at his job. In fact, it seemed like no one in upper management was taking any issue with his output, even though he was no longer working in an office environment. Despite the fact that he has been working in this remote role now for over two years at the mid-sized company, all of a sudden, he and his teammates were given a lecture about needing to be more active on email chains and Slack channels.

Yes, none of the feedback had anything to do with the quality of their actual work. Instead, it had everything to do with how performative they needed to be about all the work they were getting done. The employee immediately took to Reddit's r/remotework community and was met with similar stories from other folks who have found themselves in this situation.

What will it take for the people in upper management to realize that, despite what they may think, they are actually wasting valuable work time by enforcing that their remote employees stay engaged on Slack at all times? Yes, it takes time and effort to respond to any and all messages in order to show that you're working. Shouldn't that green dot demonstrating that you're active and reachable be enough?

It's only inevitable that leadership will eventually miss pertinent information that will get lost in the shuffle of all these unnecessary messages in Slack channels. Only then will they likely ask their employees to respond only when they are actively being asked something.

Contrary to the beliefs of folks from a backward time, performative optics and professionalism are not one and the same. Professionalism is about the output. It's about an employee's ability to meet and fulfill the expectations and responsibilities that they were hired for. It isn't about liking and responding to every single message on Slack. If upper management cannot see the difference, then perhaps they shouldn't be managing a team of fully remote employees anyway.

We've seen plenty of similar stories about the nonsense that some employees have recently had to put up with, from this Texas employee's conundrum with his former boss to this California worker's plight after a rough round of layoffs.

via May Gauthier

A male model sits in a white dress shirt at a table with a laptop open, representing a remote worker answering the phone.
My manager wants us “more visible” on Slack, so now everyone is just pretending to work louder

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A photograph of a laptop open to the Slack app.
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A portrait depicting a remote worker answering the phone while typing on his laptop.
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An image representing a remote employee typing on his laptop as he works from home.
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