On Wednesday, Twitter employees had the tech equivalent of a snow day: the company’s Slack instance was down for “routine maintenance,” they were told, and the company was implementing a deployment freeze as a result.
But Platformer can now confirm that Slack wasn’t down for “routine maintenance.” “There is no such thing as routine maintenance. That’s bullshit,” a current Slack employee told us.
In this as in so many other things, Twitter hasn’t paid its Slack bill. But that’s not why Slack went down: someone at Twitter manually shut off access, we’re told. Platformer was not able to learn the reason prior to publication, though the move suggests Musk may have turned against the communication app — or at least wants to see if Twitter can run without Slack and the expenses associated with it.
Although later down in the article, there is this choice quote
“We didn’t pay our Slack bill,” one employee wrote. “Now everyone is barely working. Penny wise, pound foolish.” Another worker called the disappearance of Slack the “proverbial final straw.” “Oddly enough, it’s the Slack deactivation that has pushed me to finally start applying to get out,” they wrote.
Which is a very “I can excuse all the hate speech but I draw the line at my tools being touched” kind of sentiment.
I’m sure we’ll start hearing about other companies abandoning Slack now that the God-king has shown us its unnecessary for a successful and agile business.
Is there a problem with my link? Does it not say what I claimed it said? Maybe so, but that just strengthens my point. Also, quit picking on me, you Maoist tyrant!
Whatever happened to the story that the rent on Twitter offices in San Francisco, Seattle and elsewhere was going unpaid? Are the landlords pursuing the company for non-payment?
Do these offices still have twitter employees? If so, I imagine the landlords could simply change the locks, clear the building out and rent to someone else.
Not to harsh your buzz, but I imagine that there are robust legal protections in place for renters, even corporate ones, and that such a thing would not be “simple” (or quick) at all.
Even if the offices are empty, that doesn’t mean you can just stop paying rent.
If they have a lease, which it’s fairly certain they do, then they would have to continue paying until the end of the lease, or pay out if there is an early termination clause.
How about if the landlord put up a large billboard in the cities, with wording to the effect of “Twitter has stiffed us for rent for XX days” Every day, someone could go and change the number. Billboard could be on a major commuting route.
