The 11 Slack Channels Manager OTG Created and Forgot About

Every Manager OTG has a graveyard. It is in the left sidebar of his Slack. The headstones are the channel names. The dates of death are listed under "Last activity: 7 months ago."

What follows is an archaeological survey of the eleven channels currently lying in state across the workspaces at Lumenwave, Nilbox, and Helio Group. Names have not been changed. Manager OTG would not notice if they had been.

1. #q3-vision-alignment

Created in April. Channel description: "A space to align on Q3 vision and ladder up to company priorities. 🚀" Last message: April 11. The message was from Manager OTG. It was a 240-word kickoff post outlining the channel's purpose. Nobody replied. Greg added a 👀 reaction nine minutes later. The channel has since hosted only one piece of activity, which was the bot posting that Greg had been removed from the channel because he was off-boarded into another team. He had not been.

2. #design-sync-feedback

Created the morning after Manager OTG read a Medium post about "async-first culture." Channel description: "Drop async design feedback here so we can free up sync time! 🎨" Used four times. Each time by Manager OTG. Each time to share a link to a Figma file with the caption "thoughts when you have a sec?" Priya, who runs design, has her notifications muted for this channel and posts her actual feedback in Figma comments, where it belongs.

3. #wins-and-shoutouts

Created after a leadership offsite. Channel description: "Big or small, share the wins! 🎉" Used three times in the first week. Then twice the second week. Then never again, except for one message in November from a contractor named Sandra who didn't know nobody was using the channel anymore. Sandra's message said she had renewed the Calendly subscription. Nobody reacted. Sandra is no longer at the company.

4. #ops-fyi

Created as a place to put announcements that Manager OTG could not justify putting in #general but felt should be seen. Channel description, in full: "FYI stuff." Twelve people in it. Three of them have left the company. One was a vendor who got accidentally invited and never removed. Manager OTG occasionally drops a screenshot here of a metric he likes, with no context, and one of the 9 remaining members reacts with the 👍 emoji within four minutes. They have been instructed by Manager OTG, in their 1:1, to "engage more on Slack."

5. #initiative-orange

Initiative Orange was the rebrand of Initiative Blue, which was the rebrand of Project Northstar. Channel description: "Cross-functional collab on Initiative Orange — let's land this!" Initiative Orange has not landed. Initiative Orange has not, in any meaningful sense, lifted off. The channel is pinned at the top of Manager OTG's sidebar to communicate, to anyone glancing at his screen on Zoom, that he is "leading something."

6. #marcus-onboarding

Created the day Marcus joined from Crestmark. Channel description: "A space for Marcus to ask questions during his first 30 days! Welcome Marcus 🎉" Used by Manager OTG on day one to send Marcus a link to the company handbook. Used by Marcus on day three to ask where the bathroom keys were kept. Greg, who happens to be in the channel for reasons nobody can remember, answered. The channel has not been used since. Marcus has been here eleven months. He is now senior to Manager OTG in three areas. The channel is still pinned.

7. #book-club-leadership

Created on January 4. Channel description: "Reading *Atomic Habits* together for Q1! Aiming to wrap by end of Feb." The book was not wrapped. The discussion was not held. The channel has, since January 12, contained exactly one message: a YouTube link from Manager OTG to a 22-minute James Clear interview, posted at 10:47 PM on a Sunday, with the caption "this is gold." Nobody clicked it. It is now May.

8. #ic-only-no-managers

Created by Manager OTG, who is not an IC and is a manager. Channel description: "A safe space for individual contributors to share candid feedback." He is in the channel as an admin. He says he can be removed at any time and that the team should be honest. The team is, in fact, very honest, in a separate channel called #real-ic-only that he does not know about. #ic-only-no-managers has eleven messages over six months. All of them are from him. They begin with "Just a thought — "

9. #social-friday-vibes

Created during a remote-culture push. Channel description: "Share what you're up to this weekend! 🍻 #culture" Last post was a photo from December of someone's dog. The dog has since been adopted by a different owner. The original poster left the company in March. The dog photo has, however, accumulated 47 reactions over its lifetime, most from people no longer at the company. It is the most-engaged-with piece of content in any channel Manager OTG owns.

10. #vendor-evals-confidential

Created to evaluate a procurement decision. Channel description: "Vetting potential vendors for the Q2 procurement cycle. Confidential." The decision was made in a meeting. The channel was never used for the eval. The channel was, however, used once — by Manager OTG, by accident, when he meant to DM his wife about dinner. The message said "thai or pizza tonight." It is still pinned at the top of the channel.

Six people are in the channel. None of them have ever brought it up to him. They have, in #real-ic-only, brought it up to each other. The screenshot has been preserved.

11. #ai-strategy-working-group

The newest one. Created three weeks ago. Channel description: "Ladder-up working group on org-wide AI strategy. Inviting key stakeholders." Manager OTG is in it. Dana, his manager, is in it (she has not posted). Two senior ICs are in it. Marcus is in it. There is one message: a 600-word post from Manager OTG titled "Initial Framing: How We're Thinking About AI." It is mostly bullet points. The fourth bullet, verbatim, reads "leveraging AI to drive synergistic outcomes across the value chain." Greg has reacted to it with the 📆 emoji. Nobody has asked Greg what that means. Greg will not say.

The channel he uses every day

It is called #mark-and-his-manager-direct. It is a DM with Dana. He sends her articles. She reads three percent of them. She replies "thx!" to all of them. She has read this channel for four years and has not, in any of them, learned what he actually does.

His mouse is jiggling. The green dot is on.