What Slack is doing to our offices—and our minds

Inside Slack's SF office (though there's a distinct lack of visible emoji in your official office visual, Slackers). (credit: Slack)

Walking into the Slack offices in downtown San Francisco feels like walking into a Slack channel online.

Brightly colored sofas in the shape of hashtags fill the shared spaces, surrounded by a comfortable margin of airy whitespace. As company rep Katie Wattie leads me around, I realize that every conference room is named after an emoji. There are emojis everywhere I look. Clocks have emoji instead of numbers. New employees have foil balloons floating over their desks with the :heart eyes: emoji emblazoned on them.

Slack CTO Cal Henderson is waiting for us in the ⛵ room. I've been so inundated with emoji that I have to ask: "Do you guys have a poop-emoji room?" Henderson doesn't bat an eye. "Not even the bathrooms have that on them, which is surprising," he muses in a British accent that has been slightly eroded after many years in the States. With his slightly mussed brown hair and casual shirt, Henderson looks the part of a Silicon Valley executive.

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