Do you know that you could change the default notification sound on Slack? Possibly you probably did, however one of many choices will not be just like the others – among the many numerous jingles and drumming noises, you may discover comedy gold within the type of a British girl firmly saying the phrase ‘hummus’.
This enjoyable little Slack characteristic will not assist spare you from the agonizing previous few hours of the workday, however it’s random sufficient to place a smile in your face each time a colleague messages you to nudge for any updates.
It must also be stated that that is in no way a brand new characteristic to have appeared on the favored messaging program, however it does not seem like particularly well-known, and because the world’s greatest fan of hummus (self-identified) that looks like an actual disgrace to me.
Very conscious that just about everybody has been utilizing Slack for about 1,000,000 years, however uhhh… had been all of us conscious that we will change the notification sound to a passive aggressive individual saying ‘HUMMUS’ ??? pic.twitter.com/mlCGhXZ3WOMay 13, 2022
Twitter person @charlottekennny is liable for bringing this to my consideration, and after the preliminary confusion handed I did somewhat digging round to see why this existed within the first place.
As a result of we love our Anna a lot that we wished to avoid wasting her pleasant voice for posterity. Additionally, as a result of hummus. ♥️September 16, 2016
Because it seems, that is one thing of an inside joke amongst Slack workers. Again in 2016, Slack workers allegedly fell in love with how the corporate’s then editorial director Anna Pickard stated the phrase ‘hummus’ in her English accent, in order that they determined to immortalize it as an MP3 file that can be utilized on the platform.
It is easy to duplicate by yourself system if you wish to give it a attempt your self. Simply choose onto your profile picture on the prime proper of the display screen and choose into ‘Preferences’.
From right here you may land on the ‘Notifications’ web page the place you may scroll right down to the part labeled ‘Sound & look’. There are two dropdown bins for notification sounds, one for messages and one other for huddles, so you may set them to totally different sounds to simply differentiate between them when you’re working (Hummus is situated on the very backside).
Opinion: Slack ought to go all in with this
This can be a complete gimmick, however it does not should be. In reality, I would argue that this may very well be used as a priceless productiveness instrument if a couple of extra developments are made.
Slack does not at present help customized notification sounds, nor does it permit you to set a special notification for every channel you are part of, and that is a crying disgrace. Nonetheless, you may customise quite a lot of different parts in Slack, from emojis and aliases to integrations, which may end up in probably transformational elevated productiveness or pure hilarity, relying in your style. So, why cannot we customise notifications?
As somebody that suffers from nervousness, with the ability to set customized notifications that audibly say what channel I am being pinged in does not simply assist to keep away from stress ranges spiking as you run to test in case your supervisor needs to spring an instantaneous 1-2-1 on you, however you can even prioritize pressing work while not having to test Slack each time a notification goes off.
An awesome instance could be when you’re a part of a number of channels, with many of those being socially targeted and some being extra work oriented. In case you get a message in a channel that requires pressing consideration, you possibly can document a fast sounds that claims ‘pressing’ in order that precisely when you could refocus on one other process.
There are methods to document customized notification sounds, although the method is not formally supported and requires some technical know-how. It additionally does not remedy the restriction round setting totally different sounds for every channel, however I hope that that is one thing Slack might look to introduce down the road.