Heard!
It’s that word you hear in restaurant kitchens — from Gordon Ramsay screaming on Kitchen Nightmares to the clipped chaos of The Bear.
“Two burgers, one no cheese, fries on both!”
“Heard!”
The heartbeat of a fiery dinner service. Orders fired, commands echoed back in sharp bursts. The callback after a call. The read receipt for your favourite blue bubbled chat app.
Not all kitchens use “heard.” The ones I worked in during my restaurant days never did. If you tried it, you’d get side-eyes. Like, “Who does this Gordon Ramsay wannabe think he is?” Instead, folks said “OK,” “Got it,” “Yup.” The phrasing didn’t matter. What mattered was the duty. Every cook knew: respond, confirm, acknowledge.
Message... received.
Slack
That same energy is what I carry into Slack. Most of the time, it shows up as emoji reactions. I like the salute emoji. At work, I use the “meow salute” one. A lot. Maybe too much. (Correction: there is no such thing as too many meow salutes).
But whether it’s a salute, a thumbs-up, a checkmark, or an actual reply, the principle is the same: I respond. Every time.
Because “Heard” isn’t about words. It’s about recognition. It’s the small but crucial signal that says: I saw this. I got you. It’ll be done.
And when “Heard” is missing? The silence cuts deep. It’s that schoolyard cruelty — kids pretending you don’t exist, talking over you like you’re air, or going quiet the moment you finally speak. (It stings in adulthood too.) You feel like you’re talking to no one, even though you’re surrounded by people. And even if the work gets done (quality aside), the connection doesn’t. Because in the critical moments of making, you didn’t feel heard.
Acknowledgment as oxygen. Without it, trust suffocates.
Callback
Work is fast, messy, chaotic. Fires come in all forms. But in the middle of it, people don’t just need execution — they need acknowledgment. They need that instant feedback loop, the pulse of “heard.”
Behind every major project I’ve worked on at Webflow — from founding our internal Design System to helping launch the updated Interactions GSAP feature — behind the hundreds of tasks and thousands of messages is a galaxy of meow salute emojis. Tiny signals, repeated endlessly, forming the connective tissue that holds the chaos together. Each one a small but intentional act: acknowledging, aligning, keeping the work moving.
And “heard” doesn’t just live at work. It happens in life too. An out-of-nowhere, “Hey, I’m going to contact Amazon about that delayed delivery!” shouted across the room to no one in particular. And 2 seconds later, from down the hall, a quiet and muffled “ok thanks!” floats back.
It’s the same loop. The same heartbeat. Callback first, then cook.
It’s how a kitchen keeps plates moving. It’s how a team keeps trust intact.
The callback matters. The (meow) salute matters. The tiny green checkmark matters.
Because sometimes the difference between chaos and rhythm… is simply feeling like you were heard.
(Yes, chef!)
