Regardless of whether it is a firm request or not, a proper response to that shouldn't just be a flat "no". It should be along the lines of "no, because X and Y

Regardless of whether it is a firm request or not, a proper response to that shouldn't just be a flat "no". It should be along the lines of "no, because X and Y I am working on right now seems to be a higher priority, do you agree?" Saying flat "no" just wastes everyone's time, because the next few sentences would just be wasted on the manager trying to coax those reasons for "no" out of the engineer. It has nothing to do with politeness or social rituals or anything of that nature. I view it just as wasteful as people messaging me on work Slack with "Hey" and waiting for the person to respond before the OP will post the reason for trying to reach out to you. [0] 0. http://www.nohello.com/ http://www.nohello.com/