9 ms·

No Hello (2013)

255 points by etxm 6y ago

ignoranceprior 6y ago
I was in an IRC channel a while back that had "Don't ask to ask, ask" in its topic, because it was so common for people to join and write "May I ask a question?".
- bobbiechen 6y ago
  I do think "Don't ask to ask" is a better link to give out in this scenario: https://dontasktoask.com/ https://dontasktoask.com/
- acemarke 6y ago
  We see this all the time today over in the Reactiflux channels on Discord. We've got a bot that will show pre-recorded answers for common topics when we ping it, and one of the most frequently used ones is exactly this: https://github.com/reactiflux/reactibot/blob/a4e4e9d211a11c44015f65fca9e31b395b502920/src/features/commands.ts#L179-L202 https://github.com/reactiflux/reactibot/blob/a4e4e9d211a11c4...
- glandium 6y ago
  "May I ask a question?" "You just did." "May I ask another?" "You just did."
  - hinkley 6y ago
    "May I ask two more questions?" "You are allowed 3 questions and you just used them."
  - hnick 6y ago
    If I say no, will you un-ask the question?
Minor49er 6y ago
I've been trying to do this more myself. I have noticed that I'd get someone's attention, then start writing up what I have to say while they waited for me to finish typing.
etxm 6y ago
I really want to set this as my status message in slack, but don’t want people to think I’m rude. Would you think it was rude if you saw this link as somebody’s status message?
- dvtrn 6y ago
  I tried for a while before giving up because almost nobody in my org reads statuses or heeds them to begin with anyway (as I’ve learned on multiple PTO days where I would change my status to “On vacation, please contact Mike at ——— for support” and getting P1 messages and calls over slack anyway). Nowadays I’m just a stochastic replier.
  - etxm 6y ago
    That’s actually a great point I was on “vacation” last week and got messaged every single day despite my palm tree emoji.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      Indeed. I’m firmly in camp “slack isn’t the problem with workplace communication, it just happens to amplify the problems that were already there”. Most (not all) tech that tries to “fix” communication in the office suffers from this problem though so I’m not blaming Slack alone for this. It just is what it is.
  - smusamashah 6y ago
    No one read status, everyone sees emoji though. Make an emoji for what you want to say.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      What’s the emoji for “escalate to the Denver office for these issues, Chicago for those issues; otherwise I’m not here man”? Because you see I had the palm tree emoji. AND a bit of text. Still got PMs and calls. The emoji didn’t seem to matter.
gilad 6y ago
I call this Hi-jacking
- karl11 6y ago
  So good
redwood 6y ago
"Hi, quick question"
Brushfire 6y ago
I totally agree with the sentiment represented here but thinking linking someone to this is a bad way to handle the situation with others. I think it’s best handled by asking them after they make one of these requests and they get their answer. Linking to external sites feels passive aggressive to most people who are just trying to be nice.
- jez 6y ago
  But it's the kind of thing you can put in your Slack status so that the moment someone opens up a DM with you, they might see it, read it, and then know, all before they've typed out their first message.
- dheera 6y ago
  Yes, usually in real life unless it's a close friend I just don't respond to "Hello" until I get something more. It's not aggressive, it's just me waiting until I have a question. Close friends get a pass because their "hello" might just in some cases mean "hey I'm lonely and want someone to talk to".
SethTro 6y ago
Google has a whole list of these (ActionableIM, OnlyHello, ContextPlz); I'm into FastHello 1. Open the chat window, and type your question with no "hello". Do not press enter. 2. Instead, press Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-X to cut your question out of the chat window and into your clipboard. 3. type and send "hello" 4. Pause 2-5 seconds 5. Ctrl-P and enter to send your full question.
- weikju 6y ago
  Something simpler for me: most chat clients have a key combo to make newlines when pressing enter, like shift-enter or opt/alt-enter. Type hello, shift-enter-shift-enter, type your message, enter.
- Kootle 6y ago
  Why would I print my chat window
  - apazzolini 6y ago
    I laughed.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  "Hello" <Control Enter> Type your question. Your welcome.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    You can thank email for people being to scared to do this.
- romanows 6y ago
  Why so many steps when you could just ask the question?
- molsongolden 6y ago
  I really wanted step 3 to be "paste your question into the knowledge base search input"
BitwiseFool 6y ago
Years ago I worked with several people from UK. No subject matter will be broached until pleasantries have been exchanged. After a period of time they will ask to proceed. Then, only after a definitive "yes, go ahead" and a "no, this is not too much trouble", will they finally make their request. I found it both charming and terribly inefficient.
- nmstoker 6y ago
  It's the same with those ponderous extended variants on "can I just jump in here. Would you mind if I asked a question? Because I'm curious to know..." - seem to be to be used by people from all over.
  - a_lieb 6y ago
    I've found that one a lot more common than the "Hello" thing, but I'm sure it varies by the team.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deadbunny 6y ago
  As someone born and bred in England this does not match my experience.
aussieguy1234 6y ago
The jist of this is you should still be polite and say Hi or Hello in your message, but include the question in the message. You'll get a response much faster. I'll often do something like Hi <name>, <insert question>
arthurcolle 6y ago
I don't get how someone can get so annoyed at what is just basic politeness. Clearly, computers are making some folks insane
- kbutler 6y ago
  Trouble is it is impoliteness. Q: Are you listening? A: Yes Q: A: ? Q: [typing] Politeness would be preparing what you're going to ask me before requesting my attention.
- blkhp19 6y ago
  The author doesn't seem to be that annoyed, they're just trying to make life easier for themselves and others. It's equally polite to say "Hello" and type the question in the same message. Do you genuinely not see how saying "Hello" first, which for many people forces them to lose concentration as they mentally prepare to be asked a question, is worse? The author provides multiple, equally polite examples that respect people's desire to politely greet others and respects the concentration of the receiver.
- twodave 6y ago
  I think the point is that basic politeness involves not appearances of being polite, but rather thinking of the other person, their time, and how you would feel if the roles were reversed. I do agree though that going as far as to register a domain for this one social quirk is a bit much.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    basic politeness involves not appearances of being polite, but rather thinking of the other person THIS!!! I have the unfortunate experience of somewhat regularly engaging with people who: 1. Act in a manner / do something they think the other party should appreciate, where 2. The other party does not in fact appreciate this, and is often burdened, bothered, or inconvenienced. 3. When informed of this, the first party both accuses the second that they are ungrateful (for not actually being helped) and controlling (for expressing alternate preferences, including often no assistance). The cycle can reepeat, over precisely the same exchanges, repeatedly and over long periods. Small children not knowing better is excusable. Adults not so much. Kindness and consideration are not forcing your preferences down another's throat (exceptions for specific therapeutic expertise and treatment), but in offering to someone that which they express a preference for or interest in. So long as this isn't actively acutely harmful, one should oblige, aand graciously. Keep in mind that "where the roles reversed" may not be a reliable guide. It's not what you would want, but what they prefer. This lesson seems poorly assimilated by many.
jay_kyburz 6y ago
I always assume its because the person wants to make sure you are there before they bother to type the question. If not they will work it out themselves. Never respond to hi. :)
jefecoon 6y ago
To whomever went to the trouble of writing this up, then giving it a dedicated domain -- thank you, you're making the world a better place.
rapsacnz 6y ago
People who just say "Hi" to me often don't get an answer at all. I don't want to risk someone interrupting my chain of thought with some request that I can't / don't want to act on. But if I respond to a "Hi" and then decide that I don't want to deal with the actual question, that's perceived as rude. If you ask the question straight out, then I can decide to respond or not.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  I don't have slack notifications on at all. I just check it 2-3 times a day when I am between jobs.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Yeah, I have a co-worker notorious about this. I just quit answering until he writes something amounting to a statement. It's annoying to keep clicking away from a problem for niceties, especially when it's every...single..day.
  - deeteecee 6y ago
    i think it would be reasonable to just guide him to say "hey, you often just start off these online messages with 'hi.' can you just get to the point first?"
    - axaxs 6y ago
      Oh, I have...but more gently. His reply is that he prefers to engage in conversation than just receive a reply. I do understand that point, but also that it's a bit selfish.
      - boring_twenties 6y ago
        Well then. He can wait in the conversation queue, instead of the request queue.
      - cmwelsh 6y ago
jancsika 6y ago
Gotta love how programmers are so anti-social they'd rather bitch for decades about salutations than elect even a single dev to spend five minutes scripting a pleasant-reply-bot.
tgb 6y ago
Part of the 'hello' problem is to get around the lack of context about what the other person is doing - particularly about who else might see their screen at that time. I still prefer just asking the question but that was the reason some others gave when I asked why they did the 'hello's.
MivLives 6y ago
Three other things: - Use spacing to make your message easy to parse. - Have clear questions that are easy to jump back and respond to. Have them separated out by spacing, and preferably numbered. - If there's something I need to copy paste, an email address, a specific id, a phone number, then put it on it's own line. Then I can double click and get the whole thing rather then dragging the cursor to do it.
- etxm 6y ago
  You, my friend, are a classy messager.
  - MivLives 6y ago
    Worked in tech support for a bit, had to do a lot of emailing. You quickly pick up what annoys you.
- Smilliam 6y ago
  To expand on your second point: The very first thing you should type after your initial greeting should be your question(s). Don't bury the lede. You can provide all the additional explanation (i.e. what you were doing when it broke, where you've looked, what you've tried, etc) after you ask your questions. By asking up front, you frame the conversation so that the person you are communicating with can read your supporting information with the correct context.
  - MivLives 6y ago
    I tend to do the reverse, with questions as the very last thing. Sorta introduce what I'm about to be asking about.
- avel 6y ago
  Basically most of the etiquette described in http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html is valid.
capableweb 6y ago
This is good advice, for the people who tends to ask to ask, or surround their questions with bunch of fluff. On the other hand, is you, the question-receiver. The example starts with "CO-WORKER WAITS WHILE YOU PHRASE YOUR QUESTION" but that's not how I usually deal with these types of conversations. If someone just writes "Hi" to me without something else and I'm busy, I won't reply until there is more messages, and instead continue with my work. Although, ideally there would be no "Hi" messages. But, not everything goes as we want it to.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
etxm 6y ago
The other thing that gets my goat is the person that sends every line. I guess it’s hard not to do in slack since “enter” sends, but I really wish slack would debounce messages notifications from the same person.
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  I feel like at this point anyone using Slack should know to shift-enter to add a newline without sending. I don't understand why people still have a problem with that.
john_moscow 6y ago
I usually go for a combined approach: pre-type my long question in Notepad++, then post a polite "hello" immediately followed by another message with the actual question. So it's both polite and considerate. It has a bonus point of not losing what you typed in case the chat window bugs out.
- s_c_r 6y ago
  This is a good approach. More people should do this. I should do this.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
There’s a lot of etiquette we can use to improve chat. Another one is phrasing questions in a “search friendly” way, using log names and error strings.
mkhattab 6y ago
My manager used to do this all the time. Typical scenario: Manager: hey <an hour or so may go by> Me: what's up? Manager: nvm
whatch 6y ago
What are polite ways to introduce colleagues to this concept?
- jimbobimbo 6y ago
  I have www.nohello.com as my status message.
deeteecee 6y ago
im in sf and we had a new contractor in india who wanted to ask about my PR comments and started with "hi." yeah...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
canada_dry 6y ago
A related peeve... Using chat for support. The first thing it asks is "Please explain why you need assistance"... I fill it in with all the pertinent details... Then, when the support person finally comes online their first or second message is: ...and how may I help you today?
- syshum 6y ago
  Or the chat AND phone systems that have you fill out all the info about your account, then they ask "what is your account number" Why the hell did I just spend the time to type that in to my phone if I know have to type it again for you.....
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Often used to confirm information accuracy, no mis-entered information, or unauthorised access attempt.
    - greenyoda 6y ago
      How does having to enter the same account information twice in the same session prevent unauthorized access? If an unauthorized person knows my account number, they can easily enter it twice. And if the account number doesn't exist or doesn't match the name, they know immediately that one or the other was mis-entered.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Automated dial/entry, handoff to an operator, especially in high-volume attacks. Verbal repetition requires greater process coordination by the attacker. Cues such as hesitation, discomfort, etc., may also be present. The far more prevalent case is likely simply to guard against mis-keyed digits. Similarly in heathcare, virtually every caregiver handoff involves asking for name and DoB. For the caregiver this helps confirm they are (literally) on the right page (patient record). Patients may see this as tedious.
thom 6y ago
The most stressful version of this for me is when someone sidles up to you on chat and asks "is X working?" or "is Y supposed to do Z?" Like, if you're saying it's not working: say that. If you're saying it's not doing what you expect: say that. It's the QA version of "we have to talk" and I'm instantly anxious until you clarify.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  We work in an open space and people usually ask to make sure they arent the crazy one. It can go either direction: we had to do that cause x, or yeah thats not how its supposed to work... Followed by... Well its how it works for now cause of this and this... Along with everyone agreeing its wrong. They arent trying to mess with you just confirm intended behavior.
  - Groxx 6y ago
    In-person I almost universally heard stuff like "is anyone else having problems with X? the site won't load for me" and that second part is crucial. In chat, something like 1/4-1/2 are "is X working?" followed by total silence. Sometimes they really are just asking if it's running, i.e. does X still exist. Sometimes they're having a failed build on a different system because their dependency manager cache is broken and it's blaming random libraries. Sometimes the frontend is busted. What they're doing in practice is asking for 1:1 dedicated help on literally anything, so the only reasonable choice for a responder is those unicorn devs who know everything somehow. They almost never exist, so those "questions" go unanswered for a long time.
    - giancarlostoro 6y ago
      Thats usually who I try to be but I have been burned by it cause I didnt mention why I was falling behind at two former jobs. It did cost me a job cause of that plus the fact they were over engineering what would of been a few months into a few years effort just to be bleeding edge. It sucks how some environments are worse than others. I think the biggest quality for software developers is humility. Without humility you could end up with some nasty devs. I have worked with people who get personallu attached to their code being quality but they dont follow project protocol or write hacky code.
bo1024 6y ago
This raised the question of - why not use email instead, then? Then answer I came up with is that the asker wants an immediate-ish response. But in this case, the "hello" makes sense not as a pleasantry, but as a way of finding out, "if I ask you a question right now, will I be able to get an immediate-ish response?" It doesn't sound like this problem can be easily solved with "nohello", it sounds like a more involved solution might be needed.
- mgraczyk 6y ago
  Email is a linked list with lots of metadata on each node, messages are an array with minimal metadata. Although modern email clients can make email threads simple and easier to follow, the UI is still much more cluttered and sometimes threading gets borked.
  - bo1024 6y ago
    I agree there is a separate but interacting issue that email UIs are mostly very bad, so people like to avoid email.
    - kerng 6y ago
      Curious, are you using GSuites? Because I had very negative experiences when it comes to reading/writing email with it.
      - bo1024 6y ago
        I haven't found any interface I really like, although for fun I rolled my own (along the lines of mutt, which I haven't really tried).
- deadbunny 6y ago
  > But in this case, the "hello" makes sense not as a pleasantry, but as a way of finding out, "if I ask you a question right now, will I be able to get an immediate-ish response?" Eh, I respond a lot quicker to questions than "hello", I can ignore a hello for hours.
trias 6y ago
if you write "hello" and they answer "hello", they are under some social obligation to answer rather promptly, whereas if you write your question first, it may simply get ignored. So I tend to write a short hello first. possibly some other social factors at play here, but still, my experience.
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  That's exactly the problem, though. You're expecting prompt replies in an async communication medium. Ask your question and then they'll get to it when they have time. If they never reply when you do that then there's a larger issue, but that rarely ever happens. People expecting immediate replies in Slack is a big issue that leads to a lot of unneeded stress at work, and decreases everyone's productivity in the long run.
  - trias 6y ago
    I dont expect an immediate reply, just within reasonable time. I i've made the experience that a question you ask upfront simply gets ignored and then forgotten.
    - Trasmatta 6y ago
      When that happens to me, I'll give it a reasonable amount of time based on the importance of the question (which could be a few hours or a few days) and then gently prompt with "hey, sorry to bug you, wondering if you had a chance to look at my question?". That has never not worked out for me. If it's such an emergency that it can't wait, then I can call them. But most of the things we think are emergencies aren't, and most things can wait longer than we think.
  - solidasparagus 6y ago
    See, at least at the places I've worked, Slack is absolutely not an async communication channel. Some things are async, some need an answer now.
    - 6y ago
dvtrn 6y ago
Related thought, But how do we feel about people breaking their thoughts up? Into individually sent Messages? Like this? One Right after The other. Anyone else find the constant badgering of dings and vibrations when colleagues communicate like this to be a real teeth grinder when you’re zeroed in on work (or trying to take a short pomodoro / coffee break and space out for a bit between tasks)?
- pirocks 6y ago
  I'm guilty of doing this. A large part of it is that I'm thinking of what to write as I write it and keeping on coming up with afterthoughts etc.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Interesting. Have you observed others on your team doing the same-or is it something you pay attention to? I admit and understand not many people really care to notice the habit.
- kfrzcode 6y ago
  Nope. Not my duty to modulate my communication to YOUR notification preferences. I say this as someone who has been working remote with various teams for nearly seven years. Crucial to the success of any remote team is feeling comfortable sharing and communicating via async and text based means. You can always just turn $SLACKISH off and actually focus. If you're on call or in a situation wherein you need to watch messages and respond immediately - you're not going to reach flow state anyways. Do not disturb and other notification settings exist so you can decide when you get dings. I'll leave my bite sized messages for detailed threading, thanks!
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    I’m not asking you or anyone to moderate or change anything about how you communicate, friend (entirely because I know how futile it is). Just idly pondering if others have similar reactions to it.
nmstoker 6y ago
What interests me about this is often I feel the person may be trying (perhaps poorly) to help you and it's just backfiring. Most often it feels like an attempt to get initial attention because if they launch straight into something the start may be lost whilst the recipient is switching focus. Clearly the point against this would be that you'll have the chat history available, but there are apps where the flashing up of the notifications is in the corner and they disappear inconveniently before you've focused. So perhaps I suspect it's an attempt to get that focus moved and then start with the payload. There is some logic in this, annoying as it can be. People do really badly with focus when switching context, just look at how often someone will call you, you say your name (ie the person they were hoping to speak to usually) and then they ask if they could speak to <your name>, because they've been primed to ask this and didn't update mentally in light of new info fast enough to kill the needless question. I don't advocate the initial hello, but at times, I've broken text up where I get the key detail follow up ready in advance before the initial gambit is sent. This stops it being a whopping paragraph. I'd only use this sparingly but it helps at times and there's a hint of the focus aware point in it.
savanpatel 6y ago
no one is addressing the cultural difference here. In India, people wait in chat after saying hello for a reply.They assume that other person might be busy and also from Indian perspective hi followed by asking for help or question immediately is bad. This is not the case in US where people would expect the intention right after greeting.
rachelbythebay 6y ago
This started going inside Google quite a while back. My feeling then is about the same as now: feel free to say "hello" to me if we happen to be on the same IM system at the same time and you are "opening hailing frequencies", so to speak. I might not be there. I might not have a chance to chat right then. You can find out both without a serious investment in time pre-typing some huge thing which might be a total waste anyway. It's a good opportunity to get some idea of how quickly things will move, and whether the other end is willing and able to have a solid chat at that time. This applies to being either party in the chat: the asker or the asked! What's far more annoying is when the [typing] indicator goes on and stays on for a couple of minutes, at which point you are "rewarded" with a wall of text. By then, they have filibustered the chat, and are probably three steps down the wrong road if they got off on the wrong foot, and they need to be backed up and pointed in another direction. If they start small and evolve it as a natural conversation with back and forths, then a whole lot of needless typing can be avoided.
wdutch 6y ago
I used to work in a big company where people would often drop a "hello" and then wait for a response before saying why they were messaging. It was mildly infuriating because I would check the internal chat about once an hour in order to remain productive. So the first time I check I see the hello, then next time I check I see what they actually wanted to say doubling the amount of time until they got a response compared to asking in one go. It doesn't need to be a single IM message but it should be sent pretty swiftly after. I always wondered if people wanted to wait until the messagee was sat on the other end of the keyboard giving their full attention. If this is the case a phonecall would be more appropriate imo.
- kfrzcode 6y ago
  Agreed. Async is async for this reason - if it requires direct attention, synchronised, then spin up a call!
- sergers 6y ago
  I currently work at a large company where majority of people will drop a hi/hey/hello. One of my biggest annoyances. I have gotten in the habit of just responding "yo" and going back to whatever I was doing. Could be minutes to an hour before I come back to the chat
  - jdhzzz 6y ago
    My response is: ? and go back to work. I feel a bit mean if they are exceedingly polite and Start with "Good Morning" I might give them a Hi in that case. Either way I go back to what I was doing until I come to a convenient stopping point, typically between 1 and 5 minutes.
- cogman10 6y ago
  It's such a weird thing. Most of my coworkers don't do this, but a few will do a "Hi" type message. It wastes so much time for everyone involved. I sometimes wonder if these same people think I'm being rude when I write a message like "Hey, xyz, I was wondering if you knew PDQ about ABC?" Like, are they expecting the convo to go like me: "Hi" them: "Hello" me: "How's your day been?" them: "fine" me: "Crazy weather" them: "yeah" me: "Do you have a second to chat about ABC"? them: "Just a sec" me: "Ok" them: "Ok, shoot" me: "Do you if PDQ about ABC?" them: "Oh yeah, it's 123" Because I've absolutely had chat conversations like that. It drives me nuts because it's stuff that can be solved in 10 seconds but ends up taking 30 minutes worth of disruptions.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
greenyoda 6y ago
I get this kind of "Hello" message all the time. Also popular are "Are you there?" or "$FIRST_NAME ?". It's one of the reasons why I much prefer e-mail to chat. With e-mail, people have to actually formulate a question before hitting "send".
booleandilemma 6y ago
When someone does this to me I just don't respond. I generally know who likes to talk with me and who just needs help.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  Your second sentence implies you respond to the people who like to talk, and don't respond to the people who "just" need your help. Although it seems like it ought to be the other way around.
mmaunder 6y ago
Chill out people. Get a little more patient and a little less nitpicky about protocol. You’re not that busy or important. None of us are. This culture of nitpicking text communication styles has been with us for decades and isn’t going away soon. Same on IRC and Prestel before that. And it has always been about providing the enforcers with a sense of power and reinforcing tribalism around those who know the rules and those who need to be forcibly educated. If it’s good enough for Lionel Richie, it’s good enough for you.
- arkanciscan 6y ago
  shia-lebouf-clapping.gif
- foolfoolz 6y ago
  it got so bad at my work they had to email out to the entire company to nicer. the one slack room with all employees and no one is allowed to leave is a mine field. anyone can post there, but if you do and your message is not deemed appropriate the slack police will descend to the threads and rip you apart. don’t even think about @here or @channel because there’s already 5+ emojis that will be tacked on your message to ensure you feel like a moron
- ilaksh 6y ago
  Its just about being polite and wasting time. He explained it. Its the equivalent of calling someone for help and putting them on hold. I think it's okay if you at least give the topic of your question or start asking it in the first line and within five seconds or so get to the point. But if you just give a greeting or something and then delay, it wastes people's time.
  - brushfoot 6y ago
    It's not the same, though. Chat is asynchronous, so the recipient doesn't have to wait with their device as they would on hold. A standalone hello is actually more efficient in time-sensitive situations. The sender needs to know if the recipient is actually available so that they don't waste effort typing a question that won't get answered in time.
todotask 6y ago
Ought to put (2013) in the title? Previously discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415
- dang 6y ago
  Yes; that thread was 2019 and this one was 2017 - with a comment from apparently the original author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hanse00 6y ago
I see go/nohello has gone external, lovely.
- MrMorden 6y ago
  Also aka.ms/nohello.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
beaker52 6y ago
I grew up in IRC. I almost got fired from my first job for being to direct around sensitive colleagues. My boss coached me to start my emails with "Hello :)". I'm better but I still get into trouble from time to time, especially on a Monday morning when I forget to ask how someone's weekend was! That's also a fun one because I love breaking the "my weekend was great how about you?" monotony by actually telling the truth. I remember once going for an interview and the interviewer casually asked how my weekend was as we walked through the office. He wasn't expecting me to say that I didn't have a great time because I'd spent it moving out of my ex's place and a family member passed away the same weekend. How was your weekend? I mostly dislike all these fake interactions we have. Show me something real any day of the week. If you can't service my request because your mind is on something else, I'd take that. Just give me a human, not a half-assed care-less social dressage.
persona 6y ago
There is a strong counter-argument though, based on the increase of online meetings and screen sharing scenarios... Not everybody always remembers to silence screen notifications while sharing screens. Which leads to more-than-once-a-week situations of "Hi - full question or comment notification that probably shouldn't be seen by co-worker/boss/client" popping up during the share. A simple "hello" --wait for answer-- protocol makes it a quick way of checking if it's a good time.
harikb 6y ago
There are times I have done this if I am not sure if the person at the other end is presenting/sharing screen and the matter is somewhat sensitive. If that screen sharing software world and messaging/chat software works had some sort of protocol/handshake not to step on each other, many frustrating situations can be avoided.
andersco 6y ago
I had a colleague at a company that would always start his Slack chats with “Hey” and then wait for a reply. My “response” was to not respond until he finally got the message and would continue with what he actually had to say. Worked for me but YMMV.
marstall 6y ago
if I'm in regular communication with someone, I'll skip the hi or inline it. the hello comes in handy when I'm getting in touch with someone I might only talk to once every couple weeks. then I like to just kind of break the ice, make friendly conversation so we both can feel at ease and friendly with each other. I like to be friends with my co-workers - and there are times where if you are hitting them up for an ask, and ignoring them otherwise, thet might feel like you don't value them as a person ... A greeting, a little gossip or "HR" repartée can make two people trust each other - which in the end can foster its own kind of efficiency!
andersco 6y ago
A related annoyance is people who hit return after every statement, so that you end up with multiple alerts for the same message, and worse, the alert you see first is for the last statement that was posted.
brachika 6y ago
I had a colleague who would do exactly this in order to slack at work -> pinging someone and saying 'hello', then some time passes until the person responds, then the enquirer asks a question, then the person responds and it goes on... And everytime during the stand-ups the person would be - "Oh, I couldn't communicate the issue on time, I will continue working in the issue today..." I noticed this once because we spent two hours discussing about some topic. (we have a milestone-based flexible release model, milestones could be scheduled every couple of months at times, so the person would slack quite a lot)
jodrellblank 6y ago
This concept has to be the new[1] whathaveyoutried.com, the site which became the favourite snarky unhelpful comment on StackOverflow for a while and which the author realised was a bad and unhelpful approach and regretted making. Just say "Hello" back. You don't have to wait while they are typing. And if you are busy enough that you don't want to be disturbed, put "Do not disturb" on or close the chat client. [1] newer, anyway. That was 2008 to this 2013. What's the 2018 version?
brushfoot 6y ago
Pinging someone with a "hey" or "hello" isn't really the same as putting a call on hold. As the site points out, chat is asynchronous, so the recipient doesn't have to wait around as they would on hold. Plus it's a status check. With a call you have instant audio feedback to know they're on the line. Not so with chat. Granted, you don't always need to establish the recipient's immediate availability. But often chat gets used for questions that need answers almost now but don't warrant the time and emotional investment of a phone call. If you don't do a status check, you risk the recipient not being available to answer your question in time. And if they aren't, you'll waste more time typing your question than you would have with a precautionary hello.
- xivzgrev 6y ago
  How would you waste time? If that person doesn’t respond then don’t you just copy and paste the question to someone else?
- qayxc 6y ago
  Hm. Don't most chat programs offer a status? Like "Away", "DND", "Available", etc.?
  - brushfoot 6y ago
    Yes...but I've never worked at a place where they were accurate.
meigetsu 6y ago
I generally agree with this, but I also think there is a legitimate use case for saying “Hello”, namely when you have a request that actually needs a fairly imminent response and if the person you are pinging isn’t responding right away, you need to move on to someone else. If you type the full message to the first person and don’t get an immediate response, as you paste the same message to other people, the first person or few people who didn’t respond immediately might waste their time duplicating work that someone else you reached is already doing.
29athrowaway 6y ago
A: Hello B: Hello A: How do I do X? B: <instructions> B: Does that answer your question? A: Yes A: Bye B: Bye A: Acquire attention lock B: Attention lock acquired A: Information request B: Information request reply B: Reply satisfaction request A: Reply satisfaction response A: Release attention lock B: Attention lock released
wruza 6y ago
Please don't finish with "Ok/good" neither¹. I have these VVs in my chatbox below each message, one V for delivered and one V for read. Please only reply if you have objections and/or questions and/or more time to think. Otherwise, silence implies consent (until reply) Another open-ended question is "when will you show up at <location> / be free?". I don't know. Maybe not today. Maybe not even this week. Because "as a cooperating peer I will either show up and help you ASAP, or negotiate the term, or maybe will delegate and not show up at all, but I can only do that knowing what the deal is". Don't be afraid of being imperative, just shoot your problem at me, and we'll decide. Even if you just miss my company and want to share a bottle or two. When in doubt, remember the second V rule. ¹ You cannot expect third parties to follow these seemingly non-polite shortcuts of course, but it makes messaging much easier for those who are your most reliable peers. Repeating the same polite handshake/TIME_WAIT routines again and again and again quickly converges to the point where it is not even remotely polite². ² That may sound harsh at the face value, but I seen how good relationships suffered because of exactly these sorts of conversation. A busy person will answer "yes" to "busy?" when all their contact wanted was to meet at the evening. Or "in the city, can't talk" to "where are you?" when they meant "if you're near X, do Y". But all windows close during the day and at the evening it is too late to ask again, because kids, plans, etc. Repeat that few times and both be repulsed.
goblin89 6y ago
An approach I’m using to deal with “hello”-only messages: – Jog your memory for any input you might’ve been awaiting or could use from the “hello” person, and hit them back with a greeting + request or question. – If they really cannot help you on anything and you are not inclined to chit-chat, just ignore the “hello” message until substance follows. – If “hello” was too much of a bother at the moment, perhaps you should’ve been using DnD mode? – An effective way to use DnD and remain accessible is to set up a periodic alarm to check instant messengers. If you find a lone “hello” when checking messages and you can’t think of any input you might want from that person, “hello” back and leave it until next alarm. Your counterparty will learn to get to the point quicker.
jitl 6y ago
I always push No Hello whenever I start on a new team or at a new company. I should publish my latest revision, which I think is more kind and convincing than this original.
lukaszkups 6y ago
To add more to this I once had coworker who fist wrote 'hi' and then, in addition asked: 'Can I have a question?' (and waited for response) - it was a bit annoying, and made my style of going straight into conversation ('hi, can you reason of the conversation:) a bit weird, unpleasant
lma21 6y ago
I'm sorry, but are you really losing that much productivity by being a bit more human and replying to that hello, asking how the other person this? in any case, once the question is asked, you will be context switching and trying to find that answer. I find that saying hello and then waiting is more practical. If the other person is busy, then they won't reply and they'll reply at a more convenient time.
- bmn__ 6y ago
  There were more arguments than just productivity. The article supplied an telephone analogy. Put yourself into the situation of the recipient. Would you or would you not mind being put on hold immediately after being called? > I find that [doing something that does not affect me adversely, but does for the other party] is more practical. That kind of reasoning for the benefit of oneself without consideration for the other side causes bad blood.
- ColeyG 6y ago
  You are entirely missing the point of async comms then Imo. If I want a synchronous conversation I'll schedule a meeting or a phone call. If I need to be zoned in on an IM client, then the system has failed its use case.
iforgotpassword 6y ago
While it's a bit annoying I never saw the problem with this. The article sounds like the author will give their full attention to the chat application after replying "hello" until they receive another message. You can just switch yourself to nonblocking mode and handle other events and wait until epoll marks this chat readable again, or if you don't have any sort notifications turned on, just check back when you have a second. Worst case, the person at the other end wastes their time, not you. If it takes you an hour, their bad. But chances are they turn to something else in the meantime and don't stare at the chat window for hours on end. Would be kinda bad if you were on vacation and accidentally left your chat client running.
krak12 6y ago
Hello!
replies-to-fool 6y ago
This might be a little farfetched but is a possible solution to this having chat messages be directly previewed so that the person on the other end can see what you're typing as you do so. This could bridge the gap between the speed of chatting and talking. Or are there unintended cinsequences I'm not accounting for (such as accidentaly copy pasting unintended info)?

No Hello (2013)

255 points by etxm 6y ago

I was in an IRC channel a while back that had "Don't ask to ask, ask" in its topic, because it was so common for people to join and write "May I ask a question?".

bobbiechen 6y ago
I do think "Don't ask to ask" is a better link to give out in this scenario: https://dontasktoask.com/ https://dontasktoask.com/
acemarke 6y ago
We see this all the time today over in the Reactiflux channels on Discord. We've got a bot that will show pre-recorded answers for common topics when we ping it, and one of the most frequently used ones is exactly this: https://github.com/reactiflux/reactibot/blob/a4e4e9d211a11c44015f65fca9e31b395b502920/src/features/commands.ts#L179-L202 https://github.com/reactiflux/reactibot/blob/a4e4e9d211a11c4...
glandium 6y ago
"May I ask a question?" "You just did." "May I ask another?" "You just did."
- hinkley 6y ago
  "May I ask two more questions?" "You are allowed 3 questions and you just used them."
- hnick 6y ago
  If I say no, will you un-ask the question?

Minor49er 6y ago

I've been trying to do this more myself. I have noticed that I'd get someone's attention, then start writing up what I have to say while they waited for me to finish typing.

etxm 6y ago

I really want to set this as my status message in slack, but don’t want people to think I’m rude. Would you think it was rude if you saw this link as somebody’s status message?

dvtrn 6y ago
I tried for a while before giving up because almost nobody in my org reads statuses or heeds them to begin with anyway (as I’ve learned on multiple PTO days where I would change my status to “On vacation, please contact Mike at ——— for support” and getting P1 messages and calls over slack anyway). Nowadays I’m just a stochastic replier.
- etxm 6y ago
  That’s actually a great point I was on “vacation” last week and got messaged every single day despite my palm tree emoji.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Indeed. I’m firmly in camp “slack isn’t the problem with workplace communication, it just happens to amplify the problems that were already there”. Most (not all) tech that tries to “fix” communication in the office suffers from this problem though so I’m not blaming Slack alone for this. It just is what it is.
- smusamashah 6y ago
  No one read status, everyone sees emoji though. Make an emoji for what you want to say.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    What’s the emoji for “escalate to the Denver office for these issues, Chicago for those issues; otherwise I’m not here man”? Because you see I had the palm tree emoji. AND a bit of text. Still got PMs and calls. The emoji didn’t seem to matter.

gilad 6y ago

I call this Hi-jacking

karl11 6y ago
So good

redwood 6y ago

"Hi, quick question"

Brushfire 6y ago

I totally agree with the sentiment represented here but thinking linking someone to this is a bad way to handle the situation with others. I think it’s best handled by asking them after they make one of these requests and they get their answer. Linking to external sites feels passive aggressive to most people who are just trying to be nice.

jez 6y ago
But it's the kind of thing you can put in your Slack status so that the moment someone opens up a DM with you, they might see it, read it, and then know, all before they've typed out their first message.
dheera 6y ago
Yes, usually in real life unless it's a close friend I just don't respond to "Hello" until I get something more. It's not aggressive, it's just me waiting until I have a question. Close friends get a pass because their "hello" might just in some cases mean "hey I'm lonely and want someone to talk to".

SethTro 6y ago

Google has a whole list of these (ActionableIM, OnlyHello, ContextPlz); I'm into FastHello 1. Open the chat window, and type your question with no "hello". Do not press enter. 2. Instead, press Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-X to cut your question out of the chat window and into your clipboard. 3. type and send "hello" 4. Pause 2-5 seconds 5. Ctrl-P and enter to send your full question.

weikju 6y ago
Something simpler for me: most chat clients have a key combo to make newlines when pressing enter, like shift-enter or opt/alt-enter. Type hello, shift-enter-shift-enter, type your message, enter.
Kootle 6y ago
Why would I print my chat window
- apazzolini 6y ago
  I laughed.
jay_kyburz 6y ago
"Hello" <Control Enter> Type your question. Your welcome.
- aaron695 6y ago
  You can thank email for people being to scared to do this.
romanows 6y ago
Why so many steps when you could just ask the question?
molsongolden 6y ago
I really wanted step 3 to be "paste your question into the knowledge base search input"

BitwiseFool 6y ago

Years ago I worked with several people from UK. No subject matter will be broached until pleasantries have been exchanged. After a period of time they will ask to proceed. Then, only after a definitive "yes, go ahead" and a "no, this is not too much trouble", will they finally make their request. I found it both charming and terribly inefficient.

nmstoker 6y ago
It's the same with those ponderous extended variants on "can I just jump in here. Would you mind if I asked a question? Because I'm curious to know..." - seem to be to be used by people from all over.
- a_lieb 6y ago
  I've found that one a lot more common than the "Hello" thing, but I'm sure it varies by the team.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deadbunny 6y ago
As someone born and bred in England this does not match my experience.

aussieguy1234 6y ago

The jist of this is you should still be polite and say Hi or Hello in your message, but include the question in the message. You'll get a response much faster. I'll often do something like Hi <name>, <insert question>

arthurcolle 6y ago

I don't get how someone can get so annoyed at what is just basic politeness. Clearly, computers are making some folks insane

kbutler 6y ago
Trouble is it is impoliteness. Q: Are you listening? A: Yes Q: A: ? Q: [typing] Politeness would be preparing what you're going to ask me before requesting my attention.
blkhp19 6y ago
The author doesn't seem to be that annoyed, they're just trying to make life easier for themselves and others. It's equally polite to say "Hello" and type the question in the same message. Do you genuinely not see how saying "Hello" first, which for many people forces them to lose concentration as they mentally prepare to be asked a question, is worse? The author provides multiple, equally polite examples that respect people's desire to politely greet others and respects the concentration of the receiver.
twodave 6y ago
I think the point is that basic politeness involves not appearances of being polite, but rather thinking of the other person, their time, and how you would feel if the roles were reversed. I do agree though that going as far as to register a domain for this one social quirk is a bit much.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  basic politeness involves not appearances of being polite, but rather thinking of the other person THIS!!! I have the unfortunate experience of somewhat regularly engaging with people who: 1. Act in a manner / do something they think the other party should appreciate, where 2. The other party does not in fact appreciate this, and is often burdened, bothered, or inconvenienced. 3. When informed of this, the first party both accuses the second that they are ungrateful (for not actually being helped) and controlling (for expressing alternate preferences, including often no assistance). The cycle can reepeat, over precisely the same exchanges, repeatedly and over long periods. Small children not knowing better is excusable. Adults not so much. Kindness and consideration are not forcing your preferences down another's throat (exceptions for specific therapeutic expertise and treatment), but in offering to someone that which they express a preference for or interest in. So long as this isn't actively acutely harmful, one should oblige, aand graciously. Keep in mind that "where the roles reversed" may not be a reliable guide. It's not what you would want, but what they prefer. This lesson seems poorly assimilated by many.

jay_kyburz 6y ago

I always assume its because the person wants to make sure you are there before they bother to type the question. If not they will work it out themselves. Never respond to hi. :)

jefecoon 6y ago

To whomever went to the trouble of writing this up, then giving it a dedicated domain -- thank you, you're making the world a better place.

rapsacnz 6y ago

People who just say "Hi" to me often don't get an answer at all. I don't want to risk someone interrupting my chain of thought with some request that I can't / don't want to act on. But if I respond to a "Hi" and then decide that I don't want to deal with the actual question, that's perceived as rude. If you ask the question straight out, then I can decide to respond or not.

jay_kyburz 6y ago
I don't have slack notifications on at all. I just check it 2-3 times a day when I am between jobs.
axaxs 6y ago
Yeah, I have a co-worker notorious about this. I just quit answering until he writes something amounting to a statement. It's annoying to keep clicking away from a problem for niceties, especially when it's every...single..day.
- deeteecee 6y ago
  i think it would be reasonable to just guide him to say "hey, you often just start off these online messages with 'hi.' can you just get to the point first?"
  - axaxs 6y ago
    Oh, I have...but more gently. His reply is that he prefers to engage in conversation than just receive a reply. I do understand that point, but also that it's a bit selfish.
    - boring_twenties 6y ago
      Well then. He can wait in the conversation queue, instead of the request queue.
    - cmwelsh 6y ago

jancsika 6y ago

Gotta love how programmers are so anti-social they'd rather bitch for decades about salutations than elect even a single dev to spend five minutes scripting a pleasant-reply-bot.

tgb 6y ago

Part of the 'hello' problem is to get around the lack of context about what the other person is doing - particularly about who else might see their screen at that time. I still prefer just asking the question but that was the reason some others gave when I asked why they did the 'hello's.

MivLives 6y ago

Three other things: - Use spacing to make your message easy to parse. - Have clear questions that are easy to jump back and respond to. Have them separated out by spacing, and preferably numbered. - If there's something I need to copy paste, an email address, a specific id, a phone number, then put it on it's own line. Then I can double click and get the whole thing rather then dragging the cursor to do it.

etxm 6y ago
You, my friend, are a classy messager.
- MivLives 6y ago
  Worked in tech support for a bit, had to do a lot of emailing. You quickly pick up what annoys you.
Smilliam 6y ago
To expand on your second point: The very first thing you should type after your initial greeting should be your question(s). Don't bury the lede. You can provide all the additional explanation (i.e. what you were doing when it broke, where you've looked, what you've tried, etc) after you ask your questions. By asking up front, you frame the conversation so that the person you are communicating with can read your supporting information with the correct context.
- MivLives 6y ago
  I tend to do the reverse, with questions as the very last thing. Sorta introduce what I'm about to be asking about.
avel 6y ago
Basically most of the etiquette described in http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html is valid.

capableweb 6y ago

This is good advice, for the people who tends to ask to ask, or surround their questions with bunch of fluff. On the other hand, is you, the question-receiver. The example starts with "CO-WORKER WAITS WHILE YOU PHRASE YOUR QUESTION" but that's not how I usually deal with these types of conversations. If someone just writes "Hi" to me without something else and I'm busy, I won't reply until there is more messages, and instead continue with my work. Although, ideally there would be no "Hi" messages. But, not everything goes as we want it to.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

etxm 6y ago

The other thing that gets my goat is the person that sends every line. I guess it’s hard not to do in slack since “enter” sends, but I really wish slack would debounce messages notifications from the same person.

Trasmatta 6y ago
I feel like at this point anyone using Slack should know to shift-enter to add a newline without sending. I don't understand why people still have a problem with that.

john_moscow 6y ago

I usually go for a combined approach: pre-type my long question in Notepad++, then post a polite "hello" immediately followed by another message with the actual question. So it's both polite and considerate. It has a bonus point of not losing what you typed in case the chat window bugs out.

s_c_r 6y ago
This is a good approach. More people should do this. I should do this.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

There’s a lot of etiquette we can use to improve chat. Another one is phrasing questions in a “search friendly” way, using log names and error strings.

mkhattab 6y ago

My manager used to do this all the time. Typical scenario: Manager: hey <an hour or so may go by> Me: what's up? Manager: nvm

whatch 6y ago

What are polite ways to introduce colleagues to this concept?

jimbobimbo 6y ago
I have www.nohello.com as my status message.

deeteecee 6y ago

im in sf and we had a new contractor in india who wanted to ask about my PR comments and started with "hi." yeah...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

canada_dry 6y ago

A related peeve... Using chat for support. The first thing it asks is "Please explain why you need assistance"... I fill it in with all the pertinent details... Then, when the support person finally comes online their first or second message is: ...and how may I help you today?

syshum 6y ago
Or the chat AND phone systems that have you fill out all the info about your account, then they ask "what is your account number" Why the hell did I just spend the time to type that in to my phone if I know have to type it again for you.....
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Often used to confirm information accuracy, no mis-entered information, or unauthorised access attempt.
  - greenyoda 6y ago
    How does having to enter the same account information twice in the same session prevent unauthorized access? If an unauthorized person knows my account number, they can easily enter it twice. And if the account number doesn't exist or doesn't match the name, they know immediately that one or the other was mis-entered.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Automated dial/entry, handoff to an operator, especially in high-volume attacks. Verbal repetition requires greater process coordination by the attacker. Cues such as hesitation, discomfort, etc., may also be present. The far more prevalent case is likely simply to guard against mis-keyed digits. Similarly in heathcare, virtually every caregiver handoff involves asking for name and DoB. For the caregiver this helps confirm they are (literally) on the right page (patient record). Patients may see this as tedious.

thom 6y ago

The most stressful version of this for me is when someone sidles up to you on chat and asks "is X working?" or "is Y supposed to do Z?" Like, if you're saying it's not working: say that. If you're saying it's not doing what you expect: say that. It's the QA version of "we have to talk" and I'm instantly anxious until you clarify.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
We work in an open space and people usually ask to make sure they arent the crazy one. It can go either direction: we had to do that cause x, or yeah thats not how its supposed to work... Followed by... Well its how it works for now cause of this and this... Along with everyone agreeing its wrong. They arent trying to mess with you just confirm intended behavior.
- Groxx 6y ago
  In-person I almost universally heard stuff like "is anyone else having problems with X? the site won't load for me" and that second part is crucial. In chat, something like 1/4-1/2 are "is X working?" followed by total silence. Sometimes they really are just asking if it's running, i.e. does X still exist. Sometimes they're having a failed build on a different system because their dependency manager cache is broken and it's blaming random libraries. Sometimes the frontend is busted. What they're doing in practice is asking for 1:1 dedicated help on literally anything, so the only reasonable choice for a responder is those unicorn devs who know everything somehow. They almost never exist, so those "questions" go unanswered for a long time.
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    Thats usually who I try to be but I have been burned by it cause I didnt mention why I was falling behind at two former jobs. It did cost me a job cause of that plus the fact they were over engineering what would of been a few months into a few years effort just to be bleeding edge. It sucks how some environments are worse than others. I think the biggest quality for software developers is humility. Without humility you could end up with some nasty devs. I have worked with people who get personallu attached to their code being quality but they dont follow project protocol or write hacky code.

bo1024 6y ago

This raised the question of - why not use email instead, then? Then answer I came up with is that the asker wants an immediate-ish response. But in this case, the "hello" makes sense not as a pleasantry, but as a way of finding out, "if I ask you a question right now, will I be able to get an immediate-ish response?" It doesn't sound like this problem can be easily solved with "nohello", it sounds like a more involved solution might be needed.

mgraczyk 6y ago
Email is a linked list with lots of metadata on each node, messages are an array with minimal metadata. Although modern email clients can make email threads simple and easier to follow, the UI is still much more cluttered and sometimes threading gets borked.
- bo1024 6y ago
  I agree there is a separate but interacting issue that email UIs are mostly very bad, so people like to avoid email.
  - kerng 6y ago
    Curious, are you using GSuites? Because I had very negative experiences when it comes to reading/writing email with it.
    - bo1024 6y ago
      I haven't found any interface I really like, although for fun I rolled my own (along the lines of mutt, which I haven't really tried).
deadbunny 6y ago
> But in this case, the "hello" makes sense not as a pleasantry, but as a way of finding out, "if I ask you a question right now, will I be able to get an immediate-ish response?" Eh, I respond a lot quicker to questions than "hello", I can ignore a hello for hours.

trias 6y ago

if you write "hello" and they answer "hello", they are under some social obligation to answer rather promptly, whereas if you write your question first, it may simply get ignored. So I tend to write a short hello first. possibly some other social factors at play here, but still, my experience.

Trasmatta 6y ago
That's exactly the problem, though. You're expecting prompt replies in an async communication medium. Ask your question and then they'll get to it when they have time. If they never reply when you do that then there's a larger issue, but that rarely ever happens. People expecting immediate replies in Slack is a big issue that leads to a lot of unneeded stress at work, and decreases everyone's productivity in the long run.
- trias 6y ago
  I dont expect an immediate reply, just within reasonable time. I i've made the experience that a question you ask upfront simply gets ignored and then forgotten.
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    When that happens to me, I'll give it a reasonable amount of time based on the importance of the question (which could be a few hours or a few days) and then gently prompt with "hey, sorry to bug you, wondering if you had a chance to look at my question?". That has never not worked out for me. If it's such an emergency that it can't wait, then I can call them. But most of the things we think are emergencies aren't, and most things can wait longer than we think.
- solidasparagus 6y ago
  See, at least at the places I've worked, Slack is absolutely not an async communication channel. Some things are async, some need an answer now.
  - 6y ago

dvtrn 6y ago

Related thought, But how do we feel about people breaking their thoughts up? Into individually sent Messages? Like this? One Right after The other. Anyone else find the constant badgering of dings and vibrations when colleagues communicate like this to be a real teeth grinder when you’re zeroed in on work (or trying to take a short pomodoro / coffee break and space out for a bit between tasks)?

pirocks 6y ago
I'm guilty of doing this. A large part of it is that I'm thinking of what to write as I write it and keeping on coming up with afterthoughts etc.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Interesting. Have you observed others on your team doing the same-or is it something you pay attention to? I admit and understand not many people really care to notice the habit.
kfrzcode 6y ago
Nope. Not my duty to modulate my communication to YOUR notification preferences. I say this as someone who has been working remote with various teams for nearly seven years. Crucial to the success of any remote team is feeling comfortable sharing and communicating via async and text based means. You can always just turn $SLACKISH off and actually focus. If you're on call or in a situation wherein you need to watch messages and respond immediately - you're not going to reach flow state anyways. Do not disturb and other notification settings exist so you can decide when you get dings. I'll leave my bite sized messages for detailed threading, thanks!
- dvtrn 6y ago
  I’m not asking you or anyone to moderate or change anything about how you communicate, friend (entirely because I know how futile it is). Just idly pondering if others have similar reactions to it.

nmstoker 6y ago

What interests me about this is often I feel the person may be trying (perhaps poorly) to help you and it's just backfiring. Most often it feels like an attempt to get initial attention because if they launch straight into something the start may be lost whilst the recipient is switching focus. Clearly the point against this would be that you'll have the chat history available, but there are apps where the flashing up of the notifications is in the corner and they disappear inconveniently before you've focused. So perhaps I suspect it's an attempt to get that focus moved and then start with the payload. There is some logic in this, annoying as it can be. People do really badly with focus when switching context, just look at how often someone will call you, you say your name (ie the person they were hoping to speak to usually) and then they ask if they could speak to <your name>, because they've been primed to ask this and didn't update mentally in light of new info fast enough to kill the needless question. I don't advocate the initial hello, but at times, I've broken text up where I get the key detail follow up ready in advance before the initial gambit is sent. This stops it being a whopping paragraph. I'd only use this sparingly but it helps at times and there's a hint of the focus aware point in it.

savanpatel 6y ago

no one is addressing the cultural difference here. In India, people wait in chat after saying hello for a reply.They assume that other person might be busy and also from Indian perspective hi followed by asking for help or question immediately is bad. This is not the case in US where people would expect the intention right after greeting.

rachelbythebay 6y ago

This started going inside Google quite a while back. My feeling then is about the same as now: feel free to say "hello" to me if we happen to be on the same IM system at the same time and you are "opening hailing frequencies", so to speak. I might not be there. I might not have a chance to chat right then. You can find out both without a serious investment in time pre-typing some huge thing which might be a total waste anyway. It's a good opportunity to get some idea of how quickly things will move, and whether the other end is willing and able to have a solid chat at that time. This applies to being either party in the chat: the asker or the asked! What's far more annoying is when the [typing] indicator goes on and stays on for a couple of minutes, at which point you are "rewarded" with a wall of text. By then, they have filibustered the chat, and are probably three steps down the wrong road if they got off on the wrong foot, and they need to be backed up and pointed in another direction. If they start small and evolve it as a natural conversation with back and forths, then a whole lot of needless typing can be avoided.

wdutch 6y ago

I used to work in a big company where people would often drop a "hello" and then wait for a response before saying why they were messaging. It was mildly infuriating because I would check the internal chat about once an hour in order to remain productive. So the first time I check I see the hello, then next time I check I see what they actually wanted to say doubling the amount of time until they got a response compared to asking in one go. It doesn't need to be a single IM message but it should be sent pretty swiftly after. I always wondered if people wanted to wait until the messagee was sat on the other end of the keyboard giving their full attention. If this is the case a phonecall would be more appropriate imo.

kfrzcode 6y ago
Agreed. Async is async for this reason - if it requires direct attention, synchronised, then spin up a call!
sergers 6y ago
I currently work at a large company where majority of people will drop a hi/hey/hello. One of my biggest annoyances. I have gotten in the habit of just responding "yo" and going back to whatever I was doing. Could be minutes to an hour before I come back to the chat
- jdhzzz 6y ago
  My response is: ? and go back to work. I feel a bit mean if they are exceedingly polite and Start with "Good Morning" I might give them a Hi in that case. Either way I go back to what I was doing until I come to a convenient stopping point, typically between 1 and 5 minutes.
cogman10 6y ago
It's such a weird thing. Most of my coworkers don't do this, but a few will do a "Hi" type message. It wastes so much time for everyone involved. I sometimes wonder if these same people think I'm being rude when I write a message like "Hey, xyz, I was wondering if you knew PDQ about ABC?" Like, are they expecting the convo to go like me: "Hi" them: "Hello" me: "How's your day been?" them: "fine" me: "Crazy weather" them: "yeah" me: "Do you have a second to chat about ABC"? them: "Just a sec" me: "Ok" them: "Ok, shoot" me: "Do you if PDQ about ABC?" them: "Oh yeah, it's 123" Because I've absolutely had chat conversations like that. It drives me nuts because it's stuff that can be solved in 10 seconds but ends up taking 30 minutes worth of disruptions.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

greenyoda 6y ago

I get this kind of "Hello" message all the time. Also popular are "Are you there?" or "$FIRST_NAME ?". It's one of the reasons why I much prefer e-mail to chat. With e-mail, people have to actually formulate a question before hitting "send".

booleandilemma 6y ago

When someone does this to me I just don't respond. I generally know who likes to talk with me and who just needs help.

jodrellblank 6y ago
Your second sentence implies you respond to the people who like to talk, and don't respond to the people who "just" need your help. Although it seems like it ought to be the other way around.

mmaunder 6y ago

Chill out people. Get a little more patient and a little less nitpicky about protocol. You’re not that busy or important. None of us are. This culture of nitpicking text communication styles has been with us for decades and isn’t going away soon. Same on IRC and Prestel before that. And it has always been about providing the enforcers with a sense of power and reinforcing tribalism around those who know the rules and those who need to be forcibly educated. If it’s good enough for Lionel Richie, it’s good enough for you.

arkanciscan 6y ago
shia-lebouf-clapping.gif
foolfoolz 6y ago
it got so bad at my work they had to email out to the entire company to nicer. the one slack room with all employees and no one is allowed to leave is a mine field. anyone can post there, but if you do and your message is not deemed appropriate the slack police will descend to the threads and rip you apart. don’t even think about @here or @channel because there’s already 5+ emojis that will be tacked on your message to ensure you feel like a moron
ilaksh 6y ago
Its just about being polite and wasting time. He explained it. Its the equivalent of calling someone for help and putting them on hold. I think it's okay if you at least give the topic of your question or start asking it in the first line and within five seconds or so get to the point. But if you just give a greeting or something and then delay, it wastes people's time.
- brushfoot 6y ago
  It's not the same, though. Chat is asynchronous, so the recipient doesn't have to wait with their device as they would on hold. A standalone hello is actually more efficient in time-sensitive situations. The sender needs to know if the recipient is actually available so that they don't waste effort typing a question that won't get answered in time.

todotask 6y ago

Ought to put (2013) in the title? Previously discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415

dang 6y ago
Yes; that thread was 2019 and this one was 2017 - with a comment from apparently the original author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hanse00 6y ago

I see go/nohello has gone external, lovely.

MrMorden 6y ago
Also aka.ms/nohello.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

beaker52 6y ago

I grew up in IRC. I almost got fired from my first job for being to direct around sensitive colleagues. My boss coached me to start my emails with "Hello :)". I'm better but I still get into trouble from time to time, especially on a Monday morning when I forget to ask how someone's weekend was! That's also a fun one because I love breaking the "my weekend was great how about you?" monotony by actually telling the truth. I remember once going for an interview and the interviewer casually asked how my weekend was as we walked through the office. He wasn't expecting me to say that I didn't have a great time because I'd spent it moving out of my ex's place and a family member passed away the same weekend. How was your weekend? I mostly dislike all these fake interactions we have. Show me something real any day of the week. If you can't service my request because your mind is on something else, I'd take that. Just give me a human, not a half-assed care-less social dressage.

persona 6y ago

There is a strong counter-argument though, based on the increase of online meetings and screen sharing scenarios... Not everybody always remembers to silence screen notifications while sharing screens. Which leads to more-than-once-a-week situations of "Hi - full question or comment notification that probably shouldn't be seen by co-worker/boss/client" popping up during the share. A simple "hello" --wait for answer-- protocol makes it a quick way of checking if it's a good time.

harikb 6y ago

There are times I have done this if I am not sure if the person at the other end is presenting/sharing screen and the matter is somewhat sensitive. If that screen sharing software world and messaging/chat software works had some sort of protocol/handshake not to step on each other, many frustrating situations can be avoided.

andersco 6y ago

I had a colleague at a company that would always start his Slack chats with “Hey” and then wait for a reply. My “response” was to not respond until he finally got the message and would continue with what he actually had to say. Worked for me but YMMV.

marstall 6y ago

if I'm in regular communication with someone, I'll skip the hi or inline it. the hello comes in handy when I'm getting in touch with someone I might only talk to once every couple weeks. then I like to just kind of break the ice, make friendly conversation so we both can feel at ease and friendly with each other. I like to be friends with my co-workers - and there are times where if you are hitting them up for an ask, and ignoring them otherwise, thet might feel like you don't value them as a person ... A greeting, a little gossip or "HR" repartée can make two people trust each other - which in the end can foster its own kind of efficiency!

andersco 6y ago

A related annoyance is people who hit return after every statement, so that you end up with multiple alerts for the same message, and worse, the alert you see first is for the last statement that was posted.

brachika 6y ago

I had a colleague who would do exactly this in order to slack at work -> pinging someone and saying 'hello', then some time passes until the person responds, then the enquirer asks a question, then the person responds and it goes on... And everytime during the stand-ups the person would be - "Oh, I couldn't communicate the issue on time, I will continue working in the issue today..." I noticed this once because we spent two hours discussing about some topic. (we have a milestone-based flexible release model, milestones could be scheduled every couple of months at times, so the person would slack quite a lot)

jodrellblank 6y ago

This concept has to be the new[1] whathaveyoutried.com, the site which became the favourite snarky unhelpful comment on StackOverflow for a while and which the author realised was a bad and unhelpful approach and regretted making. Just say "Hello" back. You don't have to wait while they are typing. And if you are busy enough that you don't want to be disturbed, put "Do not disturb" on or close the chat client. [1] newer, anyway. That was 2008 to this 2013. What's the 2018 version?

brushfoot 6y ago

Pinging someone with a "hey" or "hello" isn't really the same as putting a call on hold. As the site points out, chat is asynchronous, so the recipient doesn't have to wait around as they would on hold. Plus it's a status check. With a call you have instant audio feedback to know they're on the line. Not so with chat. Granted, you don't always need to establish the recipient's immediate availability. But often chat gets used for questions that need answers almost now but don't warrant the time and emotional investment of a phone call. If you don't do a status check, you risk the recipient not being available to answer your question in time. And if they aren't, you'll waste more time typing your question than you would have with a precautionary hello.

xivzgrev 6y ago
How would you waste time? If that person doesn’t respond then don’t you just copy and paste the question to someone else?
qayxc 6y ago
Hm. Don't most chat programs offer a status? Like "Away", "DND", "Available", etc.?
- brushfoot 6y ago
  Yes...but I've never worked at a place where they were accurate.

meigetsu 6y ago

I generally agree with this, but I also think there is a legitimate use case for saying “Hello”, namely when you have a request that actually needs a fairly imminent response and if the person you are pinging isn’t responding right away, you need to move on to someone else. If you type the full message to the first person and don’t get an immediate response, as you paste the same message to other people, the first person or few people who didn’t respond immediately might waste their time duplicating work that someone else you reached is already doing.

29athrowaway 6y ago

A: Hello B: Hello A: How do I do X? B: <instructions> B: Does that answer your question? A: Yes A: Bye B: Bye A: Acquire attention lock B: Attention lock acquired A: Information request B: Information request reply B: Reply satisfaction request A: Reply satisfaction response A: Release attention lock B: Attention lock released

wruza 6y ago

Please don't finish with "Ok/good" neither¹. I have these VVs in my chatbox below each message, one V for delivered and one V for read. Please only reply if you have objections and/or questions and/or more time to think. Otherwise, silence implies consent (until reply) Another open-ended question is "when will you show up at <location> / be free?". I don't know. Maybe not today. Maybe not even this week. Because "as a cooperating peer I will either show up and help you ASAP, or negotiate the term, or maybe will delegate and not show up at all, but I can only do that knowing what the deal is". Don't be afraid of being imperative, just shoot your problem at me, and we'll decide. Even if you just miss my company and want to share a bottle or two. When in doubt, remember the second V rule. ¹ You cannot expect third parties to follow these seemingly non-polite shortcuts of course, but it makes messaging much easier for those who are your most reliable peers. Repeating the same polite handshake/TIME_WAIT routines again and again and again quickly converges to the point where it is not even remotely polite². ² That may sound harsh at the face value, but I seen how good relationships suffered because of exactly these sorts of conversation. A busy person will answer "yes" to "busy?" when all their contact wanted was to meet at the evening. Or "in the city, can't talk" to "where are you?" when they meant "if you're near X, do Y". But all windows close during the day and at the evening it is too late to ask again, because kids, plans, etc. Repeat that few times and both be repulsed.

goblin89 6y ago

An approach I’m using to deal with “hello”-only messages: – Jog your memory for any input you might’ve been awaiting or could use from the “hello” person, and hit them back with a greeting + request or question. – If they really cannot help you on anything and you are not inclined to chit-chat, just ignore the “hello” message until substance follows. – If “hello” was too much of a bother at the moment, perhaps you should’ve been using DnD mode? – An effective way to use DnD and remain accessible is to set up a periodic alarm to check instant messengers. If you find a lone “hello” when checking messages and you can’t think of any input you might want from that person, “hello” back and leave it until next alarm. Your counterparty will learn to get to the point quicker.

jitl 6y ago

I always push No Hello whenever I start on a new team or at a new company. I should publish my latest revision, which I think is more kind and convincing than this original.

lukaszkups 6y ago

To add more to this I once had coworker who fist wrote 'hi' and then, in addition asked: 'Can I have a question?' (and waited for response) - it was a bit annoying, and made my style of going straight into conversation ('hi, can you reason of the conversation:) a bit weird, unpleasant

lma21 6y ago

I'm sorry, but are you really losing that much productivity by being a bit more human and replying to that hello, asking how the other person this? in any case, once the question is asked, you will be context switching and trying to find that answer. I find that saying hello and then waiting is more practical. If the other person is busy, then they won't reply and they'll reply at a more convenient time.

bmn__ 6y ago
There were more arguments than just productivity. The article supplied an telephone analogy. Put yourself into the situation of the recipient. Would you or would you not mind being put on hold immediately after being called? > I find that [doing something that does not affect me adversely, but does for the other party] is more practical. That kind of reasoning for the benefit of oneself without consideration for the other side causes bad blood.
ColeyG 6y ago
You are entirely missing the point of async comms then Imo. If I want a synchronous conversation I'll schedule a meeting or a phone call. If I need to be zoned in on an IM client, then the system has failed its use case.

iforgotpassword 6y ago

While it's a bit annoying I never saw the problem with this. The article sounds like the author will give their full attention to the chat application after replying "hello" until they receive another message. You can just switch yourself to nonblocking mode and handle other events and wait until epoll marks this chat readable again, or if you don't have any sort notifications turned on, just check back when you have a second. Worst case, the person at the other end wastes their time, not you. If it takes you an hour, their bad. But chances are they turn to something else in the meantime and don't stare at the chat window for hours on end. Would be kinda bad if you were on vacation and accidentally left your chat client running.

krak12 6y ago

Hello!

replies-to-fool 6y ago

This might be a little farfetched but is a possible solution to this having chat messages be directly previewed so that the person on the other end can see what you're typing as you do so. This could bridge the gap between the speed of chatting and talking. Or are there unintended cinsequences I'm not accounting for (such as accidentaly copy pasting unintended info)?