11 ms·

>People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like one would in person or on the phone - and that's great! Diffe

by jasode 6y ago

>People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like one would in person or on the phone - and that's great! Different people have different reasons but I notice that many people that do a naked "hi" / "hey" are trying to see if the receiver is present for an immediate reply. In other words, the sender deliberately wants a synchronous instead of asynchronous convo. They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. EDIT to reply: "Then send it in an email." To clarify, some people don't want an async communication so switching to email doesn't solve their problem at all. The issue is that some personality styles do not like sending questions into an indeterminant void. Thus, a naked "hi" for them is shorthand for "r u there to talk to me RIGHT NOW?" I sympathize with their need for immediacy but I made a previous comment on why it drives me crazy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17255452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17255452 Yep, some people are really confused as to why many async-preference people like me do not want to answer the phone.

mackatsol 6y ago
Thank you. I never thought of it that way before. Much appreciated.
jethro_tell 6y ago
For me, it can also be a privacy thing. Sometimes I want to validate that my chat is not going to got onto a presenters screen somewhere.
- hedora 6y ago
  This is why I use slack in a web browser, and don’t give it permission to display notifications. I wish there was a way to permanently disable the “you have disabled notifications” prompts though.
  - tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
    Hmm I just disabled notifications in the normal slack client. Not sure why you would use the web browser?
    - fragmede 6y ago
      It's not that notifications can't be disabled by clicking a few extra buttons, it's that those extra buttons are outside the usual workflow. Going into presentation mode in Keynote/Powerpoint/Google Slides doesn't also go into the slack client and disable them, nor does it for other programs that pop up notifications (eg skype, windows update/app store updater), and why should it? Keeping slack confined to the web browser sets this boundary neatly, so long as you don't also allow the web page to display notifications (which chrome will do if you let it).
- piinbinary 6y ago
  The fact that the following messages shouldn't be shown publicly is useful information to convey, and I feel like conveying that avoids wasting the first message -- If it explicitly says that what follows needs to be private. (The recipient needs more than "hi" to know that what follows is private)
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Not necessarily. The context of the presentation and/or the sender could be enough to determine that.
- rvanmil 6y ago
  This is a serious issue with the massive increase in video calls and screen sharing (and people being oblivious to or not caring about this). Not just chat but also email notifications with previews. This has become something I actively consider before communicating by text instead of calling someone. It would be great if teams, zoom etc could automatically and by default prevent any notifications from popping into a shared screen. And then there’s still the people who leave their mail and chat opened and just cmd-tab through them or leave them on screen while sharing... oh well :)
  - fragmede 6y ago
    FWIW, OS X has a do not disturb toggle for this very reason. It's slightly hidden, but easily found with Google. That many people don't bother, is just how people are :/
JulianMorrison 6y ago
Wanting a synchronous conversation is a pretty arrogant grab of someone else's time. This is also why phoning me is bad and please use texts like a civilised person.
- eganist 6y ago
  > Wanting a synchronous conversation is a pretty arrogant grab of someone else's time. This is an assumption, and not always a valid one. There are plenty of circumstances where synchronous comms are warranted, such as when matters are urgent for all parties or when the respondent has a reputation for losing track of async comms. Editing to add: I agree that "hey" and "hi" etc. are terrible openings. However, openings (incidentally also discouraged by the linked article) such as: > × "Hello, are you around?" > × "hi sophie - quick question." > × "You got a sec?" are absolutely fine in that they imply a level of urgency and need for synchronized communication. If someone's ideologically against it and inflexible towards accommodating urgency where appropriate, it's a productivity red flag. And I'm speaking as a modestly introverted manager who tries to avoid sync comms unless absolutely needed, but the thread seems to have gone off the deep end by arguing that sync comms are absolutely unnecessary.
  - JulianMorrison 6y ago
    Those are good reasons for phoning, yes, but even then you'd be better if you're stuck in text to start off with as much urgent information as possible. "Hi Bob, the wobbulator sprocket is on fire and I need to you defusticate the gonksnaffler immediately."
    - eganist 6y ago
      Unless the matter has an ephemerality requirement, in which case I message seeking immediate availability and then transition to a phone call. A signal call if the matter needs to be both ephemeral and confidential. Insisting on asynchronous communication for All The Things™ concerns me in that it shows that a person isn't adaptable to varying criticalities and sensitivities. The same goes for insisting on synchronous communication. TL;DR they both have their place, and they will always both have their place regardless of any one person's preference.
todd_t 6y ago
> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. Then send it in an email.
- eganist 6y ago
  Depends on the mode of communication that's been determined to be most reliable with the person in question. I've resorted to synchronous comms when the other party is notoriously bad at responding async. ...which would likely persist regardless of whether the request is emailed or messaged.
- watwut 6y ago
  So that answer returns in few days if ever? Perfect plan.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    If I’m the type of person to get annoyed at a carrier-only “hi”, I’m not going to give you a fast response to your content-free interruption either.
signal11 6y ago
For immediate replies I’d usually use “you there?” or “free for a quick chat?”. The naked greeting is just begging to get ignored.
- ballenf 6y ago
  Or just ask the question and when your internal timer goes off, follow up with some polite version of “nvm”.
- eganist 6y ago
  The linked page advocates against these on the same premise, which is my primary challenge with it. It ignores urgency.
  - oauea 6y ago
    If it's urgent then you should probably take a few seconds to explain why.
    - eganist 6y ago
      Probably, yes, but not always. It depends on the matter.
      - oauea 6y ago
        If you didn't, then I'll be forced to assume it's not important. At least you clearly didn't care enough to put in a tiny amount of effort.
        eganist 6y ago
        > If you didn't, then I'll be forced to assume it's not important. At least you clearly didn't care enough to put in a tiny amount of effort. That's your prerogative, but it also exposes you to corporate risk if it in fact was a sensitive matter with urgency and it's deemed that the necessary communication attempts were made. Deciding right off the top that communication isn't urgent takes precedent. If it's the first time they're messaging you, best not to chance the urgency until they have a track record with you.
adrianmonk 6y ago
That motivation is logical, but I think it's more considerate to type out just a few words so the recipient has some idea what's up. For example, "hi, i have a question about web config files" or "hi, i need help with a SQL query" or "hi, we may have a production issue" or "hi, i want to propose a change to how we do builds". This allows the recipient to prioritize. Just because they are present doesn't mean that now is a good time for every conversation.
- kijin 6y ago
  In my experience, people who prefer synchronous communication are much more likely than those who prefer async to think that now is always a good time to have whatever conversation they want to have. Therefore, asking them to consider whether now is a good time will not make any difference. That condition always returns true for them.
- dheera 6y ago
  Totally agree. I also hate it when people assume that I'm synchronous even though I may respond quickly to the first query by chance. I usually periodically take breaks to batch process all instant messages and then mute notifications until the next break. If I've already responded to your first question chances are I won't return to your chat window until the next break. I'm also not opposed to synchronous conversations, it just needs to be scheduled. So the first question should not be "Hey how was your weekend" but rather "Hey how was your weekend, and what time this afternoon could you spend 30 minutes with me chatting about (A) (B) (C)"
- cgriswald 6y ago
  I'm not sure whether we agree or not, but I disagree with your examples. It's not enough to categorize your need, you should at the very least summarize your needs. Including an urgency and a reason why you need the person's feedback or help would not go amiss. > "hi, we may have a production issue" Do we or don't we? How urgent is it? Do you need help with the issue or do you need help determining whether there is an issue? I have no idea, so I have to drop what I'm doing to find out because you said the magic word 'production'.
- 6y ago
wruza 6y ago
They should learn to cut the crap and summarize, a good skill.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Yeah one thing that annoys me even more is "cold-calling".. E.g. ringing me on teams without asking if I'm there first. One of the good things about remote working is that I can finally concentrate on stuff without constant interruptions.
- iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
  Haha I can understand why that bothers you of course, but I find it amusing that I feel exactly the opposite way. I would usually much prefer that someone try phoning me or (of initiating a call on slack or zoom) that go through the "hi, time to chat? When is good, etc?" Slack has icons to indicate availability, if mine is green, I really wish people would just call.
  - oauea 6y ago
    You seriously want people to completely distract you from whatever you're doing, using loud noises and popups? If my status is green it means people can send me a message, and expect a response within a reasonable amount of time. Any calls will be instantly declined with a message, "Why are you calling me??"
    - iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
      I'm easily distracted so getting a message breaks my focus anyway. If that's going to happen, I'd rather it happen in one call than in a prolonged back and forth by chat, and then eventually a call. If I really need to focus I just turn notifications off.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Yeah good point... It depends on the role too, I think.. I tend to do in-depth technical work and as such I need to concentrate often. Basically this thing: https://imgur.com/xvNRKIT https://imgur.com/xvNRKIT I can imagine that if you're in a more collaborative role, this can be completely different. And yes I hate it more when I'm on Busy. In our company the status seems to matter none at all.. Even when I'm on Do Not Disturb (one grade more than Busy) people tend to keep pinging when I don't answer.
zelos 6y ago
But what it means is that they then take up more of the other person’s time as they sit and watch the typing notification. At least have the question ready typed so you can copy paste it into the message box.
ninad 6y ago
Coincidentally, I created hellomenot.com to solve a similar problem i experienced at work. My observation is as follows: Why do people leave it at Hello? Conversations are the most natural way of communicating – when talking to someone in-person, one often starts talking only after we have their full attention, we wait for them to either nod, or make a sound, or look at you, right? now, because chatting on tools like Flock or Slack is very similar like talking in person – our brain is hard wired to wait before we have the attention of the person we’re talking to.
ineedasername 6y ago
don't want to answer the phone That's me too, but conversely WFH over the last 10 months with zoom has made me more amenable to having meetings. Because when there is a need to talk synced, we can do it and have just a 15 minute meeting and that's all. IRL, it seems like people are reluctant to schedule any block shorter than half an hour and typically go 10-15 minutes longer than scheduled, combined with working in a large area where I might have to walk 10 minutes back and forth to the meeting location. Rarely would any meeting eat less than 1.5 hours of my time. Now, it can sing be 15 minutes.
krick 6y ago
I don't care, but FWIW, I often don't reply anything at all until the messenger doesn't elaborate on his greetings, even if I'm present and could answer otherwise. I mean, if he doesn't, he probably didn't need it that much anyway...
kempbellt 6y ago
This is a common theme in my workplace. Especially with everyone working remote and odd hours these days. We use both email and Slack, but most conversations tend to be asynchronous regardless and I frequently wonder why we even have an instant messenger. That said, I find that even if a message is asynchronous, it is much easier to track conversation flow via slack than email. Reply chains and indentations get messy and become an eye sore to navigate. If I write, "Hey, did you do that thing?" and don't hear "Yep, it's done" for a day, I can more easily see the flow of thought in Slack. Though, I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. I still hate "Hello" and "Hi" messages though. It baits a response without putting in any groundwork for me to understand what a person wants. Just say what you need. > Them: "Hello" > Me: "What's up?" > Them: "Are you available now?" > Me: "Yes... What do you need?" Flows like this make me come off as an asshole because I'm annoyed by the tedious nature of the conversation. Tell me what you need so I can know how to respond. > Them: "Hey, when you have minute, can you take a look at the database?" > Me: "Sure thing. Can do in about 15 minutes" ^ this is way easier to work with for me
- djrogers 6y ago
  > I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. No. Slack does not know if I’m at my desk, busy, or even taking a protected me-time lunch break. And no, you cannot expect me to manually update my status in Slack, Teams, Zoom, and every other communication tool I’m forced to use every time I walk upstairs to nuke my coffee or use the bathroom. Just ask your question, and wait fir a response. If you need me RIGHT NOW, then pick up your dang phone and call me.
  - kempbellt 6y ago
    Slack sets you to "Away/Offline" after 10 minutes of inactivity by default, and by "relatively quickly" I mean, within an hour or two. If you can't close Slack or update your status to let people know you are unavailable for long periods of time, what is the point of being on Slack? Or a team for that matter? Barring an emergency, I'm not going to call someone directly because they're too busy working to (team)work. If you can't play nicely on a team then maybe a different job is for you?
Frost1x 6y ago
Yup, if you want synchronous communication with me it better be an emergency or you better be an important person in my life, otherwise, you get async communication. A lot of things are better handled asynchronously and timing is often abused and exploited in synchronous communication by the person initiating it. They want to pressure you on the spot to make a decision or choice you otherwise would rather think about. They want to use well planned out strategies and game you with social or culture pressures to manipulate you into doing something you otherwise wouldn't. I limit synchronous communication to those I either have to or those I enjoy to be around and aren't there to try and exploit me for some reason. If you're new, you get some leeway but quickly progress one direction or the other as I decide which list you get chucked into.
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
Oh I have one friend like this. He's lurking there and typing occasionally "Hi" when he feels I might be there. I know that if I answer immediately, I'll lose half an hour of my life. So after seeing the message I deliberately wait a few hours, and then answer "hi" and immediately log out. I consider it rude to demand someone's attention for an extended period of time without asking for it first. At the beginning of synchronous communication I always ask "Can I take N minutes of your time?" - this allows the interlocutor to evaluate the situation and make an informed decision. At the same time I feel we should develop the culture "it is perfectly fine to be a nice and well-behaved person and not to answer phone calls at all, only returning them when possible".
- bitcurious 6y ago
  > I consider it rude to demand someone's attention for an extended period of time without asking for it first. “Hi, busy atm.” You’ve built this whole strategy, and are judging your friend as rude, to avoid this phrase. Be explicit or accept people as they are.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    First, I would have to reply “Hi, busy atm” each time. Second, it's not true, I simply prefer asynchronous communication whether I have time or not.
- djur 6y ago
  If I felt that talking to a person for a half hour amounted to "losing" that time, I would not use the word "friend" to describe our relationship.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  > I consider it rude to demand someone's attention for an extended period of time without asking for it first. You know that that's why he's saying 'hi' right? It's his way of asking before taking your attention. And if you don't want to, you can just wait until you do, or say 'sorry, busy'. From what you say, it sounds like you both think that the other person is rude, but that you are doing it on purpose.
JackFr 6y ago
> many people that do a naked "hi" / "hey" are trying to see if the receiver is present The metaphorical "You up?"
munchbunny 6y ago
I feel like there’s a pretty straightforward answer to this. Rather than straight asking the question, you can ask for whether they have a moment to chat about _____. If you send that, now I know you’re asking for a synchronous conversation, and I can just say yes or no or “how about later?”
dorkwood 6y ago
> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. I'm trying really hard to understand this mindset. What sort of question either needs to be answered immediately or not at all?
- tene 6y ago
  Personally, I always try to give people all the details up-front, but here are some rough situations where I'm likely to give people a very short summary instead of a full verbose request for reasons like you asked about: If they respond immediately they can save me 30 minutes of work, but if not I'll be done doing it the slow way by the time they get back to me. I'm making slow progress on a tricky problem. If I write a summary now, it would be theories I'm trying to disprove and evidence that currently seems relevant, but that summary will be less useful and accurate as the situation evolves and I better learn about the issue. I can be unblocked on this task in three different ways, so I've reached out to three different people. I'll ask for help from whoever responds first. I don't know if this is going to take me 30 minutes, or 3 days to figure out, but I'll keep working on it until I do. If it's still a problem when you get back to me, I'll ask for help then, but there's a good chance I might have solved it myself by the time you get back to me. I'm dealing with an outage, and it's very time-sensitive. I don't have time to waste writing stuff up if you're not here to help out right now. If you show up while it's still broken, great! If you show up after the outage is fixed, I don't need your help anymore. I'm not calling you, because if you're not currently at your computer, you probably can't help me in the timeframe I need.
  - dorkwood 6y ago
    Thanks for your response. I suppose the biggest problem I have with this approach is that its goal appears to be saving as much time as possible for the message sender, with little regard for the time of the message receiver. Several of the message recipients will eventually need to be told "never mind, I fixed it". By employing this strategy, you need to accept that you will be interrupting at least some people for no reason, every single time, and I don't think that's fair. A problem that could potentially be solved by three people feels like it would be better suited for a public channel. Why is pinging three different people with a "hello" message better than posting "does anyone with experience in X or Y have time to help me with Z" in the developer channel?
llaolleh 6y ago
This is something I have not considered before. I've always thought chat was a medium where you can go asynchronous at any time. This indicates a failure in design. If they want a sync chat, then there should be an easy UI element for it.
- retrac 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure "... is typing right now" messages are meant to aid that synchronous style. Though, I have a habit of leaving half-typed messages in the buffer which drives my friends and colleagues nuts.
fossuser 6y ago
Is it harsh to say that the people I know who do this are also just not as sharp generally? I’m not sure if this is unique to me, but there’s a tight correlation between people who send naked initial “hi” messages and people who can be more tedious to work with. I’d also wonder if it’s related to being bad at typing.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  I don't think they're any less "sharp" in general; it's just a lazier communication style that offloads (perhaps unintentionally) some of the work onto the other person. to be effective at async communication, you have to not only ask your question, but also anticipate all the context that person will need to give a good answer. then you do your best to condense that into a clear and concise initial message. in synchronous communication, I find that much more often the asker just asks their question and expects the recipient to come up with all the pertinent followup questions themselves. the asker might even feel they are more productive in this mode, since they don't have to account for the time/effort needed to gather context.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    > "to be effective at async communication, you have to not only ask your question, but also anticipate all the context that person will need to give a good answer. then you do your best to condense that into a clear and concise initial message." I'd argue this skill is also what makes a person good at basically doing anything and the better you are at it, the 'sharper' you'll be. Thinking clearly and accurately modeling surrounding context is a prerequisite for doing it well. I'd guess it aligns with being generally smarter. I agree with what you're saying, I just think it's even more evidence that it's tied to general sharpness.
dakial1 6y ago
I do that. And my main reason is not to have a synched conversation, but first to see it the recipient is responsive before I ask the question, usually, a tough question that the recipient might want to dodge or procrastinate. So if I ask everything at the same time, he might never answer, dodge it and say "sorry I didn't see your message". Basically, I use hello as a trap.
- jbay808 6y ago
  Don't be surprised if your colleagues start to very frequently say "sorry I didn't see your hello", six or seven hours or even multiple days late.
- cadence- 6y ago
  This kind of behavior is usually a result of some other, more fundamental problem within your team. You would probably benefit from some kind of team building activity that would repair trust among your team members. Using hello as a trap will only make things worse over time and people will dislike working with you.
- oauea 6y ago
  Sounds like you're actively trying to annoy your coworkers, you probably shouldn't do that.
fukmbas 6y ago
This is why I answer Teams chats on my own accord, notifications are disabled. I'm not paid to sit in chat rooms and answer questions. Submit a ticket or send an email. I determine what is a priority
ryanbrunner 6y ago
The thing is, as mean as this may sound, sometimes whether I'm available for a synchronous conversation entirely depends on what's being asked. Is a customer pissed off, or something crashing? Of course I'm available. If it's "what do you think about this feature a minor customer asked for", I'm more than happy to answer it, but I'm not going to drop whatever I'm doing to answer it right now. When you just say "hello" and wait for a response, it prevents me from taking the seriousness of the request into consideration.
oauea 6y ago
The trick is to not respond until they say what they want. If they later complain, say you didn't have time for a friendly conversation. Alternatively, if you're not busy, respond but steer the conversation to topics like the weather.
airstrike 6y ago
The solution is: "Hi jasode, do you have a few minutes to talk about X. I'm available after 2pm. Please let me know what time works for you. Thanks"
jbay808 6y ago
"Hey are you around? I have a quick question that I need an answer for right away. If you don't reply in the next 5 minutes then no worries, I'll ask Jim next. Anyway here's the question: {...}"
neilpanchal 6y ago
When I used to work at Intel, the whole company AFAIK had a standardized way to check if someone is available for a synchronous chat: "IM?" or "May I IM?" Everybody used it when synchronous chat was necessary. I thought it was great standardization over just simply "Hi".
lisper 6y ago
It's not just a question of personal preference. I often find myself in situations where I can solve a problem in <1 min if I can ask someone a question. I also know I can solve it without their help, but it will take me many tens of minutes (as I reverse-engineer their code or something like that). In a situation like that it makes sense for me to inquire if they can answer my question now, but an asynchronous inquiry will probably be a waste of their time because by the time they get around to answering it I will have figured it out on my own already.
- Arainach 6y ago
  Then include that in your initial message. Awful: "Hey" Bad: "Hey, are you around?" Tolerable: "I have a question about foo" Good: "How does foo audit log requests?" Great: "How does foo audit log requests? If you don't know offhand, no problem - I'll keep looking at baz"
  - lisper 6y ago
    The problem with your "great" formulation is that my interlocutor does know, and I know she knows (because she wrote the code). What I don't know is whether she is in a position to give me an answer right now, which is what I need for it to do me any good. So I usually open with "Ping..." which everyone I deal with knows means, "Are you in the mood to be bothered with a quick question that needs an immediate answer?" And I only do this with people I know prefer chat over email all else being equal because they will initiate chats with me. Otherwise I go straight to email.
    - Arainach 6y ago
      Then just say "never mind, figured it out" when it's no longer relevant.
      - lisper 6y ago
        There is another consideration: composing an inquiry designed for asynchronous comms requires a lot more effort than synchronous. If I know the exchange is going to be synchronous I can be a lot more sloppy in my formulation because I know I'll be there to clarify ambiguities, provide missing info, etc. in real time. If it's going to be asynchronous I have to put a lot more effort into making sure that the inquiry is self-contained, unambiguous, etc.
ozim 6y ago
Well there is bunch of situations where: I can ask something and if someone can answer immediately I am done. If I send the question and wait for response I waste time. If I send the question and work on it, I will be halfway done or in some other state then I got stuck so when person answers my request, it might not be a valid question anymore. If I start working on something else I break my context and sharing screen what else gets harder. When I ask "Hi are you there.", keep working on thing I am stuck I can ask more specific question when person replies, because then I might have checked two or more things. Most important thing is, if person does not reply, I am not getting mad or annoyed, she has more important things to do so OK.
kstrauser 6y ago
Where that breaks down is that I literally never reply to “hey”. It just sits out there, unread, until the sender follows up or we start another conversation.
abeppu 6y ago
> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. But if I'm not immediately available, they'll presumably need to ask someone else, or accept that they have to wait for a reply. Either way they will need to type the question at some point. So type it now, and if I don't immediately reply, paste the same question to the next person, etc or better yet put it in a channel, where my teammates can jump in. And frankly, the norm that people should try to ask a clear question, or frame an actionable request up front often seems to improve the understanding of the requesting party. I've many times had the experience where pulling together the relevant info to frame a question answers it, or fully describing a task reveals a way to streamline it.
yaur 6y ago
There are plenty of times when a synchronous or time sensitive communication is needed and in those cases a proper first message in slack is something like "production is down" or "we have a customer call in an hour and I need an update on issue X" as those types of messages communicate clearly that I need to drop (or wrap up) what I'm doing an attend to your needs. If you say "hello" instead you are immediately telling me that your issue isn't an emergency, but that you want me to treat it like one. I just ignore these and if the person goes on to ask their question I'll deal with it when I have time.
zamalek 6y ago
> In other words, the sender deliberately wants a synchronous instead of asynchronous convo. "Hello" is a pretty bad negotiation protocol for that. At best, the person is online and can initiate synchronous communication (but has to sit around and wait before they can start thinking about your desired context), at worst you get stuck in an endless loop of "Sure, you there?" Furthermore, what if the person wasn't available right now? Do they simply ignore your "Hello?" That would seem more rude. In addition, and ultimately, if the sync communication negotiation fails, you're probably going to have to fall back to async; so you may as well leave the door open to that. "Hey, just want to chat quickly about that thing, if you're not around I'll ask Alice." That contains the full description of what you want, is concise, and will allow the recipient to not waste their time. The way I see IM is that every conversation starts with what would be a subject line in an email if a longer conversation is required (whether sync or async). This gets everyone thinking about the context right away and improves your ability to search for that conversation in the log.
ehutch79 6y ago
What you say seems to make sense. but the reality tends to be more: 10:15: Them: Hello 10:!5: Me: Hey! What's up. 10:34: Them: Can I ask you a question 10:34: Me: Sure, what's up? 12:15: Them: I'm having a problem with [insert software] 12:15: Me: What's the problem? 12:45: Them: It's not working. ..... 5 hours later... 18:41: Them: Do you think it's because i didn't fill out this field marked required?
hamburglar 6y ago
My workplace has developed the "nohello" culture to the point where I've noticed a new evolution of "Hi," which is "Hi. Do you know <some question that they know I can answer immediately>?" Then they jump into a much more time-consuming question/argument/issue when they know they've got you in a sync conversation. Boom, you've been StealthHello'd. :D
powersnail 6y ago
Yes, I think a better way would be to say “hello, I’d like to have a quick chat with you about XXX. When are you available?” Just “hello” seems to be rather curt.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I find email far superior to messages for general communication, and think it should be the default. People tend to abuse things like slack. Sure YOU want your issue/idea addressed immediately, generally I don't have the bandwidth to handle issues immediately and tend to queue them up and I'll get back with the person. I am a very focused person and constant interruptions turn me off, so I turn slack notifications off and kind of treat it like email as well and check every few hours unless I'm working with someone on something in the NOW.
rdiddly 6y ago
Funnily enough, at my last company they actively promoted/encouraged these "polite" openers as part of IM etiquette. The most popular was simply "IM?" i.e. are you ready/available/etc. to engage in "instant"[0] messaging with me? I felt like just saying "no" plenty of times, but that seems too rude, so the most I would ever say besides "yes" was something like "give me 60 sec" or "give me 5 min." Sometimes you gotta finish shit and get to a stopping point or it's just an infinitely recursive interruption stack. [0] Not really instant, because "So-and-so is typing," and your productivity is hostage to their typing skills.

by jasode 6y ago

mackatsol 6y ago

Thank you. I never thought of it that way before. Much appreciated.

jethro_tell 6y ago

For me, it can also be a privacy thing. Sometimes I want to validate that my chat is not going to got onto a presenters screen somewhere.

hedora 6y ago
This is why I use slack in a web browser, and don’t give it permission to display notifications. I wish there was a way to permanently disable the “you have disabled notifications” prompts though.
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
  Hmm I just disabled notifications in the normal slack client. Not sure why you would use the web browser?
  - fragmede 6y ago
    It's not that notifications can't be disabled by clicking a few extra buttons, it's that those extra buttons are outside the usual workflow. Going into presentation mode in Keynote/Powerpoint/Google Slides doesn't also go into the slack client and disable them, nor does it for other programs that pop up notifications (eg skype, windows update/app store updater), and why should it? Keeping slack confined to the web browser sets this boundary neatly, so long as you don't also allow the web page to display notifications (which chrome will do if you let it).
piinbinary 6y ago
The fact that the following messages shouldn't be shown publicly is useful information to convey, and I feel like conveying that avoids wasting the first message -- If it explicitly says that what follows needs to be private. (The recipient needs more than "hi" to know that what follows is private)
- kube-system 6y ago
  Not necessarily. The context of the presentation and/or the sender could be enough to determine that.
rvanmil 6y ago
This is a serious issue with the massive increase in video calls and screen sharing (and people being oblivious to or not caring about this). Not just chat but also email notifications with previews. This has become something I actively consider before communicating by text instead of calling someone. It would be great if teams, zoom etc could automatically and by default prevent any notifications from popping into a shared screen. And then there’s still the people who leave their mail and chat opened and just cmd-tab through them or leave them on screen while sharing... oh well :)
- fragmede 6y ago
  FWIW, OS X has a do not disturb toggle for this very reason. It's slightly hidden, but easily found with Google. That many people don't bother, is just how people are :/

JulianMorrison 6y ago

Wanting a synchronous conversation is a pretty arrogant grab of someone else's time. This is also why phoning me is bad and please use texts like a civilised person.

eganist 6y ago
> Wanting a synchronous conversation is a pretty arrogant grab of someone else's time. This is an assumption, and not always a valid one. There are plenty of circumstances where synchronous comms are warranted, such as when matters are urgent for all parties or when the respondent has a reputation for losing track of async comms. Editing to add: I agree that "hey" and "hi" etc. are terrible openings. However, openings (incidentally also discouraged by the linked article) such as: > × "Hello, are you around?" > × "hi sophie - quick question." > × "You got a sec?" are absolutely fine in that they imply a level of urgency and need for synchronized communication. If someone's ideologically against it and inflexible towards accommodating urgency where appropriate, it's a productivity red flag. And I'm speaking as a modestly introverted manager who tries to avoid sync comms unless absolutely needed, but the thread seems to have gone off the deep end by arguing that sync comms are absolutely unnecessary.
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  Those are good reasons for phoning, yes, but even then you'd be better if you're stuck in text to start off with as much urgent information as possible. "Hi Bob, the wobbulator sprocket is on fire and I need to you defusticate the gonksnaffler immediately."
  - eganist 6y ago
    Unless the matter has an ephemerality requirement, in which case I message seeking immediate availability and then transition to a phone call. A signal call if the matter needs to be both ephemeral and confidential. Insisting on asynchronous communication for All The Things™ concerns me in that it shows that a person isn't adaptable to varying criticalities and sensitivities. The same goes for insisting on synchronous communication. TL;DR they both have their place, and they will always both have their place regardless of any one person's preference.

todd_t 6y ago

> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. Then send it in an email.

eganist 6y ago
Depends on the mode of communication that's been determined to be most reliable with the person in question. I've resorted to synchronous comms when the other party is notoriously bad at responding async. ...which would likely persist regardless of whether the request is emailed or messaged.
watwut 6y ago
So that answer returns in few days if ever? Perfect plan.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  If I’m the type of person to get annoyed at a carrier-only “hi”, I’m not going to give you a fast response to your content-free interruption either.

signal11 6y ago

For immediate replies I’d usually use “you there?” or “free for a quick chat?”. The naked greeting is just begging to get ignored.

ballenf 6y ago
Or just ask the question and when your internal timer goes off, follow up with some polite version of “nvm”.
eganist 6y ago
The linked page advocates against these on the same premise, which is my primary challenge with it. It ignores urgency.
- oauea 6y ago
  If it's urgent then you should probably take a few seconds to explain why.
  - eganist 6y ago
    Probably, yes, but not always. It depends on the matter.
    - oauea 6y ago
      If you didn't, then I'll be forced to assume it's not important. At least you clearly didn't care enough to put in a tiny amount of effort.
      - eganist 6y ago
        > If you didn't, then I'll be forced to assume it's not important. At least you clearly didn't care enough to put in a tiny amount of effort. That's your prerogative, but it also exposes you to corporate risk if it in fact was a sensitive matter with urgency and it's deemed that the necessary communication attempts were made. Deciding right off the top that communication isn't urgent takes precedent. If it's the first time they're messaging you, best not to chance the urgency until they have a track record with you.

adrianmonk 6y ago

That motivation is logical, but I think it's more considerate to type out just a few words so the recipient has some idea what's up. For example, "hi, i have a question about web config files" or "hi, i need help with a SQL query" or "hi, we may have a production issue" or "hi, i want to propose a change to how we do builds". This allows the recipient to prioritize. Just because they are present doesn't mean that now is a good time for every conversation.

kijin 6y ago
In my experience, people who prefer synchronous communication are much more likely than those who prefer async to think that now is always a good time to have whatever conversation they want to have. Therefore, asking them to consider whether now is a good time will not make any difference. That condition always returns true for them.
dheera 6y ago
Totally agree. I also hate it when people assume that I'm synchronous even though I may respond quickly to the first query by chance. I usually periodically take breaks to batch process all instant messages and then mute notifications until the next break. If I've already responded to your first question chances are I won't return to your chat window until the next break. I'm also not opposed to synchronous conversations, it just needs to be scheduled. So the first question should not be "Hey how was your weekend" but rather "Hey how was your weekend, and what time this afternoon could you spend 30 minutes with me chatting about (A) (B) (C)"
cgriswald 6y ago
I'm not sure whether we agree or not, but I disagree with your examples. It's not enough to categorize your need, you should at the very least summarize your needs. Including an urgency and a reason why you need the person's feedback or help would not go amiss. > "hi, we may have a production issue" Do we or don't we? How urgent is it? Do you need help with the issue or do you need help determining whether there is an issue? I have no idea, so I have to drop what I'm doing to find out because you said the magic word 'production'.
6y ago

wruza 6y ago

They should learn to cut the crap and summarize, a good skill.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Yeah one thing that annoys me even more is "cold-calling".. E.g. ringing me on teams without asking if I'm there first. One of the good things about remote working is that I can finally concentrate on stuff without constant interruptions.

iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
Haha I can understand why that bothers you of course, but I find it amusing that I feel exactly the opposite way. I would usually much prefer that someone try phoning me or (of initiating a call on slack or zoom) that go through the "hi, time to chat? When is good, etc?" Slack has icons to indicate availability, if mine is green, I really wish people would just call.
- oauea 6y ago
  You seriously want people to completely distract you from whatever you're doing, using loud noises and popups? If my status is green it means people can send me a message, and expect a response within a reasonable amount of time. Any calls will be instantly declined with a message, "Why are you calling me??"
  - iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
    I'm easily distracted so getting a message breaks my focus anyway. If that's going to happen, I'd rather it happen in one call than in a prolonged back and forth by chat, and then eventually a call. If I really need to focus I just turn notifications off.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Yeah good point... It depends on the role too, I think.. I tend to do in-depth technical work and as such I need to concentrate often. Basically this thing: https://imgur.com/xvNRKIT https://imgur.com/xvNRKIT I can imagine that if you're in a more collaborative role, this can be completely different. And yes I hate it more when I'm on Busy. In our company the status seems to matter none at all.. Even when I'm on Do Not Disturb (one grade more than Busy) people tend to keep pinging when I don't answer.

zelos 6y ago

But what it means is that they then take up more of the other person’s time as they sit and watch the typing notification. At least have the question ready typed so you can copy paste it into the message box.

ninad 6y ago

Coincidentally, I created hellomenot.com to solve a similar problem i experienced at work. My observation is as follows: Why do people leave it at Hello? Conversations are the most natural way of communicating – when talking to someone in-person, one often starts talking only after we have their full attention, we wait for them to either nod, or make a sound, or look at you, right? now, because chatting on tools like Flock or Slack is very similar like talking in person – our brain is hard wired to wait before we have the attention of the person we’re talking to.

ineedasername 6y ago

don't want to answer the phone That's me too, but conversely WFH over the last 10 months with zoom has made me more amenable to having meetings. Because when there is a need to talk synced, we can do it and have just a 15 minute meeting and that's all. IRL, it seems like people are reluctant to schedule any block shorter than half an hour and typically go 10-15 minutes longer than scheduled, combined with working in a large area where I might have to walk 10 minutes back and forth to the meeting location. Rarely would any meeting eat less than 1.5 hours of my time. Now, it can sing be 15 minutes.

krick 6y ago

I don't care, but FWIW, I often don't reply anything at all until the messenger doesn't elaborate on his greetings, even if I'm present and could answer otherwise. I mean, if he doesn't, he probably didn't need it that much anyway...

kempbellt 6y ago

This is a common theme in my workplace. Especially with everyone working remote and odd hours these days. We use both email and Slack, but most conversations tend to be asynchronous regardless and I frequently wonder why we even have an instant messenger. That said, I find that even if a message is asynchronous, it is much easier to track conversation flow via slack than email. Reply chains and indentations get messy and become an eye sore to navigate. If I write, "Hey, did you do that thing?" and don't hear "Yep, it's done" for a day, I can more easily see the flow of thought in Slack. Though, I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. I still hate "Hello" and "Hi" messages though. It baits a response without putting in any groundwork for me to understand what a person wants. Just say what you need. > Them: "Hello" > Me: "What's up?" > Them: "Are you available now?" > Me: "Yes... What do you need?" Flows like this make me come off as an asshole because I'm annoyed by the tedious nature of the conversation. Tell me what you need so I can know how to respond. > Them: "Hey, when you have minute, can you take a look at the database?" > Me: "Sure thing. Can do in about 15 minutes" ^ this is way easier to work with for me

djrogers 6y ago
> I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. No. Slack does not know if I’m at my desk, busy, or even taking a protected me-time lunch break. And no, you cannot expect me to manually update my status in Slack, Teams, Zoom, and every other communication tool I’m forced to use every time I walk upstairs to nuke my coffee or use the bathroom. Just ask your question, and wait fir a response. If you need me RIGHT NOW, then pick up your dang phone and call me.
- kempbellt 6y ago
  Slack sets you to "Away/Offline" after 10 minutes of inactivity by default, and by "relatively quickly" I mean, within an hour or two. If you can't close Slack or update your status to let people know you are unavailable for long periods of time, what is the point of being on Slack? Or a team for that matter? Barring an emergency, I'm not going to call someone directly because they're too busy working to (team)work. If you can't play nicely on a team then maybe a different job is for you?

Frost1x 6y ago

Yup, if you want synchronous communication with me it better be an emergency or you better be an important person in my life, otherwise, you get async communication. A lot of things are better handled asynchronously and timing is often abused and exploited in synchronous communication by the person initiating it. They want to pressure you on the spot to make a decision or choice you otherwise would rather think about. They want to use well planned out strategies and game you with social or culture pressures to manipulate you into doing something you otherwise wouldn't. I limit synchronous communication to those I either have to or those I enjoy to be around and aren't there to try and exploit me for some reason. If you're new, you get some leeway but quickly progress one direction or the other as I decide which list you get chucked into.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

Oh I have one friend like this. He's lurking there and typing occasionally "Hi" when he feels I might be there. I know that if I answer immediately, I'll lose half an hour of my life. So after seeing the message I deliberately wait a few hours, and then answer "hi" and immediately log out. I consider it rude to demand someone's attention for an extended period of time without asking for it first. At the beginning of synchronous communication I always ask "Can I take N minutes of your time?" - this allows the interlocutor to evaluate the situation and make an informed decision. At the same time I feel we should develop the culture "it is perfectly fine to be a nice and well-behaved person and not to answer phone calls at all, only returning them when possible".

bitcurious 6y ago
> I consider it rude to demand someone's attention for an extended period of time without asking for it first. “Hi, busy atm.” You’ve built this whole strategy, and are judging your friend as rude, to avoid this phrase. Be explicit or accept people as they are.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  First, I would have to reply “Hi, busy atm” each time. Second, it's not true, I simply prefer asynchronous communication whether I have time or not.
djur 6y ago
If I felt that talking to a person for a half hour amounted to "losing" that time, I would not use the word "friend" to describe our relationship.
kybernetikos 6y ago
> I consider it rude to demand someone's attention for an extended period of time without asking for it first. You know that that's why he's saying 'hi' right? It's his way of asking before taking your attention. And if you don't want to, you can just wait until you do, or say 'sorry, busy'. From what you say, it sounds like you both think that the other person is rude, but that you are doing it on purpose.

JackFr 6y ago

> many people that do a naked "hi" / "hey" are trying to see if the receiver is present The metaphorical "You up?"

munchbunny 6y ago

I feel like there’s a pretty straightforward answer to this. Rather than straight asking the question, you can ask for whether they have a moment to chat about _____. If you send that, now I know you’re asking for a synchronous conversation, and I can just say yes or no or “how about later?”

dorkwood 6y ago

> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. I'm trying really hard to understand this mindset. What sort of question either needs to be answered immediately or not at all?

tene 6y ago
Personally, I always try to give people all the details up-front, but here are some rough situations where I'm likely to give people a very short summary instead of a full verbose request for reasons like you asked about: If they respond immediately they can save me 30 minutes of work, but if not I'll be done doing it the slow way by the time they get back to me. I'm making slow progress on a tricky problem. If I write a summary now, it would be theories I'm trying to disprove and evidence that currently seems relevant, but that summary will be less useful and accurate as the situation evolves and I better learn about the issue. I can be unblocked on this task in three different ways, so I've reached out to three different people. I'll ask for help from whoever responds first. I don't know if this is going to take me 30 minutes, or 3 days to figure out, but I'll keep working on it until I do. If it's still a problem when you get back to me, I'll ask for help then, but there's a good chance I might have solved it myself by the time you get back to me. I'm dealing with an outage, and it's very time-sensitive. I don't have time to waste writing stuff up if you're not here to help out right now. If you show up while it's still broken, great! If you show up after the outage is fixed, I don't need your help anymore. I'm not calling you, because if you're not currently at your computer, you probably can't help me in the timeframe I need.
- dorkwood 6y ago
  Thanks for your response. I suppose the biggest problem I have with this approach is that its goal appears to be saving as much time as possible for the message sender, with little regard for the time of the message receiver. Several of the message recipients will eventually need to be told "never mind, I fixed it". By employing this strategy, you need to accept that you will be interrupting at least some people for no reason, every single time, and I don't think that's fair. A problem that could potentially be solved by three people feels like it would be better suited for a public channel. Why is pinging three different people with a "hello" message better than posting "does anyone with experience in X or Y have time to help me with Z" in the developer channel?

llaolleh 6y ago

This is something I have not considered before. I've always thought chat was a medium where you can go asynchronous at any time. This indicates a failure in design. If they want a sync chat, then there should be an easy UI element for it.

retrac 6y ago
I'm pretty sure "... is typing right now" messages are meant to aid that synchronous style. Though, I have a habit of leaving half-typed messages in the buffer which drives my friends and colleagues nuts.

fossuser 6y ago

Is it harsh to say that the people I know who do this are also just not as sharp generally? I’m not sure if this is unique to me, but there’s a tight correlation between people who send naked initial “hi” messages and people who can be more tedious to work with. I’d also wonder if it’s related to being bad at typing.

leetcrew 6y ago
I don't think they're any less "sharp" in general; it's just a lazier communication style that offloads (perhaps unintentionally) some of the work onto the other person. to be effective at async communication, you have to not only ask your question, but also anticipate all the context that person will need to give a good answer. then you do your best to condense that into a clear and concise initial message. in synchronous communication, I find that much more often the asker just asks their question and expects the recipient to come up with all the pertinent followup questions themselves. the asker might even feel they are more productive in this mode, since they don't have to account for the time/effort needed to gather context.
- fossuser 6y ago
  > "to be effective at async communication, you have to not only ask your question, but also anticipate all the context that person will need to give a good answer. then you do your best to condense that into a clear and concise initial message." I'd argue this skill is also what makes a person good at basically doing anything and the better you are at it, the 'sharper' you'll be. Thinking clearly and accurately modeling surrounding context is a prerequisite for doing it well. I'd guess it aligns with being generally smarter. I agree with what you're saying, I just think it's even more evidence that it's tied to general sharpness.

dakial1 6y ago

I do that. And my main reason is not to have a synched conversation, but first to see it the recipient is responsive before I ask the question, usually, a tough question that the recipient might want to dodge or procrastinate. So if I ask everything at the same time, he might never answer, dodge it and say "sorry I didn't see your message". Basically, I use hello as a trap.

jbay808 6y ago
Don't be surprised if your colleagues start to very frequently say "sorry I didn't see your hello", six or seven hours or even multiple days late.
cadence- 6y ago
This kind of behavior is usually a result of some other, more fundamental problem within your team. You would probably benefit from some kind of team building activity that would repair trust among your team members. Using hello as a trap will only make things worse over time and people will dislike working with you.
oauea 6y ago
Sounds like you're actively trying to annoy your coworkers, you probably shouldn't do that.

fukmbas 6y ago

This is why I answer Teams chats on my own accord, notifications are disabled. I'm not paid to sit in chat rooms and answer questions. Submit a ticket or send an email. I determine what is a priority

ryanbrunner 6y ago

The thing is, as mean as this may sound, sometimes whether I'm available for a synchronous conversation entirely depends on what's being asked. Is a customer pissed off, or something crashing? Of course I'm available. If it's "what do you think about this feature a minor customer asked for", I'm more than happy to answer it, but I'm not going to drop whatever I'm doing to answer it right now. When you just say "hello" and wait for a response, it prevents me from taking the seriousness of the request into consideration.

oauea 6y ago

The trick is to not respond until they say what they want. If they later complain, say you didn't have time for a friendly conversation. Alternatively, if you're not busy, respond but steer the conversation to topics like the weather.

airstrike 6y ago

The solution is: "Hi jasode, do you have a few minutes to talk about X. I'm available after 2pm. Please let me know what time works for you. Thanks"

jbay808 6y ago

"Hey are you around? I have a quick question that I need an answer for right away. If you don't reply in the next 5 minutes then no worries, I'll ask Jim next. Anyway here's the question: {...}"

neilpanchal 6y ago

When I used to work at Intel, the whole company AFAIK had a standardized way to check if someone is available for a synchronous chat: "IM?" or "May I IM?" Everybody used it when synchronous chat was necessary. I thought it was great standardization over just simply "Hi".

lisper 6y ago

It's not just a question of personal preference. I often find myself in situations where I can solve a problem in <1 min if I can ask someone a question. I also know I can solve it without their help, but it will take me many tens of minutes (as I reverse-engineer their code or something like that). In a situation like that it makes sense for me to inquire if they can answer my question now, but an asynchronous inquiry will probably be a waste of their time because by the time they get around to answering it I will have figured it out on my own already.

Arainach 6y ago
Then include that in your initial message. Awful: "Hey" Bad: "Hey, are you around?" Tolerable: "I have a question about foo" Good: "How does foo audit log requests?" Great: "How does foo audit log requests? If you don't know offhand, no problem - I'll keep looking at baz"
- lisper 6y ago
  The problem with your "great" formulation is that my interlocutor does know, and I know she knows (because she wrote the code). What I don't know is whether she is in a position to give me an answer right now, which is what I need for it to do me any good. So I usually open with "Ping..." which everyone I deal with knows means, "Are you in the mood to be bothered with a quick question that needs an immediate answer?" And I only do this with people I know prefer chat over email all else being equal because they will initiate chats with me. Otherwise I go straight to email.
  - Arainach 6y ago
    Then just say "never mind, figured it out" when it's no longer relevant.
    - lisper 6y ago
      There is another consideration: composing an inquiry designed for asynchronous comms requires a lot more effort than synchronous. If I know the exchange is going to be synchronous I can be a lot more sloppy in my formulation because I know I'll be there to clarify ambiguities, provide missing info, etc. in real time. If it's going to be asynchronous I have to put a lot more effort into making sure that the inquiry is self-contained, unambiguous, etc.

ozim 6y ago

Well there is bunch of situations where: I can ask something and if someone can answer immediately I am done. If I send the question and wait for response I waste time. If I send the question and work on it, I will be halfway done or in some other state then I got stuck so when person answers my request, it might not be a valid question anymore. If I start working on something else I break my context and sharing screen what else gets harder. When I ask "Hi are you there.", keep working on thing I am stuck I can ask more specific question when person replies, because then I might have checked two or more things. Most important thing is, if person does not reply, I am not getting mad or annoyed, she has more important things to do so OK.

kstrauser 6y ago

Where that breaks down is that I literally never reply to “hey”. It just sits out there, unread, until the sender follows up or we start another conversation.

abeppu 6y ago

> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. But if I'm not immediately available, they'll presumably need to ask someone else, or accept that they have to wait for a reply. Either way they will need to type the question at some point. So type it now, and if I don't immediately reply, paste the same question to the next person, etc or better yet put it in a channel, where my teammates can jump in. And frankly, the norm that people should try to ask a clear question, or frame an actionable request up front often seems to improve the understanding of the requesting party. I've many times had the experience where pulling together the relevant info to frame a question answers it, or fully describing a task reveals a way to streamline it.

yaur 6y ago

There are plenty of times when a synchronous or time sensitive communication is needed and in those cases a proper first message in slack is something like "production is down" or "we have a customer call in an hour and I need an update on issue X" as those types of messages communicate clearly that I need to drop (or wrap up) what I'm doing an attend to your needs. If you say "hello" instead you are immediately telling me that your issue isn't an emergency, but that you want me to treat it like one. I just ignore these and if the person goes on to ask their question I'll deal with it when I have time.

zamalek 6y ago

> In other words, the sender deliberately wants a synchronous instead of asynchronous convo. "Hello" is a pretty bad negotiation protocol for that. At best, the person is online and can initiate synchronous communication (but has to sit around and wait before they can start thinking about your desired context), at worst you get stuck in an endless loop of "Sure, you there?" Furthermore, what if the person wasn't available right now? Do they simply ignore your "Hello?" That would seem more rude. In addition, and ultimately, if the sync communication negotiation fails, you're probably going to have to fall back to async; so you may as well leave the door open to that. "Hey, just want to chat quickly about that thing, if you're not around I'll ask Alice." That contains the full description of what you want, is concise, and will allow the recipient to not waste their time. The way I see IM is that every conversation starts with what would be a subject line in an email if a longer conversation is required (whether sync or async). This gets everyone thinking about the context right away and improves your ability to search for that conversation in the log.

ehutch79 6y ago

What you say seems to make sense. but the reality tends to be more: 10:15: Them: Hello 10:!5: Me: Hey! What's up. 10:34: Them: Can I ask you a question 10:34: Me: Sure, what's up? 12:15: Them: I'm having a problem with [insert software] 12:15: Me: What's the problem? 12:45: Them: It's not working. ..... 5 hours later... 18:41: Them: Do you think it's because i didn't fill out this field marked required?

hamburglar 6y ago

My workplace has developed the "nohello" culture to the point where I've noticed a new evolution of "Hi," which is "Hi. Do you know <some question that they know I can answer immediately>?" Then they jump into a much more time-consuming question/argument/issue when they know they've got you in a sync conversation. Boom, you've been StealthHello'd. :D

powersnail 6y ago

Yes, I think a better way would be to say “hello, I’d like to have a quick chat with you about XXX. When are you available?” Just “hello” seems to be rather curt.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I find email far superior to messages for general communication, and think it should be the default. People tend to abuse things like slack. Sure YOU want your issue/idea addressed immediately, generally I don't have the bandwidth to handle issues immediately and tend to queue them up and I'll get back with the person. I am a very focused person and constant interruptions turn me off, so I turn slack notifications off and kind of treat it like email as well and check every few hours unless I'm working with someone on something in the NOW.

rdiddly 6y ago

Funnily enough, at my last company they actively promoted/encouraged these "polite" openers as part of IM etiquette. The most popular was simply "IM?" i.e. are you ready/available/etc. to engage in "instant"[0] messaging with me? I felt like just saying "no" plenty of times, but that seems too rude, so the most I would ever say besides "yes" was something like "give me 60 sec" or "give me 5 min." Sometimes you gotta finish shit and get to a stopping point or it's just an infinitely recursive interruption stack. [0] Not really instant, because "So-and-so is typing," and your productivity is hostage to their typing skills.