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The post hit on some of the main points that I used to teach folks who were working remotely for the first time. The main point that resonated with me was askin

The post hit on some of the main points that I used to teach folks who were working remotely for the first time. The main point that resonated with me was asking good questions via IM. Bad examples: Hey, do you have a minute? Hey how's it going? I have a question for you. Have you heard of $x? Good example: Hey there! I hope you're well. How's your dog holding up since he had that run in with the porcupine? I didn't even know you had those in Barbados. Anyway, I have a question regarding $thing. I ran into an issue with $thing and it looks to be related to $otherthing. But when I googled $thing, I got results for $completelydifferentthing. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. Can you help set me straight? Here's every detail I can think of you needing: This is especially important in various cultures where some people feel it is rude to have a conversation without first checking on somebody's welfare or talking about the weather. That's great in some settings, but when you're working from home, it's instant messenger hell.

WelcomeShorty 5y ago
Interesting example, but for me it is the exact opposite. Please be brief and to the point, I do not care if you (pretend) to care about my dog.
- kolbusa 5y ago
  Skip the dog part, but please please please try put as much details in the first IM as opposed to starting with 'hey'.
  - InvaderFizz 5y ago
    And please, please, do not start with "Hi Name", send that, then proceed to spend the next five minutes typing your message. It is just fine to lead with hi, as long as it arrives at the same time as everything else.
  - roydivision 5y ago
    I reply with this link when people do that to me : https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/ They learn quickly.
    - geocrasher 5y ago
      I wish I'd remembered that. I actually used that in my training at one point!
    - novok 5y ago
      It's rude to just reply with that, but to put it in your status and to ask them politely afterwards usually works way better.
      - urthor 5y ago
        You should cultivate a relationship where you aren't afraid of being to the point. I haven't got time in my life to carefully and delicately walk around people's feelings with every single small work matter. If someone takes something like a link to nohello very personally, you've got to fix that relationship.
        novok 5y ago
        You often do not have a relationship with people who don't know about your nohello.net thing, because your getting support questions, and you cannot cultivate a relationship with everyone. So in the spirit of being direct, your attitude has probably caused issues in your personal life and career that you are not aware of, and has probably created a reputation in your company as 'the grumpy/rude one'. It's not that much more work to be polite and your attitude probably spreads to other actions in your work.
    - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
      You may also want to learn that using a hello before going further (or at least separated from the rest of the im) is a way to make sure your are comfortable having the message pop up on your screen. You would learn fast when you have someone looking at your screen and receiving "have you slept with Jenny yet?", or "you should not have called Jack a dick" when Jack is with you.
- webdood90 5y ago
  God forbid your colleagues attempt to socialize with you. You might as well be a robot to them.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes, but some of us have work to do and if you communicate in installments instead of just coming to the point it will take five interruptions instead of one interruption to get you unstuck.
  - anthropodie 5y ago
    I am exactly like parent. I just can't do the small talk. Get to the point already is my attitude whole life. It's not that I don't care about others well being or their dog, I do. It's just that when someone asks me I always tell them I am fine even if I am not. I don't want to bother them with my troubles. And I assume they have similar mental process which recently I have come to realize is not true.
    - fowlie 5y ago
      > And I assume they have similar mental process which recently I have come to realize is not true. How did you realize it? I'm asking because you sound a lot like myself.
      - anthropodie 5y ago
        Multiple failed relationships, I am afraid. We are all same but there are also some fundamental differences in how people process certain experiences. Some people care a lot about others while others might care less about others or some might not care at all and I think that changes perception of reality drastically of each person. And that's just one parameter, empathy. In reality, there could 100s of parameters shaping an individual's perception resulting in so many variations and so many misunderstandings. People usually project there own good/bad traits on others like I used to think that people think like me which is far from reality. But I think these differences are absolutely needed and the evolution kind of selected this approach for the world to move forward. Also, even if this world had come this far with only 1 trait I believe it would have been pretty boring place to be.
- heurisko 5y ago
  The example appeared to overemphasise the "small talk" part, in practice it is usually boiled down to "I hope you had a good weekend..." on Mondays, or "I hope you are well..." on other days of the week.
- onion2k 5y ago
  I do not care if you (pretend) to care about my dog. 99% of people would prefer their colleagues talk to them in a friendly, humanizing way after spending 7 or 8 hours a day on their own though. On the whole people are social animals, and we get depressed when we're 'forced' to spend time alone, or even in groups if the group is exclusively focused on a task. There are people who don't want that social aspect in their work life for various reasons, but they're unusual. The advice here is aimed at most people, not you specifically.
- seer 5y ago
  While I usually prefer the brief message as well one tenant of remote work that I learned a while back is “better to over-communicate than to under communicate. Adding a bit of context to your messages might seem like unnecessary padding, but people loose context, multitask, and read stuff asynchronously. Restoring that context helps a lot. As for the small talk, I think its very important what information you communicate. If you say “how was your weekend” what you usually are communicating is “I have no idea who you are, and want to warm up to your graces so you are more likely to do the work I actually want you to do” People hate that. But if you ask them “how is your dog doing? I’ve heard it got its ear bit off that time hope they’re ok” Now you’ve communicated “I’m actually interested in who you are as a person, and what your life is. The work bit is nice to have but secondary” People do pick up on that, especially if you do it _without_ work requests from time to time. You trigger all the “they are part of my tribe” responses and will get your answers much quicker later. It’s just very important to care about the people behind the handles and avatars, and establish connections with them.
  - locallost 5y ago
    I worked very briefly with someone who said the same: better to over-communicate. In practice this meant that they liked to write a lot, and not really read.
    - seer 5y ago
      You are correct. I also do like to write, though I don’t think I’ve reduced my reading by any means. Writing itself is an art form. Its important to have tldr; sections, to consider your audience and not to just braindump and call it a day. At the end of the day though most orgs live or die by how aligned are their members, and how tenacious they are. Both of which require information to flow through it. And I think its way easier to tone things down/ignore/filter if you have too much than to try to infer “what other people actually mean”.
halhen 5y ago
I believe developers could be particularly good at identifying and communicating all required information from the start. We spend our lives thinking about how to pass information around, and get a lot of immediate feedback about it. Think about it as a function: What arguments (information) would a function need to be able to return a value?
jacquesm 5y ago
Those things are like the leader tones in modem protocols: they work to establish that the other party is listening. But IM isn't a modem, if the other party isn't listening then it doesn't matter what you write so you may as well come to the point and make the whole thing self contained. "Hey Jim, if you see this in the next couple of minutes, the foo is hitting the bar and I don't know if that's serious, if you don't or can't respond, no worries, I'll take it elsewhere." But that requires a bit more forethought and just doing 'hi' is the easy way out to be thinking your way through as you go along. Which implicitly assumes the other person is just sitting there waiting for you, something that may well not be true.
dilyevsky 5y ago
Genuinely curios (since I can’t seem to google that) - what are those cultures you speak of? Ime certainly not anywhere in europe (especially eastern) or asia (my experience there is only limited to Korea and China but I assume it’s similar). I think it might be just the US and possibly Canada
locallost 5y ago
This depends on: 1) the culture. not all are like this 2) how often you talk with them. if it's daily then it could definitely be annoying over the long run
Moru 5y ago
The "Hi!" message is the equivalent of a modem connection negotiation. The user wants to make sure the keyboard time isn't wasted until they know you are all ears. That it wastes your time they haven't even thought about until you explain.
- reshlo 5y ago
  They would still have to type it at some point if I were busy when they originally had the question. It’s not a waste of keyboard time for them to type it now, even if I don’t read it until later.
  - Moru 5y ago
    Just explaining why it happens, not saying it improves anything. I try to get them to use email instead since that has the function they are after. I (often) get all the info I need at once and I can schedule it easily and mark as done in the mail client so I don't forget it. And they don't have to copy+paste it to the email because I wasn't online on slack.
unbanned 5y ago
https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/ Your second example wastes so much time. >various cultures where some people feel it is rude to have a conversation without first checking on somebody Which cultures?
ryathal 5y ago
The worst is people that ping you with a generic hello message and don't continue on with their actual question. Fortunately this get trained out slowly if you refuse to return a "hello" until they ask the question.
gremloni 5y ago
Oh I disagree. I don’t mind if you ramble during a video/voice call but please don’t send me whole paragraphs in slack unless you need to.

WelcomeShorty 5y ago

Interesting example, but for me it is the exact opposite. Please be brief and to the point, I do not care if you (pretend) to care about my dog.

kolbusa 5y ago
Skip the dog part, but please please please try put as much details in the first IM as opposed to starting with 'hey'.
- InvaderFizz 5y ago
  And please, please, do not start with "Hi Name", send that, then proceed to spend the next five minutes typing your message. It is just fine to lead with hi, as long as it arrives at the same time as everything else.
- roydivision 5y ago
  I reply with this link when people do that to me : https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/ They learn quickly.
  - geocrasher 5y ago
    I wish I'd remembered that. I actually used that in my training at one point!
  - novok 5y ago
    It's rude to just reply with that, but to put it in your status and to ask them politely afterwards usually works way better.
    - urthor 5y ago
      You should cultivate a relationship where you aren't afraid of being to the point. I haven't got time in my life to carefully and delicately walk around people's feelings with every single small work matter. If someone takes something like a link to nohello very personally, you've got to fix that relationship.
      - novok 5y ago
        You often do not have a relationship with people who don't know about your nohello.net thing, because your getting support questions, and you cannot cultivate a relationship with everyone. So in the spirit of being direct, your attitude has probably caused issues in your personal life and career that you are not aware of, and has probably created a reputation in your company as 'the grumpy/rude one'. It's not that much more work to be polite and your attitude probably spreads to other actions in your work.
  - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
    You may also want to learn that using a hello before going further (or at least separated from the rest of the im) is a way to make sure your are comfortable having the message pop up on your screen. You would learn fast when you have someone looking at your screen and receiving "have you slept with Jenny yet?", or "you should not have called Jack a dick" when Jack is with you.
webdood90 5y ago
God forbid your colleagues attempt to socialize with you. You might as well be a robot to them.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Yes, but some of us have work to do and if you communicate in installments instead of just coming to the point it will take five interruptions instead of one interruption to get you unstuck.
- anthropodie 5y ago
  I am exactly like parent. I just can't do the small talk. Get to the point already is my attitude whole life. It's not that I don't care about others well being or their dog, I do. It's just that when someone asks me I always tell them I am fine even if I am not. I don't want to bother them with my troubles. And I assume they have similar mental process which recently I have come to realize is not true.
  - fowlie 5y ago
    > And I assume they have similar mental process which recently I have come to realize is not true. How did you realize it? I'm asking because you sound a lot like myself.
    - anthropodie 5y ago
      Multiple failed relationships, I am afraid. We are all same but there are also some fundamental differences in how people process certain experiences. Some people care a lot about others while others might care less about others or some might not care at all and I think that changes perception of reality drastically of each person. And that's just one parameter, empathy. In reality, there could 100s of parameters shaping an individual's perception resulting in so many variations and so many misunderstandings. People usually project there own good/bad traits on others like I used to think that people think like me which is far from reality. But I think these differences are absolutely needed and the evolution kind of selected this approach for the world to move forward. Also, even if this world had come this far with only 1 trait I believe it would have been pretty boring place to be.
heurisko 5y ago
The example appeared to overemphasise the "small talk" part, in practice it is usually boiled down to "I hope you had a good weekend..." on Mondays, or "I hope you are well..." on other days of the week.
onion2k 5y ago
I do not care if you (pretend) to care about my dog. 99% of people would prefer their colleagues talk to them in a friendly, humanizing way after spending 7 or 8 hours a day on their own though. On the whole people are social animals, and we get depressed when we're 'forced' to spend time alone, or even in groups if the group is exclusively focused on a task. There are people who don't want that social aspect in their work life for various reasons, but they're unusual. The advice here is aimed at most people, not you specifically.
seer 5y ago
While I usually prefer the brief message as well one tenant of remote work that I learned a while back is “better to over-communicate than to under communicate. Adding a bit of context to your messages might seem like unnecessary padding, but people loose context, multitask, and read stuff asynchronously. Restoring that context helps a lot. As for the small talk, I think its very important what information you communicate. If you say “how was your weekend” what you usually are communicating is “I have no idea who you are, and want to warm up to your graces so you are more likely to do the work I actually want you to do” People hate that. But if you ask them “how is your dog doing? I’ve heard it got its ear bit off that time hope they’re ok” Now you’ve communicated “I’m actually interested in who you are as a person, and what your life is. The work bit is nice to have but secondary” People do pick up on that, especially if you do it _without_ work requests from time to time. You trigger all the “they are part of my tribe” responses and will get your answers much quicker later. It’s just very important to care about the people behind the handles and avatars, and establish connections with them.
- locallost 5y ago
  I worked very briefly with someone who said the same: better to over-communicate. In practice this meant that they liked to write a lot, and not really read.
  - seer 5y ago
    You are correct. I also do like to write, though I don’t think I’ve reduced my reading by any means. Writing itself is an art form. Its important to have tldr; sections, to consider your audience and not to just braindump and call it a day. At the end of the day though most orgs live or die by how aligned are their members, and how tenacious they are. Both of which require information to flow through it. And I think its way easier to tone things down/ignore/filter if you have too much than to try to infer “what other people actually mean”.

halhen 5y ago

I believe developers could be particularly good at identifying and communicating all required information from the start. We spend our lives thinking about how to pass information around, and get a lot of immediate feedback about it. Think about it as a function: What arguments (information) would a function need to be able to return a value?

jacquesm 5y ago

Those things are like the leader tones in modem protocols: they work to establish that the other party is listening. But IM isn't a modem, if the other party isn't listening then it doesn't matter what you write so you may as well come to the point and make the whole thing self contained. "Hey Jim, if you see this in the next couple of minutes, the foo is hitting the bar and I don't know if that's serious, if you don't or can't respond, no worries, I'll take it elsewhere." But that requires a bit more forethought and just doing 'hi' is the easy way out to be thinking your way through as you go along. Which implicitly assumes the other person is just sitting there waiting for you, something that may well not be true.

dilyevsky 5y ago

Genuinely curios (since I can’t seem to google that) - what are those cultures you speak of? Ime certainly not anywhere in europe (especially eastern) or asia (my experience there is only limited to Korea and China but I assume it’s similar). I think it might be just the US and possibly Canada

locallost 5y ago

This depends on: 1) the culture. not all are like this 2) how often you talk with them. if it's daily then it could definitely be annoying over the long run

Moru 5y ago

The "Hi!" message is the equivalent of a modem connection negotiation. The user wants to make sure the keyboard time isn't wasted until they know you are all ears. That it wastes your time they haven't even thought about until you explain.

reshlo 5y ago
They would still have to type it at some point if I were busy when they originally had the question. It’s not a waste of keyboard time for them to type it now, even if I don’t read it until later.
- Moru 5y ago
  Just explaining why it happens, not saying it improves anything. I try to get them to use email instead since that has the function they are after. I (often) get all the info I need at once and I can schedule it easily and mark as done in the mail client so I don't forget it. And they don't have to copy+paste it to the email because I wasn't online on slack.

unbanned 5y ago

https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/ Your second example wastes so much time. >various cultures where some people feel it is rude to have a conversation without first checking on somebody Which cultures?

ryathal 5y ago

The worst is people that ping you with a generic hello message and don't continue on with their actual question. Fortunately this get trained out slowly if you refuse to return a "hello" until they ask the question.

gremloni 5y ago

Oh I disagree. I don’t mind if you ramble during a video/voice call but please don’t send me whole paragraphs in slack unless you need to.