7 ms·

Lesson: Stop saying “Hi” and waiting for a response

54 points by vishnuharidas 5y ago

kobalsky 5y ago
this guy is trying to go straight from http/1.1 to http/3 in real life.
mp3k 5y ago
https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/
- jzymbaluk 5y ago
  This is a great link, and I really would like to include this in my Teams status message that shows up Whenever someone tries to message me, but that just feels a little too passive-aggressive
data_spy 5y ago
This is a huge pet peeve of mine.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  It doesn't bother me in the slightest - it honestly feels a bit more polite than just barreling in with a question. I was sort of surprised when I found out just how passionately it bothers the people it does bother, though, so I've made a conscious effort to stop doing it.
  - programmarchy 5y ago
    Yo!
  - learc83 5y ago
    You can say hi + ask a question in the same message. So I don’t really see how: Hi. <Press enter> <Ask Question> Is any more polite than: Hi. <Ask Question>
    - commandlinefan 5y ago
      That seems to be the general consensus. I don't see the difference, but I will abide by the decision of the council.
      - learc83 5y ago
        The difference is that when you press enter I get an alert. Then you take 30 seconds or 2 minutes (or more) to think through and type out your question. Now I just have to sit there waiting for your question.
    - Volundr 5y ago
      I'm 100% fine with Hi. <Press enter> <Ask Question>. It's Hi <Press Enter> <Wait for a response> <Ask Question> that makes me homicidal. It makes it completely impossible for me to prioritize this discussion.
- janci 5y ago
  I started to outright ignore it. It brought two benefits: 1. It stopped bothering me, 2. Frequency dropped significantly
mccorrinall 5y ago
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
suprjami 5y ago
Otherwise known as a "naked ping" and discussed in many places before: - https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/ https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/ - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_naked_pings https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_naked_pings - https://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/nobody-likes-naked-pings/ https://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/nobody-likes-naked-pings/ - https://www.die-welt.net/2020/06/naked-pings-2020/ https://www.die-welt.net/2020/06/naked-pings-2020/
AlwaysRock 5y ago
It's funny because unless someone follows up I will very likely never respond to a message that just says, "Hi" I tend to just ask questions immediately. I've heard some people like a little more pretext so I say, "Hey Hey. Insert question or reason I messaged" now. I wonder where we pick up these defaults.
rsashwin 5y ago
nohello.com
eddof13 5y ago
this is a cultural thing as well- I moved to Mexico and it's huge here, and I have to tell people not to do it
bonyt 5y ago
As I've heard it from IRC, "Don't ask to ask, just ask." - https://dontasktoask.com/ https://dontasktoask.com/
duxup 5y ago
At a previous employer I stopped responding to “Hi”. It was interpreted by the “hi” folks as me not ever being at work. Eventually (as I anticipated) someone complained that I missed an important priority issue about X. I had to explain how “hi” /= important issue about X and that I revive so many “hi” messages that I couldn’t assume they’re all important. It was pretty tiresome explaining it, but it worked, I stopped getting “hi” and got “hi, important issue X”.
- c17r 5y ago
  Reminds me a bit of Scott Hanselman's "One Email Rule" https://www.hanselman.com/blog/one-email-rule-have-a-separate-inbox-and-an-inbox-cc-to-reduce-email-stress-guaranteed https://www.hanselman.com/blog/one-email-rule-have-a-separat... that requires a bit of training on other people's part (for the good of all)
  - duxup 5y ago
    That’s a good rule. I make a point to clean my email to 0 daily. I don’t always get there, but often. I consider email ephemeral and it should have a very short life.
- david38 5y ago
  Absolute failure to communicate on their part. One thing I love about Jira is the paper trail. I always make sure comms goes through it or is pasted into it. I was accused and DISCIPLINED for not responding to a request to fix something minor while on vacation. I showed the paper trail, it did nothing. I was still “monitored for improved feedback”. When I got a new boss however, I showed him everything and he said he has been told of this incident (as a potential bad employee) and acknowledged this was proof the old boss was full of shit.
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
My tactic to reply simply “hi” back.
danaris 5y ago
In places where I commonly have people asking me tech questions, I fairly often have to repeat Rule 1 of Asking Danaris Questions: Ask The Damn Question. I usually only have to say it once to a given person, and repeating it in public chats when people ping me there without an actual question tends to reduce the incidence of "naked pings" generally for a while. For a while, I tried having https://nohello.com/ https://nohello.com/ in my Discord status, but that's not the most visible indicator, so I haven't been doing it lately.
colanderman 5y ago
I've wondered if the subconscious reason for sending "hi" / disliking receiving "hi" is that -- in the same way as a read receipt -- it denies the recipient the chance to read the message and tactfully choose to ignore it for some time. E.g. no-one likes being saddled with urgent work; therefore pretending you haven't yet seen a request for such until you feel like dealing with it may be a common response; therefore asking "hi" is an attempt to establish real-time communication and thus force an immediate response to a potentially unpalatable request.
- techsupporter 5y ago
  > it denies the recipient the chance to read the message and tactfully choose to ignore it for some time. This is exactly why I don't like it, I don't get the chance to prioritize work. Just like the examples in the link, if someone replies with just "hi," I will put it at the bottom of the request pile because I have 19 other things to do. All of those things are known quantities, this "hi" isn't. I'm sure it's confirmation bias but it feels to me that the times of late when I accidentally or, out of a thought that I should be more nice to people, break pattern and reply, I always get sucked into a vortex of fail.
lowmagnet 5y ago
our internal policy is to say hi because a lot of us might be screen sharing to clients and most people are bad about setting the flag to not show message text in the notification area.
- vishnuharidas 5y ago
  That's an important thing. I always urge people to disable or turn off desktop notifications all the time, otherwise, share either a tab, a window, or the secondary monitor only. Note: From 2021, Google Chrome hides notification content when we share the screen: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/01/better-privacy-when-screen-sharing-chrome.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/01/better-priva...
jcrash 5y ago
Thanks Vishnu for repackaging reddit threads for us https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/t48pfa/lpt_dont_hi_your_coworkers_on_slack_or_teams_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/t48pfa/lpt_don...
- vishnuharidas 5y ago
  This isn't an original idea, this is an opinion, and there are many people posting the same opinion online in different places. Searching "stop saying hi" will show up thousands of such posts.
bravetraveler 5y ago
Also stop tagging me in a direct message, it doesn't send an extra notification... It just muddies up search when I [later] want to see where I've been mentioned in channels
igetspam 5y ago
I've had a rule about this since SMS caught on. Any time someone send a "call me" type message, my only response is "about what?" I try to enforce the same concept with meetings and slack and any other place where it makes sense. Naked pings feel like a trap and while they rarely are, it has happened before and by forcing context before agreeing to a discussion, I've avoided being caught off guard.

54 points by vishnuharidas 5y ago

kobalsky 5y ago

this guy is trying to go straight from http/1.1 to http/3 in real life.

mp3k 5y ago

https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/

jzymbaluk 5y ago
This is a great link, and I really would like to include this in my Teams status message that shows up Whenever someone tries to message me, but that just feels a little too passive-aggressive

data_spy 5y ago

This is a huge pet peeve of mine.

commandlinefan 5y ago
It doesn't bother me in the slightest - it honestly feels a bit more polite than just barreling in with a question. I was sort of surprised when I found out just how passionately it bothers the people it does bother, though, so I've made a conscious effort to stop doing it.
- programmarchy 5y ago
  Yo!
- learc83 5y ago
  You can say hi + ask a question in the same message. So I don’t really see how: Hi. <Press enter> <Ask Question> Is any more polite than: Hi. <Ask Question>
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    That seems to be the general consensus. I don't see the difference, but I will abide by the decision of the council.
    - learc83 5y ago
      The difference is that when you press enter I get an alert. Then you take 30 seconds or 2 minutes (or more) to think through and type out your question. Now I just have to sit there waiting for your question.
  - Volundr 5y ago
    I'm 100% fine with Hi. <Press enter> <Ask Question>. It's Hi <Press Enter> <Wait for a response> <Ask Question> that makes me homicidal. It makes it completely impossible for me to prioritize this discussion.
janci 5y ago
I started to outright ignore it. It brought two benefits: 1. It stopped bothering me, 2. Frequency dropped significantly

mccorrinall 5y ago

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before

suprjami 5y ago

Otherwise known as a "naked ping" and discussed in many places before: - https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/ https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/ - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_naked_pings https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_naked_pings - https://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/nobody-likes-naked-pings/ https://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/nobody-likes-naked-pings/ - https://www.die-welt.net/2020/06/naked-pings-2020/ https://www.die-welt.net/2020/06/naked-pings-2020/

AlwaysRock 5y ago

It's funny because unless someone follows up I will very likely never respond to a message that just says, "Hi" I tend to just ask questions immediately. I've heard some people like a little more pretext so I say, "Hey Hey. Insert question or reason I messaged" now. I wonder where we pick up these defaults.

rsashwin 5y ago

nohello.com

eddof13 5y ago

this is a cultural thing as well- I moved to Mexico and it's huge here, and I have to tell people not to do it

bonyt 5y ago

As I've heard it from IRC, "Don't ask to ask, just ask." - https://dontasktoask.com/ https://dontasktoask.com/

duxup 5y ago

At a previous employer I stopped responding to “Hi”. It was interpreted by the “hi” folks as me not ever being at work. Eventually (as I anticipated) someone complained that I missed an important priority issue about X. I had to explain how “hi” /= important issue about X and that I revive so many “hi” messages that I couldn’t assume they’re all important. It was pretty tiresome explaining it, but it worked, I stopped getting “hi” and got “hi, important issue X”.

c17r 5y ago
Reminds me a bit of Scott Hanselman's "One Email Rule" https://www.hanselman.com/blog/one-email-rule-have-a-separate-inbox-and-an-inbox-cc-to-reduce-email-stress-guaranteed https://www.hanselman.com/blog/one-email-rule-have-a-separat... that requires a bit of training on other people's part (for the good of all)
- duxup 5y ago
  That’s a good rule. I make a point to clean my email to 0 daily. I don’t always get there, but often. I consider email ephemeral and it should have a very short life.
david38 5y ago
Absolute failure to communicate on their part. One thing I love about Jira is the paper trail. I always make sure comms goes through it or is pasted into it. I was accused and DISCIPLINED for not responding to a request to fix something minor while on vacation. I showed the paper trail, it did nothing. I was still “monitored for improved feedback”. When I got a new boss however, I showed him everything and he said he has been told of this incident (as a potential bad employee) and acknowledged this was proof the old boss was full of shit.

rad_gruchalski 5y ago

My tactic to reply simply “hi” back.

danaris 5y ago

In places where I commonly have people asking me tech questions, I fairly often have to repeat Rule 1 of Asking Danaris Questions: Ask The Damn Question. I usually only have to say it once to a given person, and repeating it in public chats when people ping me there without an actual question tends to reduce the incidence of "naked pings" generally for a while. For a while, I tried having https://nohello.com/ https://nohello.com/ in my Discord status, but that's not the most visible indicator, so I haven't been doing it lately.

colanderman 5y ago

I've wondered if the subconscious reason for sending "hi" / disliking receiving "hi" is that -- in the same way as a read receipt -- it denies the recipient the chance to read the message and tactfully choose to ignore it for some time. E.g. no-one likes being saddled with urgent work; therefore pretending you haven't yet seen a request for such until you feel like dealing with it may be a common response; therefore asking "hi" is an attempt to establish real-time communication and thus force an immediate response to a potentially unpalatable request.

techsupporter 5y ago
> it denies the recipient the chance to read the message and tactfully choose to ignore it for some time. This is exactly why I don't like it, I don't get the chance to prioritize work. Just like the examples in the link, if someone replies with just "hi," I will put it at the bottom of the request pile because I have 19 other things to do. All of those things are known quantities, this "hi" isn't. I'm sure it's confirmation bias but it feels to me that the times of late when I accidentally or, out of a thought that I should be more nice to people, break pattern and reply, I always get sucked into a vortex of fail.

lowmagnet 5y ago

our internal policy is to say hi because a lot of us might be screen sharing to clients and most people are bad about setting the flag to not show message text in the notification area.

vishnuharidas 5y ago
That's an important thing. I always urge people to disable or turn off desktop notifications all the time, otherwise, share either a tab, a window, or the secondary monitor only. Note: From 2021, Google Chrome hides notification content when we share the screen: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/01/better-privacy-when-screen-sharing-chrome.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/01/better-priva...

jcrash 5y ago

Thanks Vishnu for repackaging reddit threads for us https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/t48pfa/lpt_dont_hi_your_coworkers_on_slack_or_teams_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/t48pfa/lpt_don...

vishnuharidas 5y ago
This isn't an original idea, this is an opinion, and there are many people posting the same opinion online in different places. Searching "stop saying hi" will show up thousands of such posts.

bravetraveler 5y ago

Also stop tagging me in a direct message, it doesn't send an extra notification... It just muddies up search when I [later] want to see where I've been mentioned in channels

igetspam 5y ago

I've had a rule about this since SMS caught on. Any time someone send a "call me" type message, my only response is "about what?" I try to enforce the same concept with meetings and slack and any other place where it makes sense. Naked pings feel like a trap and while they rarely are, it has happened before and by forcing context before agreeing to a discussion, I've avoided being caught off guard.