8 ms·

No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

249 points by Pooge 5y ago

greyhair 5y ago
I passive/aggressive the hell out of that. A 'request' with no salutation? My first reply is "What? No 'Hello'? No 'When you have a moment?' No 'How is your morning?'"
fellellor 5y ago
This is dumb. Do people have nothing better to do with their time than devise obscure etiquette rules that others must follow because "it's 20XX now people"? Issue a fatwa if you want to be taken more seriously.
Pooge 5y ago
I was reminded of this when I saw a similar website on the frontpage earlier[1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225
- dang 5y ago
  I've merged the threads because that one is still on the front page and the two are so close that it's better not to have a split discussion.
Synaesthesia 5y ago
In South Africa you're usually expected to say hi, and how are you, for every conversation. It's a bit time consuming but I do like it.
sriram_sun 5y ago
...or please don't convert an asynchronous protocol to sync.
ghusto 5y ago
Meh, it's an age thing too. I'm older and daresay I find it _incredibly_ more annoying when people type out a single message over many individual messages (line, enter send, line, enter send, ... etc.) When it's particularly bad, I actually hit the DND button on my Mac and go about other business until I think they've finished. Bear in mind you're effectively tapping me on the shoulder to stop what I'm doing with every message.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Circumstances differ of course but it helps to have as few notifications turned on as possible. I don't know how some people manage when their phone or computer is pinging them for just about every random event.
  - greyhair 5y ago
    precisely My phone lives on DND. Only priority numbers get through on text. I check it every two hours, on odd numbered hours. If you text me expecting a response, and you aren't in my priority pool, I'll get back to you. After all, it is my phone, not yours. My work slack is only available during my work day. Out of hours, it is closed.
    - mekal 5y ago
      I can remember when I was younger my mom getting pissed when the phone (landline) would ring and thinking jeez, chill out! Some years later I'm doing something trying to concentrate and I get like 20 dings in a row on some group text message and I almost toss my phone into the wall lol. Mostly only priority stuff gets through these days. Every now and then my sister will hit me with a rapid-fire 10 ding (one per sentence) message but thanks to the nuclear option silent mode switch I can usually shut that shit down by about the 3rd ding. What sucks though is I sometimes forget to unsilence it for days. Maybe that's an upside though.
- OrderlyTiamat 5y ago
  That's much worse. But it's the same problem, no? People should just write the damn message and don't drag it out, then we'll all be happy.
  - ghusto 5y ago
    Err, actually yes, I didn't realise but it is :) While we're all venting: How's about when you're writing a considerate reply that takes a while because it's a complicated answer, and they just blooming fire off another random message in the middle, destroying thread chronology!
efdee 5y ago
The real question is why Tim waits 4 minutes to reply to the "Hello!", but instantly replies to "Hello! <question>". What a selfrighteous jackass. Seriously though - as someone who's a 20-year resident in technical channels, who's had to deal with plenty of "Hello!"'s - this website comes off as incredibly condescending and very stereotypical for people working in an IT department.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > this website comes off as incredibly condescending and very stereotypical for people working in an IT department. It really does. I mean I get that people have different needs and work styles and I definitely find interruptions difficult at some points, but this might have swung the pendulum a wee bit too far -- precisely because other people have different needs and work styles.
- chc 5y ago
  The real question to me is why you expect somebody to drop everything and reply to "hello." It's not about being righteous, it's just not a productive use of your time. If I'm not busy, I'll reply quickly, but if I'm in the middle of something, chit-chatting with somebody who just wants to say hi is usually lower priority.
  - efdee 5y ago
    This is exactly what I mean. Nobody expects you to drop anything. They want to see if you're there, and if you're not, they'll look for someone else to help them instead of asking you a question that might not be answered until long after they already received an answer from someone else. If you don't want to interrupt your work and reply, then don't. Don't be rude and expect people to read a manual about how to interact with you.
    - chc 5y ago
      The question you asked is: > why Tim waits 4 minutes to reply to the "Hello!", but instantly replies to "Hello! <question>". What a selfrighteous jackass. As far as I can tell, this question only makes sense if you expect him to treat both messages with equal priority, and believe failure to do so makes one a jackass. If you agree that it's reasonable to treat "pings" with lower priority than concrete questions, then it seems pretty easy to imagine why Tim waited 4 minutes to reply to "Hello" but instantly replied to a question.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jmull 5y ago
If you're asking a quick, informational, easy thing, then "Hi! What is the test server name?" is good. But dropping something upfront that is ambiguous or requiring thought isn't great. If you drop a thorny problem on someone, you may kind of force a context change on them, causing them to drop their train of thought and focus on what you need instead. You can pre-compose your longer thought/question. Then paste it once any pleasantries are over and you have the other person's attention. They don't need to wait for your typing and you can take your time to compose the right message, if you need it.
- svet_0 5y ago
  "Hi, got some questions regarding ComplexProject, ping me when you have a few minutes to spare."
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > You can pre-compose your longer thought/question. Then paste it once any pleasantries are over and you have the other person's attention. They don't need to wait for your typing and you can take your time to compose the right message, if you need it. Exactly. This is what I do, and advise people to do when they say "argh the web chat was so annoying". Plan your requests, but be cordial.
- pas 5y ago
  it's on the other party to defend their attention/focus. preemptively witholding information doesn't lead to a global optimum
  - jmull 5y ago
    > it's on the other party to defend their attention/focus. Conducting communication as an adversarial process is *going to fail*.
    - pas 5y ago
      Of course, but different people have wildly different ideas on how to initiate and conduct cooperative communication. Just consider how some people have a hard time to say no, while other people have a hard time to express what that they want something, etc. (Cultural differences and stereotypes are alive and well.) Fundamentally there's a basic need to protect one's own resources needed for a healthy psyche. And unfortunately this is very much "left as an exercise to the reader" in many (almost all?) cultures around the world. And the unsurprising result is that many people are taken advantage of by those who exploit the lack of the aforementioned psychological skills.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
I think there's a dichotomy of people here. I'm one of the ones that minds because it can disrupt my work. I realize that sometimes interruptions are necessary but I want it to be efficient. So get to the point already Then there are the people that don't mind the interruption and sense of suspense. A "hi" feels to me like someone has just come up and poked me, but is just staring at me waiting to respond. Over chat it feels even weirder because then it is as if I have said "yes, what do you want" and I get to stare at them for a minute or two while they compose a request they should have already had ready. Also keep in mind that while saying 'hi' is perfectly fine irl, there is a crucial bit of context missing. If I see a colleague deeply concentrating on his work with headphones on, I'll wait. If their body language indicates that they aren't focusing hard, then its probably fine to interrupt.
- pas 5y ago
  if someone really wants something they can call :) disable desktop notifications and sounds and when you are finished with something switch to slack to see who wrote what doesn't this work?
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    I treat slack like email to be honest and my team knows it. I'll get to you when I get to you, if you need me immediately then call me on the desk phone or cell, they still work y'all
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > if someone really wants something they can call :) Now that I just won't put up with! ;-)
svet_0 5y ago
I very much agree with nohello, but using it as your status message on slack/teams/etc. is taking it too far and doesn't make me want to talk to you unless I absolutely have to. Maybe it's just me though.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  People do that? What an appalling way to conduct work.
  - pas 5y ago
    um, why? what's appalling about stating their preference?
- pas 5y ago
  they are upfront about their preference, what's wrong with that? why is this too far? :o
  - svet_0 5y ago
    A bit passive aggressive and snobbish when collaboration is already difficult, even when co-workers are welcoming and engaging.
    - pas 5y ago
      um, I don't find it passive at all. I don't do this, nor have I saw this, but if someone really has negative experiences with others and decides to put this into their status, that is pretty much the opposite of passive aggressive behavior, it seems to me like basic assertive communication (state your preference, talk about what you want/need)
  - jader201 5y ago
    What if I like just saying “Hello” up front for reasons I find just as valid as the reasons you don’t like “Hello”? (For the record, I don’t — I agree with “No hello”.) But being “upfront about your preference” is basically saying my preference trumps your preference. And to the OPs point, it makes me hesitate to even engage in the first place. I have people that communicate with me in ways that I don’t communicate with others, and even if it can sometimes be annoying, that’s more my problem than it is theirs. Having said that, I think generally discussing the pros/cons of communication can be fine and helps bring to light things others may not have thought about. I’m just not sure I would be quick to engage with someone that goes out of their way to tell me how I should communicate with them.
tetha 5y ago
Mh, for me it's a bit of a process of getting to know people, and to educate people how to get what they want from me quickly. Somehow that sounds arrogant. The thing is, if people ask me a direct, simple question via chat, I can answer many things without even losing my train of thought. Something like "Hey where do I configure DNS records for XYZ" or "where in ansible is X" and such often get answered while thinking about other stuff. Some new employees are kind of hesitant because it seems rude to them to just poke me with questions like that straight up, but that's the getting-to-know part. I don't need cuddling, and tea, and house shoes, and comments about the weather if you just need some simple information. Or, if they are unsure about the entire situation, be straight about it. Let me dig myself out of my hole, tell me the context you're in and then let's have a call and screenshare about the entire thing. I still prefer to know what this is about, because it allows me to prepare for a call, to make our call more effective for both of us. But the thing is, those kind of ticks and preferences I have are a relationship thing with other employees. People just start polite and careful and might just be like "Hello" and such - developers write less, marketing writes more. Usually they just aren't sure how to approach me. So I can't really be to mad at them. Just answer with a funny smiley or a waving one when your heads context is switched to chat, their first message won't be business critical. And the latter is another important point. We have escalation and communication channels and communication and escalation plans for different severities of problems. Someone saying "Hi" to me cannot be a critical incident by internal definition, so it has a few hours of SLA at minimum and might be forgotten at worst. If it was critical, our head of support would call me directly. If it was more than critical, our head of operation would call my physical phone.
clircle 5y ago
I can't understand why people are so passionate about whether one says hello or not in a chat. What kind of lives do you lead that drive you to make a website about such a niche annoyance?
- danaris 5y ago
  The point isn't the "hello". It's the lack of anything else.
- HKH2 5y ago
  If you don't find context switching costly at all, fine. Some of us can't multitask or quickly regain focus.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I know I am going to be downvoted so hard for this, but this is the most Hacker News thing ever. People have all sorts of different ways to converse; people have different models of politeness, people are shy, uncertain or awkward in all sorts of different ways. Some things just can't be blurted out. Some things need the scene setting. People are people. Not robots. Producing a website to demand that people address you in an efficient way is a perfect example of why people dread asking us questions at all. It's staggeringly entitled. Now, I will follow that up by saying that when I want to get an answer from a website chat support person, I _always_ plan out, draft or bullet-point exactly what I need, so I know I am not asking a dumb question. And then after I have said hello (!) I explain I have done that so I can paste bits in as needed. But this website goes a bit too far. "No hello"? Really? This is the framing? If anyone is considering forwarding this to any internal mailing lists: don't.
- pas 5y ago
  > forwarding this to any internal mailing lists: don't. why? it's a request. clear and simple. if someone doesn't want to care, not the end of the world.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    Forwarding that link to a mailing list will damage people's perceptions of you and ultimately kick-start a company-wide discussion on tone of communication that will ultimately result in someone writing a Damore Memo. (I am only half-joking) Accept that people are awkward, different and diverse and that we benefit from that too. And then don't forward it. I once wrote an email to an internal email list about the lack of forks in the departmental kitchen and how I'd bought lots more and they'd all gone too. I was polite, like this website, and frustrated, like the people who wrote this website. But the request made people who'd simply forgotten to return a fork, or who'd had a cake meeting that day, or whatever was genuinely more important than returning a fork, a little bit piqued. People told me to my face how my politeness came across to them. I should have just bought more forks. Buy more forks.
    - 5y ago
humansuit 5y ago
[This comment was dumb, and I've opted to remove it.]
- danaris 5y ago
  However fun and flavorful these may be, they don't actually solve the problem being articulated, which is sending a greeting with no substantive message attached.
  - humansuit 5y ago
    Valid point. I'll remove it from the conversation.
below43 5y ago
I do this. When I forget to press shift when I hit enter.
yakubin 5y ago
I expect a lot of it comes from people not being aware of what Shift+Enter does in Slack. There is a setting in Slack which makes Enter break lines, and Ctrl+Enter send the message. IMO it should be the default. It could break away with the habit of standalone hellos and with big messages being broken into 7 smaller ones (each generating a notification, and making it harder to judge when the other person stopped forming their message). Instead, sending a message would be a separate action from composing it. Of course, it's inevitable that some people won't appreciate other's time and attention, but that's probably unsolvable.
lamontcg 5y ago
There's also vaguebugging that usually goes along with this, and which gets used in public channels: "Hey team, is anyone seeing a problem with <product>?" (well, I have a bugtracker with around 300-400 issues in it, so yes... what is your specific problem?) That is counter productive because I get this mental image of you with a fishing rod with bait on the hook waiting for me to bite, and my natural reaction is to not bother respond to you. If you'd just post what you're doing and what the error message is, I'd be way more likely to point you in the right direction if I know what the issue is. EDIT: oh there we go its the other related post today on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  This, for what it's worth, is much more annoying to me than a bit of conversational flow. "Vaguebugging" is such a useful word that it is now noted for future use.
  - sshine 5y ago
    I like this term, too, but I don't understand why apparently it has negative connotations. If someone doesn't have a clue, and they don't want to stand up and announce it, how do you suggest they go about it? At least in a public channel, no one person is committed to answer, and the most patient / the person who knows the least what vaguebugging means, can answer.
    - lamontcg 5y ago
      they can just post what it is they or the customer are trying to do and the misbehavior they're seeing or the error message. "is there an issue with the latest release?" vs. "i've got a customer that just upgraded from version A.B.C to X.Y.Z and the <specific feature> configured in <specific way> trying to do <specific thing> is failing with <specific error message>, could this be a regression or did something change deliberately?"
satisfice 5y ago
This is a stupid post. By stupid I mean it seems to me that the author of it is deliberately refusing to use his mind. The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient. I’m sorry if the poster doesn’t understand the value of live conversation, but that’s not our problem. Now people like me have to say “ignore that post from that idiot… go ahead and ping me with a ‘hi’” Deliver me from clever control freaks who never studied human behavior.
- Pooge 5y ago
  > The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient. No, it does not. If the person wants to do a call, you either call directly or - more polite these days - you send a message along the lines of "Can I call you about <x>?" or "Please call me whenever you're ready to talk about <x>". If you want to engage in synchronous (i.e. live) conversation, you don't engage it by just sending "hi" over a text chat, which is a very asynchronous medium.
- trvrprkr 5y ago
  A huge benefit of many (most?) chat apps is that communication can be async. If it requires a live conversation, then respectfully it probably warrants scheduling time. The author is arguing that the “udp approach” to these conversations is less intrusive, and also alleviates doubt/anxiety about the nature of the conversation.
  - spadros 5y ago
    The author’s not wrong, he’s just an asshole. People have different ways of communicating. I actually like getting to know my coworkers and appreciate a little fluff in my conversations. Heck, if you can make me laugh with a sassy story or a funny pun, you get brownie points and priority. This author sounds like the type of asshole that says “I’m not here to make friends, I’m not here to be nice to you, I’m here to trade my time for money only, so go to hell.” AKA an entitled asshole.
taylodl 5y ago
I tend to ignore people who just say hello - unless it's someone I'm closely working with on a project. I intend to get back to them, but, because I don't know what they need I can't really prioritize it so I subconsciously prioritize last (I don't intentionally mean to) and since I have so much to do I usually never get back with them until: they provide context. Much better is something like hello, don't mean to bother you but hey when you have the time can you <whatever>. That works so much better - many times I'll just take care of it immediately just to keep my backlog of work from growing. If it's something that's going to be more involved I'll let them know that and work out when they're needing it done by. Then I'll get it on my to-do list. If it's urgent then say so - hello, sorry to bother you but this came up unexpectedly and you're the only one that can do <whatever>. Can you help us out? I may be annoyed, but I'm not going to shoot the messenger. Just hello? No. It slips off my radar.
sshine 5y ago
"Don't introduce yourself, act like you were in the room all along." This surely is a good advice from someone in the room greeting someone who just entered. It's called a protocol. Assume "hello" means something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
felipesabino 5y ago
For Brazilians, I did the pt-br version a little while ago https://bomdianao.com.br https://bomdianao.com.br
danielyaa5 5y ago
I feel like this is also entrapment, forcing u to engage before knowing what the other person wants
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
Of course three are cases when you do say hello when starting. Do you want to send this confidential message to be seen by the people who are looking at my screen because of IM sends the message on the popup? Anything I feel is confidential starts with a hello so that I know the other party is ready. Anything generic also starts with a hello because in my country you don't just talk to people without a greeting, but then the content immediately follows
lenkite 5y ago
Just add a "thumbs-up" to hello when someone says this so that folks know you are paying attention. If not just type in "busy and move on.

249 points by Pooge 5y ago

I passive/aggressive the hell out of that. A 'request' with no salutation? My first reply is "What? No 'Hello'? No 'When you have a moment?' No 'How is your morning?'"

fellellor 5y ago

This is dumb. Do people have nothing better to do with their time than devise obscure etiquette rules that others must follow because "it's 20XX now people"? Issue a fatwa if you want to be taken more seriously.

Pooge 5y ago

I was reminded of this when I saw a similar website on the frontpage earlier[1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225

dang 5y ago
I've merged the threads because that one is still on the front page and the two are so close that it's better not to have a split discussion.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

In South Africa you're usually expected to say hi, and how are you, for every conversation. It's a bit time consuming but I do like it.

sriram_sun 5y ago

...or please don't convert an asynchronous protocol to sync.

ghusto 5y ago

Meh, it's an age thing too. I'm older and daresay I find it _incredibly_ more annoying when people type out a single message over many individual messages (line, enter send, line, enter send, ... etc.) When it's particularly bad, I actually hit the DND button on my Mac and go about other business until I think they've finished. Bear in mind you're effectively tapping me on the shoulder to stop what I'm doing with every message.

ghaff 5y ago
Circumstances differ of course but it helps to have as few notifications turned on as possible. I don't know how some people manage when their phone or computer is pinging them for just about every random event.
- greyhair 5y ago
  precisely My phone lives on DND. Only priority numbers get through on text. I check it every two hours, on odd numbered hours. If you text me expecting a response, and you aren't in my priority pool, I'll get back to you. After all, it is my phone, not yours. My work slack is only available during my work day. Out of hours, it is closed.
  - mekal 5y ago
    I can remember when I was younger my mom getting pissed when the phone (landline) would ring and thinking jeez, chill out! Some years later I'm doing something trying to concentrate and I get like 20 dings in a row on some group text message and I almost toss my phone into the wall lol. Mostly only priority stuff gets through these days. Every now and then my sister will hit me with a rapid-fire 10 ding (one per sentence) message but thanks to the nuclear option silent mode switch I can usually shut that shit down by about the 3rd ding. What sucks though is I sometimes forget to unsilence it for days. Maybe that's an upside though.
OrderlyTiamat 5y ago
That's much worse. But it's the same problem, no? People should just write the damn message and don't drag it out, then we'll all be happy.
- ghusto 5y ago
  Err, actually yes, I didn't realise but it is :) While we're all venting: How's about when you're writing a considerate reply that takes a while because it's a complicated answer, and they just blooming fire off another random message in the middle, destroying thread chronology!

efdee 5y ago

The real question is why Tim waits 4 minutes to reply to the "Hello!", but instantly replies to "Hello! <question>". What a selfrighteous jackass. Seriously though - as someone who's a 20-year resident in technical channels, who's had to deal with plenty of "Hello!"'s - this website comes off as incredibly condescending and very stereotypical for people working in an IT department.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> this website comes off as incredibly condescending and very stereotypical for people working in an IT department. It really does. I mean I get that people have different needs and work styles and I definitely find interruptions difficult at some points, but this might have swung the pendulum a wee bit too far -- precisely because other people have different needs and work styles.
chc 5y ago
The real question to me is why you expect somebody to drop everything and reply to "hello." It's not about being righteous, it's just not a productive use of your time. If I'm not busy, I'll reply quickly, but if I'm in the middle of something, chit-chatting with somebody who just wants to say hi is usually lower priority.
- efdee 5y ago
  This is exactly what I mean. Nobody expects you to drop anything. They want to see if you're there, and if you're not, they'll look for someone else to help them instead of asking you a question that might not be answered until long after they already received an answer from someone else. If you don't want to interrupt your work and reply, then don't. Don't be rude and expect people to read a manual about how to interact with you.
  - chc 5y ago
    The question you asked is: > why Tim waits 4 minutes to reply to the "Hello!", but instantly replies to "Hello! <question>". What a selfrighteous jackass. As far as I can tell, this question only makes sense if you expect him to treat both messages with equal priority, and believe failure to do so makes one a jackass. If you agree that it's reasonable to treat "pings" with lower priority than concrete questions, then it seems pretty easy to imagine why Tim waited 4 minutes to reply to "Hello" but instantly replied to a question.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jmull 5y ago

If you're asking a quick, informational, easy thing, then "Hi! What is the test server name?" is good. But dropping something upfront that is ambiguous or requiring thought isn't great. If you drop a thorny problem on someone, you may kind of force a context change on them, causing them to drop their train of thought and focus on what you need instead. You can pre-compose your longer thought/question. Then paste it once any pleasantries are over and you have the other person's attention. They don't need to wait for your typing and you can take your time to compose the right message, if you need it.

svet_0 5y ago
"Hi, got some questions regarding ComplexProject, ping me when you have a few minutes to spare."
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> You can pre-compose your longer thought/question. Then paste it once any pleasantries are over and you have the other person's attention. They don't need to wait for your typing and you can take your time to compose the right message, if you need it. Exactly. This is what I do, and advise people to do when they say "argh the web chat was so annoying". Plan your requests, but be cordial.
pas 5y ago
it's on the other party to defend their attention/focus. preemptively witholding information doesn't lead to a global optimum
- jmull 5y ago
  > it's on the other party to defend their attention/focus. Conducting communication as an adversarial process is *going to fail*.
  - pas 5y ago
    Of course, but different people have wildly different ideas on how to initiate and conduct cooperative communication. Just consider how some people have a hard time to say no, while other people have a hard time to express what that they want something, etc. (Cultural differences and stereotypes are alive and well.) Fundamentally there's a basic need to protect one's own resources needed for a healthy psyche. And unfortunately this is very much "left as an exercise to the reader" in many (almost all?) cultures around the world. And the unsurprising result is that many people are taken advantage of by those who exploit the lack of the aforementioned psychological skills.

dghlsakjg 5y ago

I think there's a dichotomy of people here. I'm one of the ones that minds because it can disrupt my work. I realize that sometimes interruptions are necessary but I want it to be efficient. So get to the point already Then there are the people that don't mind the interruption and sense of suspense. A "hi" feels to me like someone has just come up and poked me, but is just staring at me waiting to respond. Over chat it feels even weirder because then it is as if I have said "yes, what do you want" and I get to stare at them for a minute or two while they compose a request they should have already had ready. Also keep in mind that while saying 'hi' is perfectly fine irl, there is a crucial bit of context missing. If I see a colleague deeply concentrating on his work with headphones on, I'll wait. If their body language indicates that they aren't focusing hard, then its probably fine to interrupt.

pas 5y ago
if someone really wants something they can call :) disable desktop notifications and sounds and when you are finished with something switch to slack to see who wrote what doesn't this work?
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I treat slack like email to be honest and my team knows it. I'll get to you when I get to you, if you need me immediately then call me on the desk phone or cell, they still work y'all
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > if someone really wants something they can call :) Now that I just won't put up with! ;-)

svet_0 5y ago

I very much agree with nohello, but using it as your status message on slack/teams/etc. is taking it too far and doesn't make me want to talk to you unless I absolutely have to. Maybe it's just me though.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
People do that? What an appalling way to conduct work.
- pas 5y ago
  um, why? what's appalling about stating their preference?
pas 5y ago
they are upfront about their preference, what's wrong with that? why is this too far? :o
- svet_0 5y ago
  A bit passive aggressive and snobbish when collaboration is already difficult, even when co-workers are welcoming and engaging.
  - pas 5y ago
    um, I don't find it passive at all. I don't do this, nor have I saw this, but if someone really has negative experiences with others and decides to put this into their status, that is pretty much the opposite of passive aggressive behavior, it seems to me like basic assertive communication (state your preference, talk about what you want/need)
- jader201 5y ago
  What if I like just saying “Hello” up front for reasons I find just as valid as the reasons you don’t like “Hello”? (For the record, I don’t — I agree with “No hello”.) But being “upfront about your preference” is basically saying my preference trumps your preference. And to the OPs point, it makes me hesitate to even engage in the first place. I have people that communicate with me in ways that I don’t communicate with others, and even if it can sometimes be annoying, that’s more my problem than it is theirs. Having said that, I think generally discussing the pros/cons of communication can be fine and helps bring to light things others may not have thought about. I’m just not sure I would be quick to engage with someone that goes out of their way to tell me how I should communicate with them.

tetha 5y ago

Mh, for me it's a bit of a process of getting to know people, and to educate people how to get what they want from me quickly. Somehow that sounds arrogant. The thing is, if people ask me a direct, simple question via chat, I can answer many things without even losing my train of thought. Something like "Hey where do I configure DNS records for XYZ" or "where in ansible is X" and such often get answered while thinking about other stuff. Some new employees are kind of hesitant because it seems rude to them to just poke me with questions like that straight up, but that's the getting-to-know part. I don't need cuddling, and tea, and house shoes, and comments about the weather if you just need some simple information. Or, if they are unsure about the entire situation, be straight about it. Let me dig myself out of my hole, tell me the context you're in and then let's have a call and screenshare about the entire thing. I still prefer to know what this is about, because it allows me to prepare for a call, to make our call more effective for both of us. But the thing is, those kind of ticks and preferences I have are a relationship thing with other employees. People just start polite and careful and might just be like "Hello" and such - developers write less, marketing writes more. Usually they just aren't sure how to approach me. So I can't really be to mad at them. Just answer with a funny smiley or a waving one when your heads context is switched to chat, their first message won't be business critical. And the latter is another important point. We have escalation and communication channels and communication and escalation plans for different severities of problems. Someone saying "Hi" to me cannot be a critical incident by internal definition, so it has a few hours of SLA at minimum and might be forgotten at worst. If it was critical, our head of support would call me directly. If it was more than critical, our head of operation would call my physical phone.

clircle 5y ago

I can't understand why people are so passionate about whether one says hello or not in a chat. What kind of lives do you lead that drive you to make a website about such a niche annoyance?

danaris 5y ago
The point isn't the "hello". It's the lack of anything else.
HKH2 5y ago
If you don't find context switching costly at all, fine. Some of us can't multitask or quickly regain focus.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

I know I am going to be downvoted so hard for this, but this is the most Hacker News thing ever. People have all sorts of different ways to converse; people have different models of politeness, people are shy, uncertain or awkward in all sorts of different ways. Some things just can't be blurted out. Some things need the scene setting. People are people. Not robots. Producing a website to demand that people address you in an efficient way is a perfect example of why people dread asking us questions at all. It's staggeringly entitled. Now, I will follow that up by saying that when I want to get an answer from a website chat support person, I _always_ plan out, draft or bullet-point exactly what I need, so I know I am not asking a dumb question. And then after I have said hello (!) I explain I have done that so I can paste bits in as needed. But this website goes a bit too far. "No hello"? Really? This is the framing? If anyone is considering forwarding this to any internal mailing lists: don't.

pas 5y ago
> forwarding this to any internal mailing lists: don't. why? it's a request. clear and simple. if someone doesn't want to care, not the end of the world.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Forwarding that link to a mailing list will damage people's perceptions of you and ultimately kick-start a company-wide discussion on tone of communication that will ultimately result in someone writing a Damore Memo. (I am only half-joking) Accept that people are awkward, different and diverse and that we benefit from that too. And then don't forward it. I once wrote an email to an internal email list about the lack of forks in the departmental kitchen and how I'd bought lots more and they'd all gone too. I was polite, like this website, and frustrated, like the people who wrote this website. But the request made people who'd simply forgotten to return a fork, or who'd had a cake meeting that day, or whatever was genuinely more important than returning a fork, a little bit piqued. People told me to my face how my politeness came across to them. I should have just bought more forks. Buy more forks.
  - 5y ago

humansuit 5y ago

[This comment was dumb, and I've opted to remove it.]

danaris 5y ago
However fun and flavorful these may be, they don't actually solve the problem being articulated, which is sending a greeting with no substantive message attached.
- humansuit 5y ago
  Valid point. I'll remove it from the conversation.

below43 5y ago

I do this. When I forget to press shift when I hit enter.

yakubin 5y ago

I expect a lot of it comes from people not being aware of what Shift+Enter does in Slack. There is a setting in Slack which makes Enter break lines, and Ctrl+Enter send the message. IMO it should be the default. It could break away with the habit of standalone hellos and with big messages being broken into 7 smaller ones (each generating a notification, and making it harder to judge when the other person stopped forming their message). Instead, sending a message would be a separate action from composing it. Of course, it's inevitable that some people won't appreciate other's time and attention, but that's probably unsolvable.

lamontcg 5y ago

There's also vaguebugging that usually goes along with this, and which gets used in public channels: "Hey team, is anyone seeing a problem with <product>?" (well, I have a bugtracker with around 300-400 issues in it, so yes... what is your specific problem?) That is counter productive because I get this mental image of you with a fishing rod with bait on the hook waiting for me to bite, and my natural reaction is to not bother respond to you. If you'd just post what you're doing and what the error message is, I'd be way more likely to point you in the right direction if I know what the issue is. EDIT: oh there we go its the other related post today on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
This, for what it's worth, is much more annoying to me than a bit of conversational flow. "Vaguebugging" is such a useful word that it is now noted for future use.
- sshine 5y ago
  I like this term, too, but I don't understand why apparently it has negative connotations. If someone doesn't have a clue, and they don't want to stand up and announce it, how do you suggest they go about it? At least in a public channel, no one person is committed to answer, and the most patient / the person who knows the least what vaguebugging means, can answer.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    they can just post what it is they or the customer are trying to do and the misbehavior they're seeing or the error message. "is there an issue with the latest release?" vs. "i've got a customer that just upgraded from version A.B.C to X.Y.Z and the <specific feature> configured in <specific way> trying to do <specific thing> is failing with <specific error message>, could this be a regression or did something change deliberately?"

satisfice 5y ago

This is a stupid post. By stupid I mean it seems to me that the author of it is deliberately refusing to use his mind. The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient. I’m sorry if the poster doesn’t understand the value of live conversation, but that’s not our problem. Now people like me have to say “ignore that post from that idiot… go ahead and ping me with a ‘hi’” Deliver me from clever control freaks who never studied human behavior.

Pooge 5y ago
> The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient. No, it does not. If the person wants to do a call, you either call directly or - more polite these days - you send a message along the lines of "Can I call you about <x>?" or "Please call me whenever you're ready to talk about <x>". If you want to engage in synchronous (i.e. live) conversation, you don't engage it by just sending "hi" over a text chat, which is a very asynchronous medium.
trvrprkr 5y ago
A huge benefit of many (most?) chat apps is that communication can be async. If it requires a live conversation, then respectfully it probably warrants scheduling time. The author is arguing that the “udp approach” to these conversations is less intrusive, and also alleviates doubt/anxiety about the nature of the conversation.
- spadros 5y ago
  The author’s not wrong, he’s just an asshole. People have different ways of communicating. I actually like getting to know my coworkers and appreciate a little fluff in my conversations. Heck, if you can make me laugh with a sassy story or a funny pun, you get brownie points and priority. This author sounds like the type of asshole that says “I’m not here to make friends, I’m not here to be nice to you, I’m here to trade my time for money only, so go to hell.” AKA an entitled asshole.

taylodl 5y ago

I tend to ignore people who just say hello - unless it's someone I'm closely working with on a project. I intend to get back to them, but, because I don't know what they need I can't really prioritize it so I subconsciously prioritize last (I don't intentionally mean to) and since I have so much to do I usually never get back with them until: they provide context. Much better is something like hello, don't mean to bother you but hey when you have the time can you <whatever>. That works so much better - many times I'll just take care of it immediately just to keep my backlog of work from growing. If it's something that's going to be more involved I'll let them know that and work out when they're needing it done by. Then I'll get it on my to-do list. If it's urgent then say so - hello, sorry to bother you but this came up unexpectedly and you're the only one that can do <whatever>. Can you help us out? I may be annoyed, but I'm not going to shoot the messenger. Just hello? No. It slips off my radar.

sshine 5y ago

"Don't introduce yourself, act like you were in the room all along." This surely is a good advice from someone in the room greeting someone who just entered. It's called a protocol. Assume "hello" means something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY

felipesabino 5y ago

For Brazilians, I did the pt-br version a little while ago https://bomdianao.com.br https://bomdianao.com.br

danielyaa5 5y ago

I feel like this is also entrapment, forcing u to engage before knowing what the other person wants

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

Of course three are cases when you do say hello when starting. Do you want to send this confidential message to be seen by the people who are looking at my screen because of IM sends the message on the popup? Anything I feel is confidential starts with a hello so that I know the other party is ready. Anything generic also starts with a hello because in my country you don't just talk to people without a greeting, but then the content immediately follows

lenkite 5y ago

Just add a "thumbs-up" to hello when someone says this so that folks know you are paying attention. If not just type in "busy and move on.