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This is just whiny. So what someone said hi in your precious chat, either just say hi back or don't. Maybe they just want to make sure they're not talking into

This is just whiny. So what someone said hi in your precious chat, either just say hi back or don't. Maybe they just want to make sure they're not talking into a dead channel. And if you're messaging someone directly maybe it's just something you want a synchronous conversation over.

Otek 5y ago
I 100% agree with you. Damage is done anyway, person is interrupted. It’s now a standard to mute Slack/Teams when you are concentrated and let other person call you if it’s urgent. If you let every message interrupt your work maybe you should blame yourself
stanislavb 5y ago
This. The initial waiting for answer serves for initiating a synchronous conversation. If you wanted an async convo, send an email.
csydas 5y ago
While I get what you're saying (and can even agree to some point), I would suggest consider that there are many different types of chats and business uses for chat. Basically, a lot of people have to pay attention to chats, but until they get a full description of the problem, they don't know how much attention they need to pay. The cost of _not_ paying attention on a critical issue is far greater than that of paying attention/waiting on a non-critical issue. To offer a point that does affect me multiple times daily, I work with a lot of technicians that basically help with systems monitoring. For any given message, it might be as simple as as "how can I find more about this process using memory?" or it can be quite critical like "the client infrastructure is completely unresponsive and we cannot get the system live again, help!" Receiving dozens of such messages daily, it is stressful to get the "Hi" or "Can I ask a question" sort of message knowing that depending on the client/severity, this might need all of my attention now or it might be something I put off until the next week, but I won't know for at least 2-10 minutes (and sometimes even longer!) Process ought control this, but with all chat platforms I know of, you can't really control for how people chat, they just "do". It's not punishment worthy, it's just annoying, like someone who smacks their lips when they eat. Of course, this is my specific situation, and not everyone has the same problems, but I would expect that the author of the article and many others agreeing have the same issue I have, and that's why you see such reaction articles about chat etiquette.

Otek 5y ago

I 100% agree with you. Damage is done anyway, person is interrupted. It’s now a standard to mute Slack/Teams when you are concentrated and let other person call you if it’s urgent. If you let every message interrupt your work maybe you should blame yourself

stanislavb 5y ago

This. The initial waiting for answer serves for initiating a synchronous conversation. If you wanted an async convo, send an email.

csydas 5y ago

While I get what you're saying (and can even agree to some point), I would suggest consider that there are many different types of chats and business uses for chat. Basically, a lot of people have to pay attention to chats, but until they get a full description of the problem, they don't know how much attention they need to pay. The cost of _not_ paying attention on a critical issue is far greater than that of paying attention/waiting on a non-critical issue. To offer a point that does affect me multiple times daily, I work with a lot of technicians that basically help with systems monitoring. For any given message, it might be as simple as as "how can I find more about this process using memory?" or it can be quite critical like "the client infrastructure is completely unresponsive and we cannot get the system live again, help!" Receiving dozens of such messages daily, it is stressful to get the "Hi" or "Can I ask a question" sort of message knowing that depending on the client/severity, this might need all of my attention now or it might be something I put off until the next week, but I won't know for at least 2-10 minutes (and sometimes even longer!) Process ought control this, but with all chat platforms I know of, you can't really control for how people chat, they just "do". It's not punishment worthy, it's just annoying, like someone who smacks their lips when they eat. Of course, this is my specific situation, and not everyone has the same problems, but I would expect that the author of the article and many others agreeing have the same issue I have, and that's why you see such reaction articles about chat etiquette.