19 ms·

Please don't be spooky

203 points by memorable 4y ago

rockbruno 4y ago
Amazing how many people (especially from HR) don't get this. The other day I got a calendar invite from a random HR person who I've talked to before that said nothing but "Sync". It made extremely distressed until I messaged that person asking for more information and it turned out to be something completely innocent. Just write it in the damn invite then instead of giving me a heart attack!
- shaoonb 4y ago
  I once worked under a middle manager who had the policy that any meeting invite with no agenda should be automatically rejected. Sadly they were never able to extend this outside of their department.
  - ThePadawan 4y ago
    After reading through this for the missing negation - I love them for this! (I worked with managers who would never use agendas. Leaves them more room to filibuster when it becomes clear they don't understand what's going on.)
- wazoox 4y ago
  It may be innocent, but also don't forget that many people don't waste any occasion to make others feel the weight of whatever little ounce of power they have.
0x2c8 4y ago
> A piece of advice I wish I could give my manager is don't be spooky. Why not politely talk to your manager and let them know that this behaviour is not appropriate / productive?
- pdimitar 4y ago
  Because they don't care and will not change anything. Tried it -- no less than 15 times in my long career. Same result every time. Management by default attracts people who think they cracked it all (lol). It's an ego trip for many and they are usually impossible to truly reason with.
- Brajeshwar 4y ago
  Most won't, but would instead talk at the managers' back. Many people forget that "I cannot read your mind!"
- atoav 4y ago
  While I whole heartedly agree with that you should tell people how to get better, I think if there is one skill a manager should have it is to emphatically communicate. If a manager doesn't understand the communicative basic that there is always multiple messages: - the message they intended to send - the message they actually sent - the message as it was read by the receiving person Any decent communicator will always think about how the message/language will be read by the receiver(s). That means if they are a decent communicator this should not happen unless they have a very bad day or something.
- jollybean 4y ago
  The manager's behaviour is absolutely appropriate, and not impolite. Also, someone with antisocial anxieties like this probably would have difficulty with that kind of confrontation.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
> Repeated pings fall under the same category. If I'm available, I would have replied to you already. Managers that do this are micro-managers and won't listen to the advice. My written conversations with my manager are asynchronous, even when via Slack. I know he will answer when he can and I will answer when I can. So if it's urgent it goes in the team chat, where we can take a collective decision without having a less technical manager be the bottleneck.
4pkjai 4y ago
I got a very spooky email from HR a few years back: "Hi, this is X from HR. We want to talk to you about an incident that occurred a few months ago. Can we meet on Thursday 3 PM?" "Okay what incident are you referring to" "I'll let you know on Thursday" I then messaged my boss he told me the incident was something dodgey someone had said to me.
- marsRoverDev 4y ago
  They probably do this because they don't want anything committed to text. It still doesn't excuse it, but yeah, they're doing that intentionally. At a minimum they should say "this is not something you've done wrong".
- atoav 4y ago
  It is so simple to not do this. Either they could schedule a generic meeting among the lines of "I have some questions" or they could just tell you what incident this was going to be about.
  - 4pkjai 4y ago
    Well a generic interview with HR is pretty spooky as well
- martopix 4y ago
  Reminds me of being called out of the classroom for a meeting with the head teacher when I was 12. I panicked immediately, because "go to the head teacher" was usually just to be told off.* Then my teacher specified "it's for GOOD news" and it changed completely. * in itself very wrong, the idea that authority is there just to punish you and head teachers should be something you're afraid of.
- dade_ 4y ago
  Our director of cybersecurity did something similar. I asked my manager, what’s going on, he had no idea. Completely unintentional, she wanted to speak about a RFP response, but it was completely out of context and I didn’t know she was reviewing it. Out of etiquette, everyone should think about context when sending a message. Probably more so in roles of authority and those that own “terminate-able offence” compliance. Also, people should check their paranoia. I’ve been working jobs for 30 years and never has the bad news or underhanded crap started with a message like this. Not that I don’t sometimes think this is the first time.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
This is true for many things -- emails, forum/community posts -- always have a context, especially with the Subject. When one sends out something, it is for the recipient and not for the senders' convenience. I'm still learning but I love setting enough context for the recipient to either take action or form a decision, starting from the Subject which is the core of the whole content. I once read about the idea of BLUF[1] - “Bottom Line Up Front”, popularized by the military - because lives may be dependent on how fast a message gets its context to the recipient. I love that idea and love practicing it. These are applicable, not just with emails, bit also with short text messages. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)
cortesoft 4y ago
This applies to everyone you interact with. I never leave just "call me" messages.... makes you think someone died.
gonzo41 4y ago
This person needs to consider mindfulness meditation. It almost seems like they are assuming some catastrophe is around every corner. If your boss says "hey got a moment to chat" you have a choice in how you react to the information. Assume they want to just chat and engage, or freak out and think the world is ending. Both options are possible, one has a nicer outcome. It's important to remember and remind yourself that you have control about how you feel about things. I know I do work. I can justify my time, If my boss pulls me aside and redirects my work. That's totally fine, I work for them. But generally, meetings invites and messages should contain lots of info and context. Chatting with your boss shouldn't be scary, if it is, maybe consider a new boss.
- Nursie 4y ago
  I must admit freaking out one morning, having stumbled into work hungover and tired, when my team lead grabbed me on my way in and said "Can we have a word?" and pulled me into a meeting room where the product owner and two levels of management were sitting. Thankfully they were wanting to ask if I'd like to spend a month training in California!
- pantulis 4y ago
  Or a little bit of reading about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, there is a good book called "CBT for dummies" or something like that. Mindfulness as a tool will train you to observe what happens inside your head and then apply CBT techniques.
- emptyparadise 4y ago
  maybe the boss can meditate on sending more productive messages instead. why does everything have to be a fault within me?
  - SargeZT 4y ago
    They should, but you're the only one you can control your responses.
  - bslqn 4y ago
scandox 4y ago
It's a sad state of affairs when people are so anxious that a simple inquiry can cause them distress. I don't know if it's character, upbringing or just the modern work environment but it really ought not to cause anyone any concern if someone just wants to check if you're available.
- lucideer 4y ago
  It's a sad state of affairs when the response to things like this is attribution to bad character or upbringing, rather than basic human empathy.
- sfg 4y ago
  But they do, so it is probably best to include a short note stating the purpose of the desired conversation. This will also help prime many people, and thereby improve the conversation, so it is probably worth doing even if the person won’t be made anxious.
  - pantulis 4y ago
    As a manager, I've sometimes used the technique of adding something like: "It's nothing serious" to the message. Best way of course is giving context but hey, everyone is human.
    - ricardobeat 4y ago
      As a receiver of that message I'd say it doesn't help much. The stress comes from the information-less poke. Ideally you go straight to the point: “hi jack, I need to check in on XXX so we can update the quarterly goals, can you send me Y / can we speak?”. Nothing is gained by checking immediate availability with a greeting message. https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/
      - defrost 4y ago
        The downside is that if every significant bit of communication is straight to the point and in public ... how should sensitive personal infomation be handled ? It's either: - out there in public, OR - clearly sensitive as it's the only bit of communication the other party is masking. Depending on your environment workers may or may not want open signals about sensitive events being telegraphed.
LarsAlereon 4y ago
As a manager, it's trivial to just add "you're not in trouble" to the end of a message like this, even if you can't imply what it's about.
- planb 4y ago
  Now that would make me curious!
  - elcritch 4y ago
    And of course it has a glaring implied "... yet" obviously. ;)
- reportgunner 4y ago
  You could also just assume that you're not in trouble every time the message doesn't end with "you're in trouble"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
noja 4y ago
Yeah, no. Doing this would remove the human part from any interaction.
- memorable 4y ago
  Well, you can just add a simple message to be more specific about what you are talking about and it would not cause someone fear that they screwed up something.
- blocko 4y ago
  I think it actually adds some of the human part back in. "Hey, got a sec?" in person comes with quite a bit more context--body language, tone of voice--and a pretty quick transition into the content. To me, the rhythm of an informative first message feels more natural than responding to someone's ping and waiting 2 minutes for the follow-up.
osrec 4y ago
I'm reminded of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/DunderMifflin/comments/29v0e2/the_doctors_tried_to_save_her_life_they_did_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DunderMifflin/comments/29v0e2/the_d...
Archelaos 4y ago
The post is missing that the effect of the described behaviour is very context dependant. For example, I am not afraid of my main client at all. If I get a message from him like "Can we talk" it is just that. He wants to talk about something that is not so important or too complicated to describe it in the message. And if I get repeated phone calls it means that he is either on his mobile travelling and is trying to reach me when he has a signal or that he has a limited time-frame to reach me for whatever reason. In other words: Our communication is not scary by default, and if something scary was imminent, he would surely announce it.
DoItToMe81 4y ago
Excuse me? This is just normal communication.
- jollybean 4y ago
  Of course it is. The fact that they would write an article about it and don't have the self awareness to recognize they have a problem - but worse - the number of people on HN that seem to think there is a material problem in behaviour of the manager is a bit shocking. It's ridiculous. It's not even a 1 out of 10 in terms of inappropriateness, it's fully a 0. It's 100% within the preoperative of anyone frankly to say "hey, can we chat for 10 at lunch?" Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it. My grandparents were born on farms without electricity or plumbing (common for the area), no public healthcare, retirement, social assistance, unemployment, radio, refrigeration, TV, barely any cars. etc.. They were kind and generous people but also resilient and self assured. They literally wouldn't understand the author's concern. It would have to be spelled out to them. They would be empathetic (it's in their character) but wouldn't think anything other than the author has some kind of issue. Complaining about "Can we chat?" as some kind of 'unreasonable thing' is getting absurd. People above are commenting 'what kind of stressful world we must live in' - I think the complete opposite: we have reached a threshold of material abundance and prosperity such that the most vague, imperceptible form of nuance in communication is now worthy of demarcation. Only extremely privileged and wealthy people could afford to go on about someone asking them 'if they have time to chat'.
  - valar_m 4y ago
    >> Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it. This line of thinking seems really...bad. I mean, essentially what you're saying is: "I disagree on this matter which is unambiguously a personal opinion, and anyone with a differing opinion is wrong, and anyone who is sympathetic to their opinion has something wrong with them, too." I'm genuinely curious, what makes you take this position?
cs02rm0 4y ago
They'd hate where I work. Rather than message to ask to call, we just call. The whole point of calling is to reduce the pain of having to type out a load of stuff that's easier to say and comes with the extra nuances of verbal communication. I can't imagine they'd prefer the repeated flashings of your manager is typing... over minutes. Just sending "hello" is annoying though, I'll give them that.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I'd just decline a random call. First I have to pull out my airpods and wait a bit for them to sync
- xlii 4y ago
  That depends on frequency and can be both good and bad thing. Text don't convey emotion well, emojis don't really help with that, direct calls are much better. But then focus wind-up and wind-down matters too, so receiving random calls throughout the day might be a recipe for no work done whatsoever. In the end if there are serious agreements made it should be done in writing though.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  That's why people like email. Unless it's on fire, please just email. Not every email has to be a treatise, short and sweet, maybe a few bullets to keep your mind focused rather than rambletypeing. I hate getting random calls and IMs it breaks my flow and focus. I actually turn off IM or put away at most places and silence it. I have unplugged the phone before as well if it gets aggregious
- sakarisson 4y ago
  IMO, direct call (especially if those are common in your workplace) is much better than a vague "can we talk?" before a call. Doesn't give the mind a chance to wander and fill in the context.
festive-minsky 4y ago
I guess it's a bit similar to https://www.nohello.com https://www.nohello.com The initial message triggers you to worry about an uncertain topic, it's much better to know from the initial message what the conversation will be about
ricardobeat 4y ago
> do things around the house This sounds like advice specific for WFH, but it also applies to people working at the office. The other person may be talking to someone else, in an unscheduled meeting, having a coffee, or simply have notifications off to be able to focus. I used to have them off for most of the day, and just check for messages at a half hour interval, otherwise it’s a total productivity killer. In a real emergency people will reach for a phone call.
- ev1 4y ago
  As someone that has worked both remote and onsite customer service and tech it's kind of a wild difference. If I didn't flag myself unavailable or "sign off" even to take a short WC break it would start notifying supervisors of "not working", probably even worse these days with eye tracking and webcam monitoring of availability for the "not tech" crowd.
planb 4y ago
I'm not sure if "spooky" is the right word (why would you assume you're in trouble?), but it sure helps to have context, and if it's just to prepare by opening the right documents to quickly look up stuff. That's why if find the last paragraph the most useful advice here. Please don't break my concentration by writing just "Hello" and having my actively wait for you to type your concern. And please don't wait for me to write "Hello" too before you even start.
- fddr 4y ago
  Yes, 100% agree with last paragraph. And the waiting for me to type Hello back pattern is so annoying. This really should be basic work etiquette. Type your whole question in one go. If you want to you can include pleasantries at the beginning but never if there is going to be a more than 2 second interval between them and your actual question. Should probably be part of first day orientation for new hires.
jollybean 4y ago
It gets bad when people with odd anxieties project them onto everyone around them. There's an entire social (edit:changed that word from 'political' which I didn't mean to say) orientation around this. See the hilarious 2019 Socialist Convention where they talk about people clapping as 'harm' or wearing perfume as 'aggressive' or taking a particular tone as 'oppressive', etc. "Hey, can we chat!" is now "Triggering" etc.. ? We're really going to be dragged aside by HR now because "Hey, can we chat?" Yeah ... no. I think it's up to the author to seek help. I don't deny they have an issue, but I'm wary that it's mostly theirs to contend with.
- ev1 4y ago
  I think this is reasonable, honestly. It's disrespectful of my time to do this on an async medium preventing me from preparing materials, finding source, or whatever else I need before a meeting instead of having to do it there.
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  Talk about projecting… this has nothing to do with politics, especially USA politics. I’ve have had this exact conversation with colleagues from extremely varied backgrounds. Some people mind it less, some more, but most are annoyed by it at some level. It’s like calling and saying “can I ask you a question?”, followed by thirty seconds of silence. This is a bad pattern of communication introduced by modern chat with presence features (and amplified by remote work), not something that is part of natural conversation.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    I'm not projecting, and not making it political. Maybe it's you that are possibly projecting here, by assuming that because I referenced a political convention, that I'm making it political. (EDIT: Yes, I did write 'political'. It's totally my fault. I didn't mean to write that word. I meant to use a different term, 'political' came out and I didn't edit it. My bad. I meant to infer a 'social posture') That ultra empathetic posture, to the point of literally debilitating the conference itself - is just something that happened at that conference, which happened to be a Socialist Convention. It doesn't have anything to do with socialism. Even if it does, by the way, seem to be a part of elements of communication of 'that side' - it likely just has more to do with personality types, because it's obviously not political. If you want to see the video yourself it's here [1]. And by the way - this video is just a snapshot, there's much more hilarity floating out there. And finally I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do with 'remote culture' or 'remote work' ... I know my manager would often walk by my cube and say the same thing. Perhaps more frequent, but not really an element of culture. It's also perfectly reasonable. I wish I knew how to describe the variation of anxiety that this might arise, or what to do about it (meditation? CBT?) , but I don't suggest it's anyone's problem but the person who is made anxious. I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRxu3XrsHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRxu3XrsHg
brap 4y ago
As a new manager this is something I try to do (I already got this advice from some place, I believe it was another HN thread). Any other tips?
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  Also do the opposite of the opposite. If you need to fire someone, it's appropriate to use a somber tone to prepare the other party. I was recently let go as basically agenda point 3 out of 4 during my normal weekly one-on-one with my manager and was completely blindsided (the position was made redundant entirely, so there was no preceding performance review or the like).
- orwin 4y ago
  Be direct and effective in your first message. And if you and an engineer have communication issues (you don't understand their tickets comments, their mails are too abstract and/or not factual enough), do not hesitate to do a bi weekly 1 on 1 until those communication issues are less glaring. It helped my working conditions tremendously. I'm still really anxious when my manager contact me, but him being direct made me feel way more comfortable than the previous one.
kleiba 4y ago
Also known as: guy on the internet has certain preferences regarding IM netiquette.
jpgvm 4y ago
Regardless of my position I have always sent my full request in a message to anyone that I wouldn't consider a friend (as in someone more significant to a co-worker). And generally speaking if it's among friends it's something super casual like "yo" or "sup" generally because I have no specific subject, I just want to chat generally. This is not just because I don't like freaking people out but also because I respect their time. I don't want them to get the first interrupt and then wait for 60s while I type out the actual request I have of them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bheadmaster 4y ago
While some may not agree with how this is formulated, I think the point is a part of a bigger concept - don't be unpredictable. Don't make things unpredictable. Work is a necessity. We're not all neurotypical, relaxed, outgoing persons - some of us may even suffer from mental issues - and we still have to work. Predictability - i.e. removing all the mystery from communication - helps a lot. "Hey, can you talk for a second?" - is unpredictable. I have no way of knowing whether you want to talk to me about weather or shoot me with a gun. "Hey, can you talk for a second about X? [+additional info if needed]" - is predictable and gives me a clear idea about what you want to talk about. Of course, communication takes effort, and it is unreasonable to demand everyone to follow these guidelines all the time. But that doesn't mean they're bad guidelines.
- MattGaiser 4y ago
  Also, whether I can talk depends on priority. No, if you want to chat casually. Yes if prod is on fire.
- gigaflop 4y ago
  > don't be unpredictable. Don't make things unpredictable. Yes, this. I've found that being (functionally) boring and predictable has gone over very well with my team and managers. I reserve my chaotic nature for when my work laptop is closed. As for the inevitable "one line greeting awaiting acknowledgement before proceeding" messages, I just respond in kind, and wait for them to get to their actual question while I continue whatever I was doing. No skin off my back, and it plays nice with coworkers.
- satisfice 4y ago
  No. I won’t do that. It inhibits natural communication. Learn to deal with ordinary adult life, please.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    > natural communication There is no such thing. Perhaps you meant "the kind of communication I'm used to"? > Learn to deal with ordinary adult life, please. Don't be condescending, please.
anjc 4y ago
If someone can't say "got a minute to chat?" or even "hello" to you without causing anxiety, you need a long break, a new job, or professional help. Surprised at all the comments agreeing with this article.
- npteljes 4y ago
  Your manager, or HR, is not just "someone". They are well above you in the power hierarchy. That's where the fear comes from. People, when dealing with someone from a power position, need to be extra careful with their words and attitude - well, only if they want to be fair and don't want to toy with the other's emotions. I don't know if it's relatable to you, but it's similar to how much force you can use, when playing with animals. You need to be more careful with a smaller dog, than a larger dog. Cats are even more delicate, yet, not as delicate as a hamster. And you have to be extra careful, with the tip of your finger, to properly pet a mouse. Similarly, saying "That's not good. I needed that for yesterday" is not the same for every person. If it's coming from your coworker, then it's maybe an oh shit moment, or something that you say sorry for, and amend it, and that's that. Much less so when it comes from your immediate superior. Even worse if it's an important client. And maybe even worse if you're a junior on trial period.
- gasgiant 4y ago
  Would you accept the answer "no" with no additional context or replies without feeling put off? Chat is asynchronous. Just ask your question. This isn't a phone call or a desk-side visit. The act of initiating a chat already contains the idea that you are asking the other person for an interaction. If they have time to chat, they will chat. If you need a response right away, then chat isn't the place to do it.
- bluedino 4y ago
  It's even worse with the people who brag that they absolutely will not respond to people that say "Hi"
ataru 4y ago
I get this. We never know when the company is going to forecast that it needs a round of redundancies. When they do so, they would send a meeting request saying something like "important company status update" with no other information, because they don't want to divulge anything before the meeting. After going through the redundancy selection and surviving it, any future emails that say things like "important company status update" are quite worrying. And they send things like that all the time, because they don't think it's important to tell us why they're calling a meeting.
onion2k 4y ago
If someone says "Have you got a minute?" the natural people-pleasing human response is to say yes because you assume that someone won't interrupt you unless it's important. You need to let go of that notion and assume that their inquiry is of the lowest possible priority, and literally anything else you're working on is more important. Unless you've got nothing else on at the time this means you can happily say "No, I don't have a minute." People will quickly learn that they need to say why they need to interrupt you in order to actually break your flow.
ho_schi 4y ago
I think the missing "why" is an issue. Like a commit message needs a "why".
xlii 4y ago
I'd recommend trying to get to a room where family member/friend etc. is in their environment, throw casually "hey, can we talk" and move outside of the room waiting for them to come over. They will expect something is/was wrong. Simply because people organically don't communicate like that. There is no N minutes pause between prompt and the message. Having separate communication prompt is signaling for bracing or softening, i.e. delivery of bad news. Sure, a lot of people learned to cope with this, but that's definitely not normal communication. It's also wasting other people's time and showing lack of respect. Having someone wait on hook for 2 minutes while thoughts are being typed out is exact same type of power move as "yeah, I called you, but wait a sec till I finish my crossword". Is the other person online presence really indispensable to a degree that the thoughts cannot by typed out without it? As a counter move (if someone wants to be mean) you can respond "Hey, I'm here, but I'm starting my focus session right now, so I'll check my Slack/E-mail/IRC/Teams in 45 minutes, what's up?" So yeah.. don't do this in professional communication.
- rob74 4y ago
  Well, I can understand why some actually consider a message "hey, can we talk" more polite than simply calling without asking first, especially for developers. After all, they may currently be in the middle of doing something and would prefer not to be disturbed. OTOH, a message is already a disturbance, and most of the times checking your calendar should already give someone a hint about whether you are busy or not. Either way, providing a hint of what you want to talk about, e.g. "hey, can we talk about that spline reticulation issue?" is of course much better.
  - bipson 4y ago
    > After all, they may currently be in the middle of doing something and would prefer not to be disturbed. OTOH, a message is already a disturbance [...] That is what has not sunken in yet in our new and fancy asynchronous world.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    > Either way, providing a hint of what you want to talk about, e.g. "hey, can we talk about that spline reticulation issue?" is of course much better. This is the big thing. "Don't be spooky" doesn't mean "interrupt me freely", it means "tell me cagey, coy, or avoidant and tell me what you want asynchronously before we start a conversation".
pdimitar 4y ago
Ha, one of the most relatable HN submissions in a long, long time. Many people, me included, link those out-of-the-blue messages with "you are fired" or "can you please work weekends for one month", and both are not welcome news. But there's also very often another thing: a creator/maker like the programmers are (or should be) assuming that the other party will not interrupt you if it wasn't for anything important -- because you know you wouldn't want that for yourself and are trying to be considerate towards other people's concentration. Turns out however, people send these messages for all sorts of random unimportant things. With time I learned to respond immediately so I don't allow any anxiety to take a hold in me -- but then when I see that it's something trivial (and is not blocking the other party) I also immediately reply with "sure but I'll do it later since I got plenty on my plate right now". A few people took offense but I got over it. They too. --- But then there's also the other extreme. My last long-ish contract I was in a company where the CTO and his second in command were literally impossible to reach outside of biweekly scheduled meetings -- and even then nothing they deem off-topic is allowed. I get that you have to preserve your focus and concentration but they took it to the other extreme and it was very, VERY not okay because super important decisions only the CTO can make were being dragged out for months, leading to improvisation by the rest of the team that was then criticized by the said CTO.
zelos 4y ago
My kid's school is very sensible about this. If they have to phone you during the day for something minor they always start with "Hello, this is <school name>, there's nothing to worry about." It saves parents that 5 seconds of panic that something terrible has happened. > don't just say hello in chat. This drives me crazy. It's like they are trying to maximise the amount of other people's time they're wasting.
- noneeeed 4y ago
  Our school does that. The staff must have had so many phone conversations where the first thing the parent said was "omg is something worng?" that they just learn to automatically preempt it. We've had the "This is $teacher, $child is fine but $bad_thing happened, we did $x, could you $y", all in the first sentence. It's remarkably effective communication.
davidkuennen 4y ago
As a manager I always state in my message what I want to talk about. Or what a meeting is about. There is a big difference between "Can we talk?" and "Can we talk? Want us to look over the roadmap real quick". The first one could be anything and the other person will always imagine all kinds of stuff. Likely even lose productivity over it. The second one is a no brainer.
reportgunner 4y ago
You could also just not care instead of trying to change everyone.
vivegi 4y ago
I understand people are wired differently and react differently to this situation. It is helpful for one's own mental health to Assume Positive Intent when context is missing from messages. If it is really bad news that the other party wants to discuss, there is nothing you can do about it. You might as well deal with it during/after the discussion. If it is a benign discussion, all your anxiety would have been pointless anyway. The corollary is that if you are sending a message, it just takes a few additional words to provide context (don't be cryptic; don't write a Tolstoy novel). That saves time on both sides. It preps the recipient to come prepared with information for the discussion and hopefully makes the discussion short and productive.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  "Just don't be depressed!"
- traviscj 4y ago
  I had a manager — who I basically loved — that loved to say “assume positive intent”, perhaps from teammate $T And I tried! But my priors were that teammate $T has rejected ideas from most of my design documents for (imho) inconsequential reasons — Eg there were framework scalability concerns of using a framework that handles 1x-1000x the projected growth of the current project. Telling me to “assume positive intent” from feedback saying it wouldn’t work “because scale” (when we were comfortably 4-5 orders of magnitude away from those problems) felt pretty empty. More honest pushback would essentially be “this solution didn’t need this scale yet”, or “we can afford to re-architect this right now” — “finding deals” becomes a rent payment from someone figured
  - vivegi 4y ago
    Ok, so there was a disagreement on how to move forward. How did you resolve it with your teammate?
- Zababa 4y ago
  > It is helpful for one's own mental health to Assume Positive Intent when context is missing from messages. If it is really bad news that the other party wants to discuss, there is nothing you can do about it. You might as well deal with it during/after the discussion. If it is a benign discussion, all your anxiety would have been pointless anyway. I understand that on an intellectual level, but this doesn't do anything for my anxiety.
robjan 4y ago
Original by Adam Keys https://therealadam.com/2021/11/01/dont-be-spooky/ https://therealadam.com/2021/11/01/dont-be-spooky/ Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130590
Version467 4y ago
I relate heavily to this, but I know that I'm an anxious person. So I absolutely appreciate when the people around me provide context for why they're messaging me and I've also gotten my close friends and family to text me before they call me. However I also know that it is not on them to deal with my anxiety. That's on me and I need to actively work on managing my anxiety instead of relying on the people around me to do that for me. It's always difficult to infer someones character from a few lines of text, but it seems fairly obvious that the author has not yet understood that they are (contrary to their own belief) prone to anxious thoughts. Some comments here make this out to be an extreme character flaw, or think this is somehow an indicator that society is going downhill, but having anxious thoughts is not inherently a bad thing. Being unaware of your own tendency to produce anxious thoughts however is a bad thing. Anxious thoughts that aren't actively managed will influence your behavior and your decision making processes. The usual advice is of course meditation, but just knowing being aware of your own anxious thoughts is often times enough to combat them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
0xblood 4y ago
The more we become overly sensitive, the harsher it will feel if we accidentally miss being overly sensitive. Now you tell me I shouldn't use "you have a sec?" ? if this goes on where are we going to be in 10 years? No personal communication at all anymore because it might make somebody feel anxious and I can only have a personal discussion with them if I send a week before a full agenda and rundown?
- hampereddustbin 4y ago
  "A sec" is very ambiguous. Asking someone if they have 15 minutes to talk about the new deployment is much more useful and allows people to prepare for it, shortening required time to converse and providing you with more useful answers. Everyone benefits
  - 0xblood 4y ago
    For obvious reasons I avoid this as well. However, sometimes it's just simpler to take somebody aside without specifying context (or very vague), because somebody else in the group might feel VERY STRONGLY about that new deployment, overhear that it's about that and try to inject themselves
- sfpotter 4y ago
  If it goes on, who knows? We might belong to a profession where people are known for their tact and sensitivity and keen ability to intuit someone else’s emotional state. People might say, “Those software engineers, they sure do know how to talk to people!”
- Zababa 4y ago
  > The more we become overly sensitive, the harsher it will feel if we accidentally miss being overly sensitive. Who is "we" here? > if this goes on where are we going to be in 10 years? No personal communication at all anymore because it might make somebody feel anxious and I can only have a personal discussion with them if I send a week before a full agenda and rundown? I don't think it's about sending an agenda before or even planning, it's about avoiding creating unnecessary tension. Instead of "you have a sec?", you can say "you have a sec to talk about <subject>?". This will take you a few seconds more. And this will make a lot of people answer you quicker, with a clearer response. I understand that it's not easy to change your habits, but this seems like a win-win situation.
BerislavLopac 4y ago
> A corollary to this piece of advice I wish I could give to some other coworkers is don't just say hello in chat. https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/
oznog 4y ago
If you are so weak you cannot pretend to influence and change the behavior of others. So, this debate is absolutely ridiculous and stupid. And this shit represents the pinnacle of a generation so fragile and incompetent that it will lead to "worse times".
- scarface74 4y ago
  The “can we talk” phrase has caused anxiety for time immemorial.
  - oznog 4y ago
    People are responsable of their anxiety. Not the others. Fuck this bullshit.
Bakary 4y ago
I'm of two minds on this issue. I recognize myself in what the author is describing. In fact, I always describe what I want to talk about in my initial message, and ask before calling because I hate when it happens to me. On the other hand, if Soviet soldiers can hold off the Germans at Stalingrad, I don't have to replicate their mental fortitude but I can at least replicate <1% of it. And that includes not freaking out with minor white collar bullshit in a developed country. Never confronting anxiety just increases it in the long run.
satisfice 4y ago
Please don’t lobby for standards of social behavior that substantially disadvantage the majority to save a little awkwardness for a minority. I want people to ping me. I don’t mind “hello” in chat. It makes sense. It is a stand-in for dropping by my desk. If I were working with you I would be very willing to accommodate your anxiety. But what you’re doing here is implying that we all want to shut down casual real-time chatting (wherein I don’t want to say anything of substance unless I know my correspondent is present).
- drewcoo 4y ago
  Even if it's not about anxiety, why waste people's time and attention with needless messages? At the very least it's as rude as constantly being late for meetings - a sign that the late-comer doesn't value the other people involved.
  - choko 4y ago
    I rather appreciate a nice hello and a little chat before someone drops a big request on me. It makes my coworkers seem human and gives me a nice break. If I'm too busy for that, I politely let the other person know that I'm too busy for smalltalk.
UmbertoNoEco 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

203 points by memorable 4y ago

Amazing how many people (especially from HR) don't get this. The other day I got a calendar invite from a random HR person who I've talked to before that said nothing but "Sync". It made extremely distressed until I messaged that person asking for more information and it turned out to be something completely innocent. Just write it in the damn invite then instead of giving me a heart attack!

shaoonb 4y ago
I once worked under a middle manager who had the policy that any meeting invite with no agenda should be automatically rejected. Sadly they were never able to extend this outside of their department.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  After reading through this for the missing negation - I love them for this! (I worked with managers who would never use agendas. Leaves them more room to filibuster when it becomes clear they don't understand what's going on.)
wazoox 4y ago
It may be innocent, but also don't forget that many people don't waste any occasion to make others feel the weight of whatever little ounce of power they have.

0x2c8 4y ago

> A piece of advice I wish I could give my manager is don't be spooky. Why not politely talk to your manager and let them know that this behaviour is not appropriate / productive?

pdimitar 4y ago
Because they don't care and will not change anything. Tried it -- no less than 15 times in my long career. Same result every time. Management by default attracts people who think they cracked it all (lol). It's an ego trip for many and they are usually impossible to truly reason with.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
Most won't, but would instead talk at the managers' back. Many people forget that "I cannot read your mind!"
atoav 4y ago
While I whole heartedly agree with that you should tell people how to get better, I think if there is one skill a manager should have it is to emphatically communicate. If a manager doesn't understand the communicative basic that there is always multiple messages: - the message they intended to send - the message they actually sent - the message as it was read by the receiving person Any decent communicator will always think about how the message/language will be read by the receiver(s). That means if they are a decent communicator this should not happen unless they have a very bad day or something.
jollybean 4y ago
The manager's behaviour is absolutely appropriate, and not impolite. Also, someone with antisocial anxieties like this probably would have difficulty with that kind of confrontation.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

> Repeated pings fall under the same category. If I'm available, I would have replied to you already. Managers that do this are micro-managers and won't listen to the advice. My written conversations with my manager are asynchronous, even when via Slack. I know he will answer when he can and I will answer when I can. So if it's urgent it goes in the team chat, where we can take a collective decision without having a less technical manager be the bottleneck.

4pkjai 4y ago

I got a very spooky email from HR a few years back: "Hi, this is X from HR. We want to talk to you about an incident that occurred a few months ago. Can we meet on Thursday 3 PM?" "Okay what incident are you referring to" "I'll let you know on Thursday" I then messaged my boss he told me the incident was something dodgey someone had said to me.

marsRoverDev 4y ago
They probably do this because they don't want anything committed to text. It still doesn't excuse it, but yeah, they're doing that intentionally. At a minimum they should say "this is not something you've done wrong".
atoav 4y ago
It is so simple to not do this. Either they could schedule a generic meeting among the lines of "I have some questions" or they could just tell you what incident this was going to be about.
- 4pkjai 4y ago
  Well a generic interview with HR is pretty spooky as well
martopix 4y ago
Reminds me of being called out of the classroom for a meeting with the head teacher when I was 12. I panicked immediately, because "go to the head teacher" was usually just to be told off.* Then my teacher specified "it's for GOOD news" and it changed completely. * in itself very wrong, the idea that authority is there just to punish you and head teachers should be something you're afraid of.
dade_ 4y ago
Our director of cybersecurity did something similar. I asked my manager, what’s going on, he had no idea. Completely unintentional, she wanted to speak about a RFP response, but it was completely out of context and I didn’t know she was reviewing it. Out of etiquette, everyone should think about context when sending a message. Probably more so in roles of authority and those that own “terminate-able offence” compliance. Also, people should check their paranoia. I’ve been working jobs for 30 years and never has the bad news or underhanded crap started with a message like this. Not that I don’t sometimes think this is the first time.

Brajeshwar 4y ago

This is true for many things -- emails, forum/community posts -- always have a context, especially with the Subject. When one sends out something, it is for the recipient and not for the senders' convenience. I'm still learning but I love setting enough context for the recipient to either take action or form a decision, starting from the Subject which is the core of the whole content. I once read about the idea of BLUF[1] - “Bottom Line Up Front”, popularized by the military - because lives may be dependent on how fast a message gets its context to the recipient. I love that idea and love practicing it. These are applicable, not just with emails, bit also with short text messages. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

cortesoft 4y ago

This applies to everyone you interact with. I never leave just "call me" messages.... makes you think someone died.

gonzo41 4y ago

This person needs to consider mindfulness meditation. It almost seems like they are assuming some catastrophe is around every corner. If your boss says "hey got a moment to chat" you have a choice in how you react to the information. Assume they want to just chat and engage, or freak out and think the world is ending. Both options are possible, one has a nicer outcome. It's important to remember and remind yourself that you have control about how you feel about things. I know I do work. I can justify my time, If my boss pulls me aside and redirects my work. That's totally fine, I work for them. But generally, meetings invites and messages should contain lots of info and context. Chatting with your boss shouldn't be scary, if it is, maybe consider a new boss.

Nursie 4y ago
I must admit freaking out one morning, having stumbled into work hungover and tired, when my team lead grabbed me on my way in and said "Can we have a word?" and pulled me into a meeting room where the product owner and two levels of management were sitting. Thankfully they were wanting to ask if I'd like to spend a month training in California!
pantulis 4y ago
Or a little bit of reading about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, there is a good book called "CBT for dummies" or something like that. Mindfulness as a tool will train you to observe what happens inside your head and then apply CBT techniques.
emptyparadise 4y ago
maybe the boss can meditate on sending more productive messages instead. why does everything have to be a fault within me?
- SargeZT 4y ago
  They should, but you're the only one you can control your responses.
- bslqn 4y ago

scandox 4y ago

It's a sad state of affairs when people are so anxious that a simple inquiry can cause them distress. I don't know if it's character, upbringing or just the modern work environment but it really ought not to cause anyone any concern if someone just wants to check if you're available.

lucideer 4y ago
It's a sad state of affairs when the response to things like this is attribution to bad character or upbringing, rather than basic human empathy.
sfg 4y ago
But they do, so it is probably best to include a short note stating the purpose of the desired conversation. This will also help prime many people, and thereby improve the conversation, so it is probably worth doing even if the person won’t be made anxious.
- pantulis 4y ago
  As a manager, I've sometimes used the technique of adding something like: "It's nothing serious" to the message. Best way of course is giving context but hey, everyone is human.
  - ricardobeat 4y ago
    As a receiver of that message I'd say it doesn't help much. The stress comes from the information-less poke. Ideally you go straight to the point: “hi jack, I need to check in on XXX so we can update the quarterly goals, can you send me Y / can we speak?”. Nothing is gained by checking immediate availability with a greeting message. https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/
    - defrost 4y ago
      The downside is that if every significant bit of communication is straight to the point and in public ... how should sensitive personal infomation be handled ? It's either: - out there in public, OR - clearly sensitive as it's the only bit of communication the other party is masking. Depending on your environment workers may or may not want open signals about sensitive events being telegraphed.

LarsAlereon 4y ago

As a manager, it's trivial to just add "you're not in trouble" to the end of a message like this, even if you can't imply what it's about.

planb 4y ago
Now that would make me curious!
- elcritch 4y ago
  And of course it has a glaring implied "... yet" obviously. ;)
reportgunner 4y ago
You could also just assume that you're not in trouble every time the message doesn't end with "you're in trouble"

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

noja 4y ago

Yeah, no. Doing this would remove the human part from any interaction.

memorable 4y ago
Well, you can just add a simple message to be more specific about what you are talking about and it would not cause someone fear that they screwed up something.
blocko 4y ago
I think it actually adds some of the human part back in. "Hey, got a sec?" in person comes with quite a bit more context--body language, tone of voice--and a pretty quick transition into the content. To me, the rhythm of an informative first message feels more natural than responding to someone's ping and waiting 2 minutes for the follow-up.

osrec 4y ago

I'm reminded of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/DunderMifflin/comments/29v0e2/the_doctors_tried_to_save_her_life_they_did_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DunderMifflin/comments/29v0e2/the_d...

Archelaos 4y ago

The post is missing that the effect of the described behaviour is very context dependant. For example, I am not afraid of my main client at all. If I get a message from him like "Can we talk" it is just that. He wants to talk about something that is not so important or too complicated to describe it in the message. And if I get repeated phone calls it means that he is either on his mobile travelling and is trying to reach me when he has a signal or that he has a limited time-frame to reach me for whatever reason. In other words: Our communication is not scary by default, and if something scary was imminent, he would surely announce it.

DoItToMe81 4y ago

Excuse me? This is just normal communication.

jollybean 4y ago
Of course it is. The fact that they would write an article about it and don't have the self awareness to recognize they have a problem - but worse - the number of people on HN that seem to think there is a material problem in behaviour of the manager is a bit shocking. It's ridiculous. It's not even a 1 out of 10 in terms of inappropriateness, it's fully a 0. It's 100% within the preoperative of anyone frankly to say "hey, can we chat for 10 at lunch?" Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it. My grandparents were born on farms without electricity or plumbing (common for the area), no public healthcare, retirement, social assistance, unemployment, radio, refrigeration, TV, barely any cars. etc.. They were kind and generous people but also resilient and self assured. They literally wouldn't understand the author's concern. It would have to be spelled out to them. They would be empathetic (it's in their character) but wouldn't think anything other than the author has some kind of issue. Complaining about "Can we chat?" as some kind of 'unreasonable thing' is getting absurd. People above are commenting 'what kind of stressful world we must live in' - I think the complete opposite: we have reached a threshold of material abundance and prosperity such that the most vague, imperceptible form of nuance in communication is now worthy of demarcation. Only extremely privileged and wealthy people could afford to go on about someone asking them 'if they have time to chat'.
- valar_m 4y ago
  >> Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it. This line of thinking seems really...bad. I mean, essentially what you're saying is: "I disagree on this matter which is unambiguously a personal opinion, and anyone with a differing opinion is wrong, and anyone who is sympathetic to their opinion has something wrong with them, too." I'm genuinely curious, what makes you take this position?

cs02rm0 4y ago

They'd hate where I work. Rather than message to ask to call, we just call. The whole point of calling is to reduce the pain of having to type out a load of stuff that's easier to say and comes with the extra nuances of verbal communication. I can't imagine they'd prefer the repeated flashings of your manager is typing... over minutes. Just sending "hello" is annoying though, I'll give them that.

Gigachad 4y ago
I'd just decline a random call. First I have to pull out my airpods and wait a bit for them to sync
xlii 4y ago
That depends on frequency and can be both good and bad thing. Text don't convey emotion well, emojis don't really help with that, direct calls are much better. But then focus wind-up and wind-down matters too, so receiving random calls throughout the day might be a recipe for no work done whatsoever. In the end if there are serious agreements made it should be done in writing though.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
That's why people like email. Unless it's on fire, please just email. Not every email has to be a treatise, short and sweet, maybe a few bullets to keep your mind focused rather than rambletypeing. I hate getting random calls and IMs it breaks my flow and focus. I actually turn off IM or put away at most places and silence it. I have unplugged the phone before as well if it gets aggregious
sakarisson 4y ago
IMO, direct call (especially if those are common in your workplace) is much better than a vague "can we talk?" before a call. Doesn't give the mind a chance to wander and fill in the context.

festive-minsky 4y ago

I guess it's a bit similar to https://www.nohello.com https://www.nohello.com The initial message triggers you to worry about an uncertain topic, it's much better to know from the initial message what the conversation will be about

ricardobeat 4y ago

> do things around the house This sounds like advice specific for WFH, but it also applies to people working at the office. The other person may be talking to someone else, in an unscheduled meeting, having a coffee, or simply have notifications off to be able to focus. I used to have them off for most of the day, and just check for messages at a half hour interval, otherwise it’s a total productivity killer. In a real emergency people will reach for a phone call.

ev1 4y ago
As someone that has worked both remote and onsite customer service and tech it's kind of a wild difference. If I didn't flag myself unavailable or "sign off" even to take a short WC break it would start notifying supervisors of "not working", probably even worse these days with eye tracking and webcam monitoring of availability for the "not tech" crowd.

planb 4y ago

I'm not sure if "spooky" is the right word (why would you assume you're in trouble?), but it sure helps to have context, and if it's just to prepare by opening the right documents to quickly look up stuff. That's why if find the last paragraph the most useful advice here. Please don't break my concentration by writing just "Hello" and having my actively wait for you to type your concern. And please don't wait for me to write "Hello" too before you even start.

fddr 4y ago
Yes, 100% agree with last paragraph. And the waiting for me to type Hello back pattern is so annoying. This really should be basic work etiquette. Type your whole question in one go. If you want to you can include pleasantries at the beginning but never if there is going to be a more than 2 second interval between them and your actual question. Should probably be part of first day orientation for new hires.

jollybean 4y ago

It gets bad when people with odd anxieties project them onto everyone around them. There's an entire social (edit:changed that word from 'political' which I didn't mean to say) orientation around this. See the hilarious 2019 Socialist Convention where they talk about people clapping as 'harm' or wearing perfume as 'aggressive' or taking a particular tone as 'oppressive', etc. "Hey, can we chat!" is now "Triggering" etc.. ? We're really going to be dragged aside by HR now because "Hey, can we chat?" Yeah ... no. I think it's up to the author to seek help. I don't deny they have an issue, but I'm wary that it's mostly theirs to contend with.

ev1 4y ago
I think this is reasonable, honestly. It's disrespectful of my time to do this on an async medium preventing me from preparing materials, finding source, or whatever else I need before a meeting instead of having to do it there.
ricardobeat 4y ago
Talk about projecting… this has nothing to do with politics, especially USA politics. I’ve have had this exact conversation with colleagues from extremely varied backgrounds. Some people mind it less, some more, but most are annoyed by it at some level. It’s like calling and saying “can I ask you a question?”, followed by thirty seconds of silence. This is a bad pattern of communication introduced by modern chat with presence features (and amplified by remote work), not something that is part of natural conversation.
- jollybean 4y ago
  I'm not projecting, and not making it political. Maybe it's you that are possibly projecting here, by assuming that because I referenced a political convention, that I'm making it political. (EDIT: Yes, I did write 'political'. It's totally my fault. I didn't mean to write that word. I meant to use a different term, 'political' came out and I didn't edit it. My bad. I meant to infer a 'social posture') That ultra empathetic posture, to the point of literally debilitating the conference itself - is just something that happened at that conference, which happened to be a Socialist Convention. It doesn't have anything to do with socialism. Even if it does, by the way, seem to be a part of elements of communication of 'that side' - it likely just has more to do with personality types, because it's obviously not political. If you want to see the video yourself it's here [1]. And by the way - this video is just a snapshot, there's much more hilarity floating out there. And finally I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do with 'remote culture' or 'remote work' ... I know my manager would often walk by my cube and say the same thing. Perhaps more frequent, but not really an element of culture. It's also perfectly reasonable. I wish I knew how to describe the variation of anxiety that this might arise, or what to do about it (meditation? CBT?) , but I don't suggest it's anyone's problem but the person who is made anxious. I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRxu3XrsHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRxu3XrsHg

brap 4y ago

As a new manager this is something I try to do (I already got this advice from some place, I believe it was another HN thread). Any other tips?

ThePadawan 4y ago
Also do the opposite of the opposite. If you need to fire someone, it's appropriate to use a somber tone to prepare the other party. I was recently let go as basically agenda point 3 out of 4 during my normal weekly one-on-one with my manager and was completely blindsided (the position was made redundant entirely, so there was no preceding performance review or the like).
orwin 4y ago
Be direct and effective in your first message. And if you and an engineer have communication issues (you don't understand their tickets comments, their mails are too abstract and/or not factual enough), do not hesitate to do a bi weekly 1 on 1 until those communication issues are less glaring. It helped my working conditions tremendously. I'm still really anxious when my manager contact me, but him being direct made me feel way more comfortable than the previous one.

kleiba 4y ago

Also known as: guy on the internet has certain preferences regarding IM netiquette.

jpgvm 4y ago

Regardless of my position I have always sent my full request in a message to anyone that I wouldn't consider a friend (as in someone more significant to a co-worker). And generally speaking if it's among friends it's something super casual like "yo" or "sup" generally because I have no specific subject, I just want to chat generally. This is not just because I don't like freaking people out but also because I respect their time. I don't want them to get the first interrupt and then wait for 60s while I type out the actual request I have of them.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bheadmaster 4y ago

While some may not agree with how this is formulated, I think the point is a part of a bigger concept - don't be unpredictable. Don't make things unpredictable. Work is a necessity. We're not all neurotypical, relaxed, outgoing persons - some of us may even suffer from mental issues - and we still have to work. Predictability - i.e. removing all the mystery from communication - helps a lot. "Hey, can you talk for a second?" - is unpredictable. I have no way of knowing whether you want to talk to me about weather or shoot me with a gun. "Hey, can you talk for a second about X? [+additional info if needed]" - is predictable and gives me a clear idea about what you want to talk about. Of course, communication takes effort, and it is unreasonable to demand everyone to follow these guidelines all the time. But that doesn't mean they're bad guidelines.

MattGaiser 4y ago
Also, whether I can talk depends on priority. No, if you want to chat casually. Yes if prod is on fire.
gigaflop 4y ago
> don't be unpredictable. Don't make things unpredictable. Yes, this. I've found that being (functionally) boring and predictable has gone over very well with my team and managers. I reserve my chaotic nature for when my work laptop is closed. As for the inevitable "one line greeting awaiting acknowledgement before proceeding" messages, I just respond in kind, and wait for them to get to their actual question while I continue whatever I was doing. No skin off my back, and it plays nice with coworkers.
satisfice 4y ago
No. I won’t do that. It inhibits natural communication. Learn to deal with ordinary adult life, please.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > natural communication There is no such thing. Perhaps you meant "the kind of communication I'm used to"? > Learn to deal with ordinary adult life, please. Don't be condescending, please.

anjc 4y ago

If someone can't say "got a minute to chat?" or even "hello" to you without causing anxiety, you need a long break, a new job, or professional help. Surprised at all the comments agreeing with this article.

npteljes 4y ago
Your manager, or HR, is not just "someone". They are well above you in the power hierarchy. That's where the fear comes from. People, when dealing with someone from a power position, need to be extra careful with their words and attitude - well, only if they want to be fair and don't want to toy with the other's emotions. I don't know if it's relatable to you, but it's similar to how much force you can use, when playing with animals. You need to be more careful with a smaller dog, than a larger dog. Cats are even more delicate, yet, not as delicate as a hamster. And you have to be extra careful, with the tip of your finger, to properly pet a mouse. Similarly, saying "That's not good. I needed that for yesterday" is not the same for every person. If it's coming from your coworker, then it's maybe an oh shit moment, or something that you say sorry for, and amend it, and that's that. Much less so when it comes from your immediate superior. Even worse if it's an important client. And maybe even worse if you're a junior on trial period.
gasgiant 4y ago
Would you accept the answer "no" with no additional context or replies without feeling put off? Chat is asynchronous. Just ask your question. This isn't a phone call or a desk-side visit. The act of initiating a chat already contains the idea that you are asking the other person for an interaction. If they have time to chat, they will chat. If you need a response right away, then chat isn't the place to do it.
bluedino 4y ago
It's even worse with the people who brag that they absolutely will not respond to people that say "Hi"

ataru 4y ago

I get this. We never know when the company is going to forecast that it needs a round of redundancies. When they do so, they would send a meeting request saying something like "important company status update" with no other information, because they don't want to divulge anything before the meeting. After going through the redundancy selection and surviving it, any future emails that say things like "important company status update" are quite worrying. And they send things like that all the time, because they don't think it's important to tell us why they're calling a meeting.

onion2k 4y ago

If someone says "Have you got a minute?" the natural people-pleasing human response is to say yes because you assume that someone won't interrupt you unless it's important. You need to let go of that notion and assume that their inquiry is of the lowest possible priority, and literally anything else you're working on is more important. Unless you've got nothing else on at the time this means you can happily say "No, I don't have a minute." People will quickly learn that they need to say why they need to interrupt you in order to actually break your flow.

ho_schi 4y ago

I think the missing "why" is an issue. Like a commit message needs a "why".

xlii 4y ago

I'd recommend trying to get to a room where family member/friend etc. is in their environment, throw casually "hey, can we talk" and move outside of the room waiting for them to come over. They will expect something is/was wrong. Simply because people organically don't communicate like that. There is no N minutes pause between prompt and the message. Having separate communication prompt is signaling for bracing or softening, i.e. delivery of bad news. Sure, a lot of people learned to cope with this, but that's definitely not normal communication. It's also wasting other people's time and showing lack of respect. Having someone wait on hook for 2 minutes while thoughts are being typed out is exact same type of power move as "yeah, I called you, but wait a sec till I finish my crossword". Is the other person online presence really indispensable to a degree that the thoughts cannot by typed out without it? As a counter move (if someone wants to be mean) you can respond "Hey, I'm here, but I'm starting my focus session right now, so I'll check my Slack/E-mail/IRC/Teams in 45 minutes, what's up?" So yeah.. don't do this in professional communication.

rob74 4y ago
Well, I can understand why some actually consider a message "hey, can we talk" more polite than simply calling without asking first, especially for developers. After all, they may currently be in the middle of doing something and would prefer not to be disturbed. OTOH, a message is already a disturbance, and most of the times checking your calendar should already give someone a hint about whether you are busy or not. Either way, providing a hint of what you want to talk about, e.g. "hey, can we talk about that spline reticulation issue?" is of course much better.
- bipson 4y ago
  > After all, they may currently be in the middle of doing something and would prefer not to be disturbed. OTOH, a message is already a disturbance [...] That is what has not sunken in yet in our new and fancy asynchronous world.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  > Either way, providing a hint of what you want to talk about, e.g. "hey, can we talk about that spline reticulation issue?" is of course much better. This is the big thing. "Don't be spooky" doesn't mean "interrupt me freely", it means "tell me cagey, coy, or avoidant and tell me what you want asynchronously before we start a conversation".

pdimitar 4y ago

Ha, one of the most relatable HN submissions in a long, long time. Many people, me included, link those out-of-the-blue messages with "you are fired" or "can you please work weekends for one month", and both are not welcome news. But there's also very often another thing: a creator/maker like the programmers are (or should be) assuming that the other party will not interrupt you if it wasn't for anything important -- because you know you wouldn't want that for yourself and are trying to be considerate towards other people's concentration. Turns out however, people send these messages for all sorts of random unimportant things. With time I learned to respond immediately so I don't allow any anxiety to take a hold in me -- but then when I see that it's something trivial (and is not blocking the other party) I also immediately reply with "sure but I'll do it later since I got plenty on my plate right now". A few people took offense but I got over it. They too. --- But then there's also the other extreme. My last long-ish contract I was in a company where the CTO and his second in command were literally impossible to reach outside of biweekly scheduled meetings -- and even then nothing they deem off-topic is allowed. I get that you have to preserve your focus and concentration but they took it to the other extreme and it was very, VERY not okay because super important decisions only the CTO can make were being dragged out for months, leading to improvisation by the rest of the team that was then criticized by the said CTO.

zelos 4y ago

My kid's school is very sensible about this. If they have to phone you during the day for something minor they always start with "Hello, this is <school name>, there's nothing to worry about." It saves parents that 5 seconds of panic that something terrible has happened. > don't just say hello in chat. This drives me crazy. It's like they are trying to maximise the amount of other people's time they're wasting.

noneeeed 4y ago
Our school does that. The staff must have had so many phone conversations where the first thing the parent said was "omg is something worng?" that they just learn to automatically preempt it. We've had the "This is $teacher, $child is fine but $bad_thing happened, we did $x, could you $y", all in the first sentence. It's remarkably effective communication.

davidkuennen 4y ago

As a manager I always state in my message what I want to talk about. Or what a meeting is about. There is a big difference between "Can we talk?" and "Can we talk? Want us to look over the roadmap real quick". The first one could be anything and the other person will always imagine all kinds of stuff. Likely even lose productivity over it. The second one is a no brainer.

reportgunner 4y ago

You could also just not care instead of trying to change everyone.

vivegi 4y ago

I understand people are wired differently and react differently to this situation. It is helpful for one's own mental health to Assume Positive Intent when context is missing from messages. If it is really bad news that the other party wants to discuss, there is nothing you can do about it. You might as well deal with it during/after the discussion. If it is a benign discussion, all your anxiety would have been pointless anyway. The corollary is that if you are sending a message, it just takes a few additional words to provide context (don't be cryptic; don't write a Tolstoy novel). That saves time on both sides. It preps the recipient to come prepared with information for the discussion and hopefully makes the discussion short and productive.

madeofpalk 4y ago
"Just don't be depressed!"
traviscj 4y ago
I had a manager — who I basically loved — that loved to say “assume positive intent”, perhaps from teammate $T And I tried! But my priors were that teammate $T has rejected ideas from most of my design documents for (imho) inconsequential reasons — Eg there were framework scalability concerns of using a framework that handles 1x-1000x the projected growth of the current project. Telling me to “assume positive intent” from feedback saying it wouldn’t work “because scale” (when we were comfortably 4-5 orders of magnitude away from those problems) felt pretty empty. More honest pushback would essentially be “this solution didn’t need this scale yet”, or “we can afford to re-architect this right now” — “finding deals” becomes a rent payment from someone figured
- vivegi 4y ago
  Ok, so there was a disagreement on how to move forward. How did you resolve it with your teammate?
Zababa 4y ago
> It is helpful for one's own mental health to Assume Positive Intent when context is missing from messages. If it is really bad news that the other party wants to discuss, there is nothing you can do about it. You might as well deal with it during/after the discussion. If it is a benign discussion, all your anxiety would have been pointless anyway. I understand that on an intellectual level, but this doesn't do anything for my anxiety.

robjan 4y ago

Original by Adam Keys https://therealadam.com/2021/11/01/dont-be-spooky/ https://therealadam.com/2021/11/01/dont-be-spooky/ Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130590

Version467 4y ago

I relate heavily to this, but I know that I'm an anxious person. So I absolutely appreciate when the people around me provide context for why they're messaging me and I've also gotten my close friends and family to text me before they call me. However I also know that it is not on them to deal with my anxiety. That's on me and I need to actively work on managing my anxiety instead of relying on the people around me to do that for me. It's always difficult to infer someones character from a few lines of text, but it seems fairly obvious that the author has not yet understood that they are (contrary to their own belief) prone to anxious thoughts. Some comments here make this out to be an extreme character flaw, or think this is somehow an indicator that society is going downhill, but having anxious thoughts is not inherently a bad thing. Being unaware of your own tendency to produce anxious thoughts however is a bad thing. Anxious thoughts that aren't actively managed will influence your behavior and your decision making processes. The usual advice is of course meditation, but just knowing being aware of your own anxious thoughts is often times enough to combat them.

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0xblood 4y ago

The more we become overly sensitive, the harsher it will feel if we accidentally miss being overly sensitive. Now you tell me I shouldn't use "you have a sec?" ? if this goes on where are we going to be in 10 years? No personal communication at all anymore because it might make somebody feel anxious and I can only have a personal discussion with them if I send a week before a full agenda and rundown?

hampereddustbin 4y ago
"A sec" is very ambiguous. Asking someone if they have 15 minutes to talk about the new deployment is much more useful and allows people to prepare for it, shortening required time to converse and providing you with more useful answers. Everyone benefits
- 0xblood 4y ago
  For obvious reasons I avoid this as well. However, sometimes it's just simpler to take somebody aside without specifying context (or very vague), because somebody else in the group might feel VERY STRONGLY about that new deployment, overhear that it's about that and try to inject themselves
sfpotter 4y ago
If it goes on, who knows? We might belong to a profession where people are known for their tact and sensitivity and keen ability to intuit someone else’s emotional state. People might say, “Those software engineers, they sure do know how to talk to people!”
Zababa 4y ago
> The more we become overly sensitive, the harsher it will feel if we accidentally miss being overly sensitive. Who is "we" here? > if this goes on where are we going to be in 10 years? No personal communication at all anymore because it might make somebody feel anxious and I can only have a personal discussion with them if I send a week before a full agenda and rundown? I don't think it's about sending an agenda before or even planning, it's about avoiding creating unnecessary tension. Instead of "you have a sec?", you can say "you have a sec to talk about <subject>?". This will take you a few seconds more. And this will make a lot of people answer you quicker, with a clearer response. I understand that it's not easy to change your habits, but this seems like a win-win situation.

BerislavLopac 4y ago

> A corollary to this piece of advice I wish I could give to some other coworkers is don't just say hello in chat. https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/

oznog 4y ago

If you are so weak you cannot pretend to influence and change the behavior of others. So, this debate is absolutely ridiculous and stupid. And this shit represents the pinnacle of a generation so fragile and incompetent that it will lead to "worse times".

scarface74 4y ago
The “can we talk” phrase has caused anxiety for time immemorial.
- oznog 4y ago
  People are responsable of their anxiety. Not the others. Fuck this bullshit.

Bakary 4y ago

I'm of two minds on this issue. I recognize myself in what the author is describing. In fact, I always describe what I want to talk about in my initial message, and ask before calling because I hate when it happens to me. On the other hand, if Soviet soldiers can hold off the Germans at Stalingrad, I don't have to replicate their mental fortitude but I can at least replicate <1% of it. And that includes not freaking out with minor white collar bullshit in a developed country. Never confronting anxiety just increases it in the long run.

satisfice 4y ago

Please don’t lobby for standards of social behavior that substantially disadvantage the majority to save a little awkwardness for a minority. I want people to ping me. I don’t mind “hello” in chat. It makes sense. It is a stand-in for dropping by my desk. If I were working with you I would be very willing to accommodate your anxiety. But what you’re doing here is implying that we all want to shut down casual real-time chatting (wherein I don’t want to say anything of substance unless I know my correspondent is present).

drewcoo 4y ago
Even if it's not about anxiety, why waste people's time and attention with needless messages? At the very least it's as rude as constantly being late for meetings - a sign that the late-comer doesn't value the other people involved.
- choko 4y ago
  I rather appreciate a nice hello and a little chat before someone drops a big request on me. It makes my coworkers seem human and gives me a nice break. If I'm too busy for that, I politely let the other person know that I'm too busy for smalltalk.

UmbertoNoEco 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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