Wanting a synchronous conversation is a pretty arrogant grab of someone else's time.
This is also why phoning me is bad and please use texts like a civilised person.
This is also why phoning me is bad and please use texts like a civilised person.
"Production issue" comes to mind, but that would just as likely warrant a quick summary of the situation, since waiting for a response to "hi" wastes even more time.
I probably would be slightly more verbose saying “hey, got a sec?” but honestly it’s a style question and if I’m on the receiving end it’s not going to bother me.
I find much of the discourse around slack etiquette to be slightly self-absorbed. The fact is, things work best when everyone is a bit flexible and understanding. Bottom line is there are reasons why a synchronous ping is justified, but it’s impossible for both parties to agree on it without knowing their mutual disposition. Generally it’s nice to not ping people too often, but also it’s okay to set boundaries and not respond right away (or just turn off slack for heads down time). In extreme cases I suppose I can imagine a company with an unbearable slack culture that makes it impossible to be an effective developer by enforcing an “always available” policy, but I think that’s probably pretty rare compared to places where things will go fine just by having the assertiveness to use some simple tactics mentioned above.
IMO it's more polite to use an async channel first to ask if the other party is available for a phone call, and if not, schedule a phone call for a specific time. Like, I'd love to talk with you about that problem this afternoon, but right now I'm too busy debugging another problem.
> × "Hello, are you around?"
> × "hi sophie - quick question."
> × "You got a sec?"
I agree with you around scheduling synchronous communications, but the thread itself seems to have devolved into a puristic argument against all sync comms regardless of urgency, ephemerality, confidentiality, etc.
This is an assumption, and not always a valid one. There are plenty of circumstances where synchronous comms are warranted, such as when matters are urgent for all parties or when the respondent has a reputation for losing track of async comms.
Editing to add:
I agree that "hey" and "hi" etc. are terrible openings. However, openings (incidentally also discouraged by the linked article) such as:
> × "Hello, are you around?"
> × "hi sophie - quick question."
> × "You got a sec?"
are absolutely fine in that they imply a level of urgency and need for synchronized communication. If someone's ideologically against it and inflexible towards accommodating urgency where appropriate, it's a productivity red flag.
And I'm speaking as a modestly introverted manager who tries to avoid sync comms unless absolutely needed, but the thread seems to have gone off the deep end by arguing that sync comms are absolutely unnecessary.
A signal call if the matter needs to be both ephemeral and confidential.
Insisting on asynchronous communication for All The Things™ concerns me in that it shows that a person isn't adaptable to varying criticalities and sensitivities. The same goes for insisting on synchronous communication.
TL;DR they both have their place, and they will always both have their place regardless of any one person's preference.
Most people don't need to deal with ephemeral requirements. I've been in software for over a decade at a variety of businesses, and without fail the only times someone's been worried about talking over discoverable mediums they've been considering something that's anticompetitive or potentially illegal. The vast majority of people I've interacted with don't do things like that, and the few I do I don't want to work with.
Can I ask the difference between these two in practical terms?
Edit:
> the only times someone's been worried about talking over discoverable mediums they've been considering something that's anticompetitive or potentially illegal.
Interesting. In my case, it's without fail been circumstances where message control (specifically anti-forwarding) was paramount. I suppose it boils down to differences in our roles.
"Are you there" means you're an intern or, worse, a full timer who hasn't figured out how to properly communicate yet who has some random question for me that you probably think is urgent but probably isn't.
I guess this is where our experiences diverge. I've never encountered what you described with the latter; it's always been someone who followed up with a call.
"hey, need to talk urgently about x, are you available at 2?" or "...can you call me ASAP?"
There's very few situations that warrant getting someone else to unexpectedly drop whatever they're doing and pay attention to you, right now.
On the other hand, I'd actually go further and say there's lots of situations where sync communications is significantly more efficient. The most obvious example is when both sides are exchanging information in the "discovery" phase of a discussion where most of the back and forth is one-liner questions or statements - essentially where two parties are trying to sync up and get on a level playing field. Similarly, brainstorming over sync can save paragraphs of wasted keystrokes.
Often what can take days over async can take minutes if done synchronously. The key is synchronous communications should be scheduled or solicited - even if done only a few minutes in advance.
Maybe this is a failing on my part, but I'm having a hard time understanding how these:
> × "Hello, are you around?"
> × "hi sophie - quick question."
> × "You got a sec?"
(specifically the first and last of these) aren't a form of urgent scheduling. At the very least, the last one is unambiguously asking if there's immediate availability, which generally implies urgency of some form.
If my boss tells me something is urgent, by definition it is. If anyone tells me it's an emergency, I drop what I'm doing and help—but it better be a real emergency.
Now, if Mike from Accounting wants to talk urgently, I may not be available because I have my own list of urgent things to tackle. I will try to carve out time and prioritize his request, but I am in no way committed to his personal sense of urgency.
That's fine, and that's for you to decide. But Mike from Accounting may have a reason to withhold the details for a different channel or to mitigate against other potential risks. It's up to you to decide with the information you have whether it meets your standard of urgency.
Overcommunicating is better than undercommunicating.
I think this thread has reached its apex.
Not every message's contents ("what it's about") can be conveyed asynchronously, but I'm failing to communicate this, so I think I'll bow out.
Thanks for working with me on this.
That's the kind of argument law enforcement makes against the use of encryption. It's an interesting double standard on HN.
I work infosec. My frame of reference is different from many here. But there are many times where I:
• want to ensure a synchronous conversation about an urgent matter, and
• don't want someone forwarding a "quick blurb" ("Hey, eganist here. Got an urgent moment to talk about something unusual we're seeing with web service X?") and spreading workplace gossip about a security anomaly when the anomaly itself is still being investigated to determine whether it's an incident.