No hello – please don't just say hello in chat
nohello.net
nohello.net
People have all sorts of different ways to converse; people have different models of politeness, people are shy, uncertain or awkward in all sorts of different ways.
Some things just can't be blurted out. Some things need the scene setting.
People are people. Not robots. Producing a website to demand that people address you in an efficient way is a perfect example of why people dread asking us questions at all.
It's staggeringly entitled.
Now, I will follow that up by saying that when I want to get an answer from a website chat support person, I _always_ plan out, draft or bullet-point exactly what I need, so I know I am not asking a dumb question. And then after I have said hello (!) I explain I have done that so I can paste bits in as needed.
But this website goes a bit too far. "No hello"? Really? This is the framing?
If anyone is considering forwarding this to any internal mailing lists: don't.
If you ignore the literal "no hello" part and focus on the bigger point, it is really about teaching people chat etiquette. I think the "hello" message happens when people think of chat as just a text-based equivalent to a voice call. The trouble is chat is something new: email and forums are fully asynchronous, voice and face-to-face are fully synchronous, but chat is a kind of hybrid. Just as sync vs async demand different styles and etiquette, so does chat.
"Hello, hope today is going well and the family is all good. I was wondering if you can help me with figuring out the data on a report?" is fine, if you really need to include the small talk, but it's perfectly polite to say "hey, do you have some time to help me debug a report?"
In either case you're being clear about what you need and the recipient has some idea what they're getting into.
You know what's awful? A conversation like this, spread over several minutes:
"Hello"
"Hi.."
"How are you today? How is the family?"
"Uh, good. What's up?"
"I am trying to get together a report but the data makes no sense to me, and I don't know what's wrong."
"Oh. Sorry I'm about to join a meeting and have a few more this morning so I won't be available for a few hours"
This is what "no hello" seeks to avoid.
It's the website, and the sort of arms-length sharing of it, that is staggeringly entitled. Worse still, putting it in status messages or biogs.
People will see this thing and think: OK, but when I do communicate precisely the way they want, they are sometimes still abrupt and terse and difficult. Why am I jumping through hoops?
The thing is, the way people are, they might have tolerated that a little more, or maybe not even noticed it much, if it hadn't been pre-emptively shoved in their faces with a literal manifesto website.
Setting boundaries is difficult. But it's what line management is for.
It's also more easily done mid-communication, which I think is often missed here. It's easier to say, "yeah, I can do this, but for next time, could you summarise the problem in your initial message? It helps me deal with your inquiry."
And then remember that everyone is different. If they say "OK, that can be a little difficult for me because...", their reason might be good and it might build a bridge if you try to remember it.
why? it's a request. clear and simple. if someone doesn't want to care, not the end of the world.
(I am only half-joking)
Accept that people are awkward, different and diverse and that we benefit from that too. And then don't forward it.
I once wrote an email to an internal email list about the lack of forks in the departmental kitchen and how I'd bought lots more and they'd all gone too.
I was polite, like this website, and frustrated, like the people who wrote this website. But the request made people who'd simply forgotten to return a fork, or who'd had a cake meeting that day, or whatever was genuinely more important than returning a fork, a little bit piqued. People told me to my face how my politeness came across to them. I should have just bought more forks.
Buy more forks.
you already bought the more forks, and it's okay to send a message to folks that now it's someone else's turn. will they listen? like you experienced, usually no. but it's not like their entitlement that their thing is more important than others' so they can take the forks is perfectly okay, even if it's the reality that we deal with. (and usually the effective way to deal with it is to bring your own fork, or have dedicated catering, or whatnot, leaving it to the community unsurprisingly usually doesn't work in a workplace.)
Forks are inexpensive.
Here, I suggest that it is probably better for office harmony and one's career to do the inexpensive thing rather than burdening other people with dealing with your lack of tolerance for doing the inexpensive thing.
Being a little rude like this won't ever blow back on you in ways that you can directly measure. But it will blow back.
The forks email went to a departmental email list archive that happened to be open to the internet (this was 1996). You could find the forks email against my name in early search engines.
These days I understand that all of those people who got a bit snippy with me were right. And that even if I tend to forget the forks thing until topics like this come up, maybe they don't. Maybe they wander this world with a mental image of me being easily perturbed about forks.
That's what I mean. Buy more forks.
> Being a little rude like this won't ever blow back on you in ways that you can directly measure. But it will blow back. I do want to comment that I consider the just saying hello messages to be rude, itself. It's a balance isn't it, I don't want to be rude to others (buy more forks), but I also don't want people to be rude to me. So depending on the situation I might comment on that, but probably not with a link to a website like this, unless I think I can manage it with a humorous tone.
That is fair of course. And it really is a balance!
I just think that it's almost always better to take the high road, deal with this as best you can, and benefit from being seen as accommodating.
sure, I completely see your point. I am the buy more fork guy in almost all of my social circles. like you said, it's just inexpensive, easy, etc.
but that doesn't necessarily works for attention. it's pretty scarce, so if someone feels they are really bothered by these hellos, then stating their preference up front seems okay to me.
career advancement is important, but the recruiter won't care, the interviewer won't care, and your next team also won't care about what happened on the internal lists at the previous workplace. (even if it's the first hit for your name in Google)
It definitely does not, indeed.
But I still think this kind of approach is damaging. And putting the link in your slack status or sharing it to a list is reputational self-harm.
> career advancement is important, but the recruiter won't care, the interviewer won't care, and your next team also won't care about what happened on the internal lists at the previous workplace. (even if it's the first hit for your name in Google)
Haha luckily it didn't make it into the Google era (or if it did I never found it).
I mean more that, how to put it: you don't have control over how and when briskness and terseness is interpreted as rudeness, and how long that rudeness is remembered.
So things like this website: to me it just comes across as very entitled. Creating a movement around something as small as this is just exactly why people don't like approaching tech people with questions.
We're not actually entitled to be approached in any particular way except politely, and politeness is not something with a single definition that everyone must know for us to be expected to respond at all.
(line, enter send, line, enter send, ... etc.)
When it's particularly bad, I actually hit the DND button on my Mac and go about other business until I think they've finished.
Bear in mind you're effectively tapping me on the shoulder to stop what I'm doing with every message.
I check it every two hours, on odd numbered hours.
If you text me expecting a response, and you aren't in my priority pool, I'll get back to you. After all, it is my phone, not yours.
My work slack is only available during my work day. Out of hours, it is closed.
Saying "hello" is not some devious plan to interrupt you, but rather a thing that humans do rather than act like a bot.
Maybe I've missed the feature hidden somewhere? I'd really appreciate it for group chats in particular. I need to know there's a discussion, I don't need my phone to notify me for every single message.
While we're all venting: How's about when you're writing a considerate reply that takes a while because it's a complicated answer, and they just blooming fire off another random message in the middle, destroying thread chronology!
Like, how do you write a multi-stage message where multiple stages are absolutely unavoidable, without the recipient answering just the first bit and not reading the rest?
I really struggle with it. (Because I am verbose. Overly verbose.)
But I try to frame that request in the context of each message.
Whereas someone I know has basically a copied and pasted demand letter at the top of each email, saying he won't reply unless people have read the whole thing. It's not as cute as the legendary Van Halen rider M&Ms request [0], and it just comes across as damaging.
[0]: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/van-halens-lege...
The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient.
I’m sorry if the poster doesn’t understand the value of live conversation, but that’s not our problem.
Now people like me have to say “ignore that post from that idiot… go ahead and ping me with a ‘hi’”
Deliver me from clever control freaks who never studied human behavior.
This is exactly how I have always interpreted it, and exactly why I hate it. It's trying to force an async form of communication to be synchronous. Imagine how obnoxious it would be if someone just sent you an email with no subject and the text "Hi".
Don't do this. If you need to have a synchronous chat about something don't just go "Hi". Go with "Hi, when you have a few minutes can we chat about X?" So the other end can prioritize it. Better yet schedule an actual call of synchronous chats.
No, it does not. If the person wants to do a call, you either call directly or - more polite these days - you send a message along the lines of "Can I call you about <x>?" or "Please call me whenever you're ready to talk about <x>". If you want to engage in synchronous (i.e. live) conversation, you don't engage it by just sending "hi" over a text chat, which is a very asynchronous medium.
The author is arguing that the “udp approach” to these conversations is less intrusive, and also alleviates doubt/anxiety about the nature of the conversation.
People have different ways of communicating. I actually like getting to know my coworkers and appreciate a little fluff in my conversations. Heck, if you can make me laugh with a sassy story or a funny pun, you get brownie points and priority.
This author sounds like the type of asshole that says “I’m not here to make friends, I’m not here to be nice to you, I’m here to trade my time for money only, so go to hell.” AKA an entitled asshole.
The thing is, if people ask me a direct, simple question via chat, I can answer many things without even losing my train of thought. Something like "Hey where do I configure DNS records for XYZ" or "where in ansible is X" and such often get answered while thinking about other stuff. Some new employees are kind of hesitant because it seems rude to them to just poke me with questions like that straight up, but that's the getting-to-know part. I don't need cuddling, and tea, and house shoes, and comments about the weather if you just need some simple information.
Or, if they are unsure about the entire situation, be straight about it. Let me dig myself out of my hole, tell me the context you're in and then let's have a call and screenshare about the entire thing. I still prefer to know what this is about, because it allows me to prepare for a call, to make our call more effective for both of us.
But the thing is, those kind of ticks and preferences I have are a relationship thing with other employees. People just start polite and careful and might just be like "Hello" and such - developers write less, marketing writes more. Usually they just aren't sure how to approach me. So I can't really be to mad at them. Just answer with a funny smiley or a waving one when your heads context is switched to chat, their first message won't be business critical.
And the latter is another important point. We have escalation and communication channels and communication and escalation plans for different severities of problems. Someone saying "Hi" to me cannot be a critical incident by internal definition, so it has a few hours of SLA at minimum and might be forgotten at worst. If it was critical, our head of support would call me directly. If it was more than critical, our head of operation would call my physical phone.
Much better is something like hello, don't mean to bother you but hey when you have the time can you <whatever>. That works so much better - many times I'll just take care of it immediately just to keep my backlog of work from growing. If it's something that's going to be more involved I'll let them know that and work out when they're needing it done by. Then I'll get it on my to-do list.
If it's urgent then say so - hello, sorry to bother you but this came up unexpectedly and you're the only one that can do <whatever>. Can you help us out? I may be annoyed, but I'm not going to shoot the messenger.
Just hello? No. It slips off my radar.
"Hey team, is anyone seeing a problem with <product>?"
(well, I have a bugtracker with around 300-400 issues in it, so yes... what is your specific problem?)
That is counter productive because I get this mental image of you with a fishing rod with bait on the hook waiting for me to bite, and my natural reaction is to not bother respond to you. If you'd just post what you're doing and what the error message is, I'd be way more likely to point you in the right direction if I know what the issue is.
EDIT: oh there we go its the other related post today on HN:
"Vaguebugging" is such a useful word that it is now noted for future use.
If someone doesn't have a clue, and they don't want to stand up and announce it, how do you suggest they go about it?
At least in a public channel, no one person is committed to answer, and the most patient / the person who knows the least what vaguebugging means, can answer.
"is there an issue with the latest release?"
vs.
"i've got a customer that just upgraded from version A.B.C to X.Y.Z and the <specific feature> configured in <specific way> trying to do <specific thing> is failing with <specific error message>, could this be a regression or did something change deliberately?"
Of course, it's inevitable that some people won't appreciate other's time and attention, but that's probably unsolvable.
But dropping something upfront that is ambiguous or requiring thought isn't great. If you drop a thorny problem on someone, you may kind of force a context change on them, causing them to drop their train of thought and focus on what you need instead.
You can pre-compose your longer thought/question. Then paste it once any pleasantries are over and you have the other person's attention. They don't need to wait for your typing and you can take your time to compose the right message, if you need it.
Exactly. This is what I do, and advise people to do when they say "argh the web chat was so annoying". Plan your requests, but be cordial.
preemptively witholding information doesn't lead to a global optimum
Conducting communication as an adversarial process is *going to fail*.
Fundamentally there's a basic need to protect one's own resources needed for a healthy psyche. And unfortunately this is very much "left as an exercise to the reader" in many (almost all?) cultures around the world. And the unsurprising result is that many people are taken advantage of by those who exploit the lack of the aforementioned psychological skills.
What an appalling way to conduct work.
why is this too far? :o
(For the record, I don’t — I agree with “No hello”.)
But being “upfront about your preference” is basically saying my preference trumps your preference.
And to the OPs point, it makes me hesitate to even engage in the first place.
I have people that communicate with me in ways that I don’t communicate with others, and even if it can sometimes be annoying, that’s more my problem than it is theirs.
Having said that, I think generally discussing the pros/cons of communication can be fine and helps bring to light things others may not have thought about.
I’m just not sure I would be quick to engage with someone that goes out of their way to tell me how I should communicate with them.
Then you should ask yourself if the reason you're sending this message if that you want something from them (in which case you should accommodate their preferences) or if you're just talking to please yourself (do it your way).
preferences can't trump each other. it's simply information that helps communication.
and if someone just says hi and the other party gets mad for not respecting their preference, that's a different thing. that's their inflexibility and arrogance for thinking that people need to respect their preference.
that said, if someone initiates communication because they want something from someone it makes sense to be nice to them after all the sender wants something. but it's just that, an opportunity to be considerate of the other. (I'm not even sure I'd notice it in someone's slack status even if I'm DMing them. but I try to accommodate my coworkers' communication preferences, because remote work is already too alienating in itself, yet there are days when I just ask them to type instead of voice chat, etc.)
I'm one of the ones that minds because it can disrupt my work. I realize that sometimes interruptions are necessary but I want it to be efficient. So get to the point already
Then there are the people that don't mind the interruption and sense of suspense.
A "hi" feels to me like someone has just come up and poked me, but is just staring at me waiting to respond. Over chat it feels even weirder because then it is as if I have said "yes, what do you want" and I get to stare at them for a minute or two while they compose a request they should have already had ready.
Also keep in mind that while saying 'hi' is perfectly fine irl, there is a crucial bit of context missing. If I see a colleague deeply concentrating on his work with headphones on, I'll wait. If their body language indicates that they aren't focusing hard, then its probably fine to interrupt.
disable desktop notifications and sounds and when you are finished with something switch to slack to see who wrote what
doesn't this work?
Now that I just won't put up with! ;-)
Do you want to send this confidential message to be seen by the people who are looking at my screen because of IM sends the message on the popup?
Anything I feel is confidential starts with a hello so that I know the other party is ready.
Anything generic also starts with a hello because in my country you don't just talk to people without a greeting, but then the content immediately follows
This surely is a good advice from someone in the room greeting someone who just entered.
It's called a protocol. Assume "hello" means something.
A 'request' with no salutation?
My first reply is "What? No 'Hello'? No 'When you have a moment?' No 'How is your morning?'"
Seriously though - as someone who's a 20-year resident in technical channels, who's had to deal with plenty of "Hello!"'s - this website comes off as incredibly condescending and very stereotypical for people working in an IT department.
Nobody expects you to drop anything. They want to see if you're there, and if you're not, they'll look for someone else to help them instead of asking you a question that might not be answered until long after they already received an answer from someone else.
If you don't want to interrupt your work and reply, then don't. Don't be rude and expect people to read a manual about how to interact with you.
> why Tim waits 4 minutes to reply to the "Hello!", but instantly replies to "Hello! <question>". What a selfrighteous jackass.
As far as I can tell, this question only makes sense if you expect him to treat both messages with equal priority, and believe failure to do so makes one a jackass. If you agree that it's reasonable to treat "pings" with lower priority than concrete questions, then it seems pretty easy to imagine why Tim waited 4 minutes to reply to "Hello" but instantly replied to a question.
It really does.
I mean I get that people have different needs and work styles and I definitely find interruptions difficult at some points, but this might have swung the pendulum a wee bit too far -- precisely because other people have different needs and work styles.