So I turned off all notifications on Slack. The only way I know I have a message is the red dot that appears in the panel icon.
Now, it's async again. When I even glance up to see if there are new messages... Red dot or no red dot
This way there won't be any misunderstandings about why some people seem more responsive than others, because now that person knows how to communicate with you.
But turning off notifications works; it keeps your focus, and making them wait for a reply trains and reminds them that it's asynchronous communication. A lot of people have grown accustomed to fast replies though.
I do hate it though. Just ask the damn question, don't wait for me to say "hey" back.
I can't help but be annoyed or distracted by naked hellos, regardless of the intent behind them, so to me, they are rude. I understand that they might be some sort of social ritual, but I can't for the life of me understand how it's in any way courteous to ask for someone's attention with an expectation of a synchronous reply before revealing anything about why they want your attention.
But I suppose the majority feels the opposite for some unfathomable reason.
I tried to punish the naked hello senders, by simply not responding at all. If you can't be bothered to tell me why you need me, I can't be bothered to respond.
Unfortunately, empathy broke it. I work with a lot of remote workers in India. They make long hours and I know they need something from me, I just don't know what. By intentionally not responding, I feel bad about effectively sabotaging progress.
A colleague just sent me a single question in 11 messages (and yes the first one was "hello"). People use the enter key as punctuation, which shouldn't be a problem and is fixable by software. But as of now it spams notifications.