No Hello: A New Wave | Hacker News Reader

No Hello: A New Wave

sbmueller.github.io

41 pointsExorust57 comments

I've seen these for years, and I've sent it to people who needed it, but as I get older and learn more emotional intelligence, I'm starting to consider the reality is some people just want to build relationships at work because of how terribly difficult it is to make friends as an adult.

Also, depending on your job, you may have to accept that some jobs require you to be malleable to having wrenches thrown into your flow state. It feels like people expect life to always have their boundaries in mind, but none of us are the main character here.

You can be sociable in chat without awkward asynchronous hellos. Just say your sociable message in the first line.

And you can throw a necessary wrench at someone without prefacing it with an unnecessary extra wrench. Bundle the two wrenches together.

Pro tip - continue the casual conversation after the initial question. For a few reasons:

* If you do the social chat and then ask the question it really feels like you're buttering the person up and not being genuine.

* If you do the casual chat after, it allows the person responding more freedom of when to reply. E.g. they know the important work stuff is out of the way and now it can be a slower casual chat.

So this is a direct copy of https://www.nohello.com/ ?

It also includes some additional wording about modern phone etiquette.

https://github.com/sbmueller/nohello

> This website was inspired by the original at nohello.com. Acknowledgements go to the original anonymous author. I felt an urge to modernize this gem with a more suitable layout, https connection and open-sourced code.

But that's what https://nohello.net already is

I would have closed nohello.com without reading.

I don't have time to wait for their fancy scroller at the top of the page before getting to the punch. A page with so many sections, you have to read it all to know what the point is.

The OP realizes that you should not waste time on a fancy hello, but get straight to the message.

;)

My coworkers have it down to a tee (the wrong way that is):

Co-worker: hello

Me: Hi, what's up?

Co-worker: got 5 mins?

Me: Sure

Co-worker: rings me to ask a question that could have been a single chat message

In isolation, this would be fine but this can happen multiple times a day.

I used to be infuriated with colleagues who felt the need to preface questions with “Question…” and then ask the question. Just ask the damned question. I should be able to figure out that it’s a question.

Now I am more patient.

It's not about the question, it's about the interaction. I scream internally everytime I get messages without "hello" on a new day, to me this is so rude

I had a similar experience with one coworker that almost drove me nuts

Co-worker: Hello

Me: Hey, what's up?

Co-worker: Do you have a minute?

Me: Sure

Co-worker: Can I ask you a question?

Me: Yeah, what is it?

Co-worker: Actually, it's a bit hard to explain, can we can on a call?

Me: (screaming internally)

I tend to share https://nohello.net/. It may be newer, but it's also open source, is available in multiple languages, emphasizes asynchronous communication [1][2], and uses _The Office_ as its setting which makes sharing it a bit more lighthearted.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_communication#Ele...

[2]: https://async.twist.com/asynchronous-communication/

I've got a similar issue with people emailing IT to ask if they should raise a ticket - just raise the ticket and if it's the wrong place to ask a question then you'll get a response telling you that. Instead we get email question->response: raise a ticket->ticket raised->actual response to question

It's especially annoying as our ticket system can just be emailed, so the original email question could just include the ticket system as well which would enable us to answer it and not waste attention and time for both us and them.

I’ve seen colleagues share this or link to it in their Slack status. It feels a bit… odd to me.

Yeah it’s maybe a bit annoying when people do this, but does it really need a whole campaign website? Not everyone is going to communicate in exactly the way you like.

It's needlessly prickly and reinforces the Comic Book Guy image that normal people have of programmers.

Yeah, it is suggestive of "first-world problems" and a bizarrely rigid personality (and a lack of a sense of humor). (According to the "About" page, the author is "specialized in software engineering and digital signal processing". Perhaps a case of déformation professionnelle?)

> Not everyone is going to communicate in exactly the way you like.

Sure, but do you put these differences down to individuality, or to culture?

If someone messages "hello", is this just social, is it that the person is blocked and cannot do anything, or is it a request for help where the person will probably be able to solve the problem (but would be quicker with help)?

Mismatches in cultural expectations lead to friction/conflict. I think it's generally going to be better to be aware of what the different expectations are.

When these types of conversations come up, I prefer the phrase “optimize for the receiver” - thinking on how to best be understood versus what is easiest/most convenient for the sender (in the hello case: requiring someone’s attention).

I'm always annoyed by "hello" messages. I once got to a point where I almost started creating a Slack bot that automatically replies with a "Hello" to such hello messages. In the end I never got to implement it but I still think that it is the right way to make the problem go away.

For now, I just settled on being more patient and stoic about the "Hello" kind of people and to lead by example and not do it myself.

I follow a simple rule.

If I'm looking for a written conversation, I say hello followed by whatever I want to say next in the same message.

If I want to call someone, I say hello and ask them if they are available in the same message.

I avoid situations in between because they are usually highly entropic and confusing. And sending a single message works, so there's no need to fix it.

You can do better. "hello, are you available?" creates false urgency and stress.

Use "Hello, not urgent, please ping me when your are a available for a live chat. I have a complicated question about $topic."

Thanks, I will be applying that.

I do start with a Hello, followed by whatever I have to say in the same message. In addition I also annotate with an `<async>`/`<urgent>` at the end as appropriate.

It has seemed to work for me.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone just wrote letters?

I suspect the author is annoyed when the cashier says “hello, how are you?” before they start ringing them up.

This is just culture. Being upset about it is an inefficient waste of energy.

I think people frequently say hello to ease people into their request. To note that we’re all human and more than just doing jobs. Also to prove and see if you’re there and available for an interruption. If you don’t respond to “hello,” then perhaps instead of messaging they will call or email or wait.

If they wanted async, they would just email.

This seems to stress a lot of people out. But doesn't stress me out at all. After a bit of thought, I think it's because I turn off notifications for all slack/email type stuff at work. Instead I just habitually check them. If someone really urgently needs me, I'm sure they'll call.

I used to do the nohello thing but since seeing this popup a few years ago I switched back to hello to be annoying. I've got an instinctive reaction whenever I'm told what to do to try doing the opposite.

people who are obsessed with this subject usually have poor communication skills.

Usually the biggest office asshole and last person you want to talk to for anything. The living embodiment of Nick Burns.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=25J3u3P-HHg

Imagine being this triggered because somebody opened their conversation with “Hello”. In my experience not many people will simply leave it at “Hello” for more than a few minutes. At which point you can respond to their question. And if they never provide more details then the problem solved itself.

I disagree. I start text chats with "hello" all the time.

It basically relates to channel choice. For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel.

So I start a convo with "hello" to probe if the other party is available for near-real-time text chat, because away-status indicators are frequently unreliable.

There are also special kinds of communication needs like if I need help with something and there are 3 people who could potentially help me out on something that's a blocker for me. I then just want to probe for the first person capable of unblocking me. The protocol is then something like: "me-to-person-a: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no respone. "me-to-person-b: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no response. "me-to-person-c: hello" wait for 5 minutes. all of a sudden person b has become available and replies "person-b-to-me: hello, what can i do for you?" ...now i start chatting with person b. meanwhile, 20 minutes after my initial prompt when I'm already well into my way, discussing my blocker with person b, person c comes online and says "hello". I respond "oh, never mind: person b is already helping me out". ...person a, as it happens, is fighting a production issue and not responding to me right now, knowing that i'm a newbie developer who likely has newbie questions. fair enough, he's entirely within his rights to ignore me.

If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person. Because now, I don't want to start wasting another person's time by "cross-posting" to a second 1-on-1 chat, as that is likely to duplicate work. In that case, to be polite, I'd have to at least wait a few hours, cross-post to a second person, and then say to the first person something like "oh, it seems like you're unavailable. actually never mind, I guess person-b might be able to help me out faster". ...this latter kind of communication is kind of awkward, and in any case inefficient.

I think you're still missing the point that the question isn't about what kind of conversation the initiator is ready and willing to have, but rather about the information asymmetry and time/emotional costs imposed on the recipient. When you open a conversation with "Hello," *you* know generally what you want to have a conversation about and that this is a good time for you to have it. The recipient receives only the notification that you would like to talk about something and is left to imagine what that might be as you type, or wait for a reply to begin typing.

Beginning a text chat with "Hello, I have a few questions about xyz and was wondering if now would be a good time to talk?" is considerate of the other party's time and attention, and it does not cost you anything but seconds to provide this context up front.

Edit: you edited and lengthened your comment.

> The protocol is then something like: "me-to-person-a: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no respone. "me-to-person-b: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no response. "me-to-person-c: hello"

I'm sorry, this is _insane_! That's 10 minutes to send out 3 words of communication, and the people who don't get back to you right away will now be getting back to you later to clarify, further worsening your signal to noise ratio! You could have spent 20 _seconds_ composing the first message with a one sentence synopsis. "Don't worry, no one is dead" or "The factory is on fire" are useful to know up front. You could copy and paste it to the next two people if they don't get back to you.

...I really don't think there's "emotional cost" on the part of the recipient in entertaining a "hello", at least not in peer-to-peer scenarios.

Now, if you're someone's boss and hitting up a subordinate with whom there is known "bad blood" then I get the point about the "emotional cost" of a scenario where you write, close to the end of the business day, "hello", then your subordinate doesn't respond for 10 minutes. Then you go home, or get into a block of meetings that will make you unavailable to continue the convo for several hours.

But if you have that little emotional intelligence, you shouldn't be anyone's boss, and if a mere "hello" from your boss freaks you out, you should probably just quit then and there.

Again, this is not about you and your personal experience. You do not know what kind of day someone else has had, and when Slack has 25+ notifications and you have deadlines, little failures to be considerate DO take a toll, just like when someone honks their car horn at you for no reason or refuses to hold the elevator for you. Sure, it's not genocide, but it's inconsiderate. Just because littering isn't murder doesn't mean it's fine.

I think there is an emotional cost in receiving a work-related message that only says "hello".

My data point: it enrages everyone I know. And they lose respect for the person who said "hello" and wasted their time.

I can’t conceive of working in an environment where coworkers are enraged by minor communication differences. Like wow you just work with a bunch of assholes.

Probably that’s the thing to solve for, not “hello”, “query” vs “hello, query”.

No. It completely disrespects the recipients work and time by demanding a meeting with no agenda.

Everyone I work with feels the same. The “hello” people are the outliers and the rest of the office knows it.

The hello people? rofl

...there must be some psychology student out there to whom this thread is an absolute gold mine for their Ph.D. thesis. ...or maybe a standup comedian.

People are telling you that they find your behavior disruptive and rude, yet you continue to discredit their feelings.

You cannot control how a recipient receives your message.

> You cannot control how a recipient receives your message.

My point exactly. Only problem: If A hurts B's feelings, that doesn't automatically mean B has the moral high ground and A is therefore in the wrong.

If B plays the "hurt feelings" card after A has done nothing to give offense other than start a conversation with "hello" in a text chat where they had no way of discerning B's emotional state, then that's the best example I've encountered yet, of a situation where A's hurt feelings clearly seem like A's problem.

The unspoken context is that this goes beyond saying "hello".

In my experience, hello people usually present with the following comorbidities:

- inability to learn and retain new information.

- inability to own their work and take responsibility from end-to-end.

- tendency to push their own work onto other people and become a victim when the other person doesn't do exactly what they want.

Maybe the psychology student you mentioned could look into this phenomenon for their thesis?

...wow, and you got all of that from "hello".

Also, not sure if you saw my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33933186

I already established that (a) I'm one of those hello people. (b) I'm allowing this conversation to change my behaviour, based on the fact that I simply never had any idea that people could take offence from a "hello". If your definition of "learn" is "coming around to your point of view", that would seem to make me a counterexample to your psychological typology.

But it still rubs me the wrong way to think that this society is leaving the business of "creation of cultural norms" to crybabies. Show me a group that's complaining about being said "hello" to, and I'll show you a group that needs to check their privilege.

No, I got all that from my multiple years of repeated interactions with "hello" people and noticing a consistent pattern.

Maybe you don't fit that mold and just like to say hello and you are a good coworker without all the bad traits I mentioned. Didn't mean to make this personal... just sharing my observations of the past.

> If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person.

Succinctly, your whole strategy is wrong. Instead of round-robin'ing your way around the people, you should be broadcasting your message to an appropriate channel set to the group of people that can respond to your query.

Group chats have a problem with "diffusion of responsibility" [1], and sometimes you have reasons for not wanting to broadcast whatever it is you're about to say (e.g. you're in a toxic culture where your bosses will use the fact that you need help from others against you).

I wouldn't round-robin my way through 10 people, but with 3 people it kind of seems fine to me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

I think if you're the kind of person who often asks for help, I'd strongly advise you to listen to advice like "no hello" (because "no hello" is broadcasted by people who are often asked for help).

Rather, you can't have both "I often ask for help" and "I don't need to listen to advice".

...this is some rando posting something on github. Advice that's binding on the recipient is not advice, it's a command. And I don't take commands from randos on github.

I also don't understand how this thread got so ad-hominem so quickly, with you acting like you know me well enough to put me in a category of people "who often ask for help", and then imply that those people are less entitled to autonomous choices on how to conduct themselves.

> this is some rando posting something on github

Sure, but it's a post which strongly resonates with many people.

I'm not even saying that I wouldn't take the advice, after all it's not costing me much to add a "topic header" to my "hellos".

...the fact that there's resonance here is something I'm only beginning to become aware of right now, as I see how people are reacting right here to what I wrote above.

I say this with 6 years of work for fully-remote companies under my belt. In those 6 years no one has ever complained about a "hello", none of those companies had this in their "netiquette" guides, and I've been on the receiving end of "hello" many times.

It has just always seemed like the most innocuous and normal thing in the world to me. So it's really weird to see people reacting so strongly right here.

I don't know your culture or your boss, but I have worked with people who could not code their way out of a paper bag, and round-robbined there way through DMs to "pair" to complete their assigned work. These people were highly paid and highly damaging to productivity and morale. I suspect I'm not alone, and I'll freely admit I have a large amount of bias in how I perceive your arguments due to that.

I will also say that your mentioned group chats should probably be a team channel, and the responsibility then becomes the Team Manager if the team members don't step up on their own. "#team-channel: @BobTeamManager are you able to help here?" would get a specific team member assigned.

In any case, you could/should simply send one DM with these 3 people (effectively, creating a private group) and then asking the question once.

- You are going to get your answer faster

- Your query is only going to people you trusted to ask for help anyway

- The parties that were not able to help at first don't need to come back to you after to see if you still need help, and you don't need to respond with "never mind, someone else helped me".

- It's just more transparent to your colleagues about what you need.

- IT STILL AVOIDS THE NO-HELLO ISSUE

Also: Slack allows for both private group channels, and public group channels. - If you post in a public group channel, then others who may face the same problem (maybe months later) will be able to benefit from you asking the question.

I’m guessing people seem to not answer you over IM a lot?

I fully understand your predicament. If you type all of the problem to a person, and they don't respond, you don't know when to switch it to another.

I must confess though that by default I am very slow to respond to message that starts with hello. I just don't know if they have a 5s question or 2hr problem. So I don't respond until I can commit the upper bound of time. This will result sometimes in slow responses to quick questions - but over years I started to feel the asker should take some responsibility for their own success. A dangling Hello is just insufficient offer.

Perhaps a good compromise is "hey, can you help me troubleshoot this webserver log?" (30min ask) or "hey do you know who's on shift today" (5s ask) or "hey I need to create a new ops manual for payroll processing, when can we Get together" (4hr ask) . It's polite, not assumptive, still inquires on whether they can help in needed timeframe without committing them, but it provides receiver something to help them reply on their own terms.

You're wasting so much time and annoying people by doing that. This whole nohello thing was made exactly for people like you.

> For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel.

What's an example? I encounter maybe one situation per month where I'd consider asynchronous communication "wrong", despite having multiple synchronous meetings per day.

In the situations where it is wrong, no one (IME) pings anyone with "hello......", They schedule time on a calendar (asynchronously).

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