> Never send a direct message that just says “hey” or “hello.”
I first started hearing people suggest this recently (within the past month or so). I never really understood why these message bothered people so much - they never bothered me and always actually seemed a bit more polite than just barreling forward with a question. But I guess if even Slack themselves are saying don't do that, it must really get on other people's nerves.
People have to prioritize their time. If they get messages from someone, they have to weigh responding to it against all of the other things they may be doing with their time (other messages, that ticket you’re working on, etc etc.)
By just saying “Hey”, you’re leaving a message of unknown priority. You’re giving the other party zero information as to what you might want. If you say that to me, you’re saying “I need your attention, but I’m not going to tell you what for.” If I respond, are you going to ask me a brief question? Are you going to drag me into a meeting that may take tons of my time? Who knows?
Also, I may not get your “hey” until an hour later. Now what happens? I reply “hi”. Then I have to sit and wait around for you to get my response, so that you can reply with what you were going to ask me. But what if you’re away? Now we’re playing message tag. Contrast that with what would have happened if you would have just put your question in the original message: Now, I can read your question, do my best to find an answer, and give you a reply, and I can do so at my leisure. When I respond and you’re not available, the answer is waiting for you when you get back.
I make it a personal policy to just not respond when somebody just says “hey”. If it’s important, you’ll follow up. I once had a status meeting where someone said “I’m blocked on X because I reached out to ninkendo for support, and he didn’t respond”, to which my response was “You didn’t reach out to me for support at all, you just said ‘hi’. How was I supposed to know you had something important to ask? For all I know you just wanted to ask about my weekend…”
I dont think it is a problem with saying "hey" but when you say "hey" by itself. All the time I will say something like "hey" and then a followup message with a short question or asking how they are doing, etc etc.
But for sure it is annoying when someone sends me a message that says "Hi" and then says nothing else until I respond
I’d say it would even better if you just put a couple of newlines after “hey” and put your question in the same message. One less notification would be appreciated by your coworkers.
The person you're sending a message to doesn't need to sit there and watch you type out your actual message.
Just put "Hey" at the beginning your message. Don't split your message up into a separate message for "Hey" and a separate message for your real message.
Ah, you must have stumbled upon https://nohello.net/ too.
I think what they mean is "don't just say hey and leave a person hanging", i.e. if you have a long message to write just put it all together instead of potentially attracting somebody's attention to make them wait while <user is writing something..>.
I have a coworker that does it constantly and it bugs me to no end. I have to respond, they then ask what they were going to ask seconds or minutes later. Effectively breaking my concentration twice and making things take longer than they should.
There is always at least one that haven't used chat. Most people are used to communicating in person and then it's rude to not start with "Hello". You directly get a feeling of the stress level of the other, if you should scram or if it's a good time for a question. It doesn't work in remote chat and it needs to be explained for them to understand the problem.
Personally I love the "Hi! Do you have a moment?". "Well, now I have...". Usually the following question will take the rest of my day at least. :-)
It likely depends on the broad culture behind it. If someone sends a "Hey" and then is a fast enough typer and immediately can get the context going as I look, that's not a huge deal. Sometimes it's an opening to a more synchronous conversation and then it's less of a big deal because we're gonna be going back and forth with quick messages. Part of the irritation is you can still just always open a message with "Hey, something something something" and keep it all in one.
The problem is people who send a lone "Hey" and then... nothing.
Some will wait for you to say respond with your own greeting (which is all you can respond with because you don't know what you're even talking about yet). Other's don't wait but do delay and the initial greeting was just a warning or something that a "real" message is incoming. I've had folks ping me the "Hey" and then I respond immediately with a "Hey" (to stave off the above "permission to speak" people) and they get distracted and say nothing else for 10 minutes.
Some will message you while you're busy, so you don't respond to their "Hi". You then respond to it a half hour later with the only thing you can say to that contextless message: "Hey, what's up?". Only now maybe they are busy, and they respond again to you a half hour after that. You've had a conversation "opening" for an hour for what purpose?
Some will immediately begin typing out a gigantic block of text and you are sitting there waiting while the "XX is typing" message unwaveringly sits at the bottom. Bonus points here if they were editing and revising as they went and you get an eight word sentence after what appeared to be 3 minutes of continuous typing.
Some will do all of those things so you end up having your attention taken multiple times for minutes at a time for a message that realistically might take you a couple seconds to read, parse, and respond to if it had been sent all at once.
You can say hello/good morning/etc. at the beginning of your message. What's annoying is when you send a greeting as a separate message. The greeting itself is not annoying, and, I agree, is polite. But distracting someone with a zero-information message and then making them wait for what you actually want to say is decidedly impolite.
The “No hello” ethos in chat goes back to at least 2005. This is not a new thing at all, it’s just the industry is constantly being refreshed with young workers who learn anew what many people understood well over a decade ago.
I think it depends on the moment it happens. When I managed a larger team I could get a bit of communication overload. I'm trying to juggle ten requests at the same time, prioritizing who/what needs answering/updating and generally making sure I am unblocking anyone/everyone.
So when I see "Hey" I rarely see it as polite. What I'm thinking is "What do you want!? Spit it out!". IMO, politeness would be something like "Hey, I have a question about X, is now a good time". That at least I can prioritize. All I want is a tiny bit of context to the "Hey".
"Hi, I have following question. Blah blah" is fine.
But
- Hi
- <2 min pause and typing icon appears. I wait doing nothing or get to work>
- I have a question about X.
- <4 min pause and typing icon appears, as person struggles to write it. I wait doing nothing or get to work>
And only after you get question. That was too much waiting idle, being interrupted and still not communicating.
I can tell you why it bothers me personally. As soon as I see "Hey" my attention has been captured by the sender. I now have to sit there and wait for them to type out everything else. Or they sit there and wait for me to respond before they send any follow up. After waiting awhile maybe I learn that what they are sending is not time urgent, but too late my attention has already been completely removed from what I was working on.
The root of the problem is some people see Slack as more synchronous than others. I personally see Slack as more async (more synchronous than an email, but less than a phone call). I screen messages as they come in and respond in a way that makes sense to me. Likewise if I send somebody a message I don't expect an immediate response. Somebody simply sending "Hey" forces the conversation to be synchronous.
Typing "hey commandlinefan where is your list of ssh shortcuts?" is the best, as it's polite (could be politer I assume but it's not just a give me), and it gets you everything you need to know to answer (or if you do) right there. Maybe doing military style with "most important" first would be nicer "ssh shortcuts - hey commandlinefan, where's the list" but that's a minor thing.
Typing "hey"
and then "where's the ssh shortcuts" in quick succession isn't as great (buzzes the phone twice perhaps) but at least by the time you look at it you see what's needed.
Typing "hey"
and not adding anything more until you get "hello" back - this is what drives people up the wall. It's adding a SYN/ACK on top of TCP/IP and greatly slows down chat communications. I've had a "hello" and then immediately replied "hey" and then not heard anything for hours.
It is particularly problematic when the other person in a significantly different timezone to the point that you have no synchronous overlap. I work with coworkers in India and we are 12.5/11.5 hours apart.
When they send me a ‘hello’ message and nothing else, that immediately becomes a much slower interaction. I won’t be able to see and react until the next day. They won’t be able clarify the nature of their inquiry until the following day. I need to remember to come back to see what they wanted on the third day. That is slow motion torture and very inefficient communication.
Just send “Hi, could you you give the the location of the xyz document?” Or “Hello, I was working on ticket 101 and did not understand the second paragraph of the requirement, could you expand on that so I know what needs to be done, please?”. that is something that I can help with and give a much faster turn around on.
Well yeah, but if it's a quick question then it's just reading & replying once, it's a "hey" and you engage with it, it's a longer context switch. For both parties involved; the sender obviously has something they need you for, the faster they can have that issue resolved, the faster their context switch has finished.
I think it’s actually pretty silly. The same people demanding you no-hello them (that is, try to enforce a social solution on everyone else to solve something they can easily solve technically) will also tell you to e.g. use an as blocker, or go on about Postel’s law.
If a random slack message is going to ruin your concentration, that’s a you problem. Fix it on your end.
I agree, it doesn’t especially bother me. But if I don’t want notifications, I mute them. I don’t demand other people accommodate my inability to manage my own attention.
I first started hearing people suggest this recently (within the past month or so). I never really understood why these message bothered people so much - they never bothered me and always actually seemed a bit more polite than just barreling forward with a question. But I guess if even Slack themselves are saying don't do that, it must really get on other people's nerves.