Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

nohello.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 362 posts

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#91

Post by ballenf »

GordonS wrote: post #27

Gods, but this drives me absolutely nuts at work. Like OK, what?! It tells me nothing about the urgency of the matter, let alone what it relates to. So I can put it to the side and keep working - but it's going to be nagging at me "hmm, what if it's about x?". So now I've got to break focus and waste time just to find out how important it is, and what it even relates to. I much prefer "Hi, I have a question regarding…

Seems like a great use case for a slack bot. Monitor for naked hellos and show a link to this page. That way it’s not personal.

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#92

Post by ballenf »

codeulike wrote: post #85

I dont agree with this. Its good to be polite. Also if you throw your question into the chat without first verifying that they are seeing it and responding then you can end up asking the question, then they dont see it, then it hangs around for ages, then they see it hours later when it might not be relevant anymore and it causes confusion. Saying hello is fine, and polite, our social instincts are pretty good genera…

Ask the question and then follow up with a nvm if they take longer to answer than is useful. You can do it politely and explain you got the answer or whatever.

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#93

Post by dvtrn »

mackatsol wrote: post #35

I don't mind that 'hello' or 'hi mackatsol' .. as I know more is coming. What drives me crazy is people who say "can I ask you a question?" I really try hard not to say "you just did". None of those compare to those folks who do not understand that to help them we need details. How do I infer what a problem is without any details? I used to ask all sorts of questions so as to be able to help them. Now I tend to post…

I feel this in my bones, and have been trying to get engineering managers to work with their teams on creating better tickets because in a company of nearly a two hundred developers including a massive overseas contingent, but a painfully understaffed ops and infrastructure team of 3:

“My build doesn’t work, please prioritize”

Does not help me help you. I wish I were making it up that this is the level of detail with which people ask my team to stop what they are doing and render aid (we don’t, when it’s that bare). These are developers who you’d think would know how to flesh out an error ticket and at least be somewhat specific in what they’re asking for.

What build? What repo is the build pipeline attached to? What’s the error message (many of the times these were errors that could have been self-solved if the developer bothered read the error message to notice they forgot to close a bracket. I’ve pointed to this to their leads. It doesn’t change) Do you know how many developers are using the pipelines we’ve build for them? Do you realize how many development initiatives are going on? I’d hope so, we Go over then as a tech division with a regular cadence. What product are you working on? Which feature branch? How about so much as a screenshot or a link to the repo where the build is failing?

So. What I’ve done is gone to all of their engineering leads, showed them examples of the ticket. Explained my problem. And told them “if your people can’t help us enough by being descriptive and at least putting a link to the build with the error they’re seeing, it’s not getting prioritized it won’t even be triaged”

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#94

Post by sokoloff »

watwut wrote: post #59
todd_t wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. Then send it in an email.

So that answer returns in few days if ever? Perfect plan.

If I’m the type of person to get annoyed at a carrier-only “hi”, I’m not going to give you a fast response to your content-free interruption either.

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#95

Post by _abox »

GordonS wrote: post #27

Gods, but this drives me absolutely nuts at work. Like OK, what?! It tells me nothing about the urgency of the matter, let alone what it relates to. So I can put it to the side and keep working - but it's going to be nagging at me "hmm, what if it's about x?". So now I've got to break focus and waste time just to find out how important it is, and what it even relates to. I much prefer "Hi, I have a question regarding…

If it's someone I don't know (megacorp here too!) I just ignore it altogether... They'll eventually give up and ask the actual question.

It's harder if it's something I can't ethically ignore like my boss or a coworker.

PS: One thing that really helps to get my attention is being someone that's actually nice to talk to. I have a LOT of time for people who are not all business and actually care about people.

And the best way to get on my shitlist is asking the same question 3 times in a matter of weeks.

Once is totally fine. Great when people want to learn. Two is OK. I get it, you didn't have time to make a note. Three is Shitlist. I'm not your database. Use OneNote.

In the same manner: I notice when people ask me a lot of questions but never the same one twice. I really respect that and I have a lot of time for those people. It shows initiative and a capability/interest to learn. Good for a major plus on performance review feedback too :)

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#96

Post by ballenf »

jmull wrote: post #81

I think the right way to deal with the frustration of this is to find a way to let of your frustration. Why? Because carping about it here and making web sites for this is going to change nothing. There are reasons people start chats like this, and those reasons aren’t going to go away, so this is going to keep happening whether it annoys you or not. * They want to have a live chat with you and are trying to see if y…

Maybe a more nuanced status instead of just green could help. Like Purple means I’m signed in and available for synchronous chat.

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#97

Post by kijin »

adrianmonk wrote: post #77
jasode wrote: post #33

>People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like one would in person or on the phone - and that's great! Different people have different reasons but I notice that many people that do a naked "hi" / "hey" are trying to see if the receiver is present for an immediate reply. In other words, the sender deliberately wants a synchronous instead of asynchronous convo. They do…

That motivation is logical, but I think it's more considerate to type out just a few words so the recipient has some idea what's up. For example, "hi, i have a question about web config files" or "hi, i need help with a SQL query" or "hi, we may have a production issue" or "hi, i want to propose a change to how we do builds". This allows the recipient to prioritize. Just because they are present doesn't mean that now…

In my experience, people who prefer synchronous communication are much more likely than those who prefer async to think that now is always a good time to have whatever conversation they want to have. Therefore, asking them to consider whether now is a good time will not make any difference. That condition always returns true for them.

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#99

Post by dheera »

adrianmonk wrote: post #77
jasode wrote: post #33

>People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like one would in person or on the phone - and that's great! Different people have different reasons but I notice that many people that do a naked "hi" / "hey" are trying to see if the receiver is present for an immediate reply. In other words, the sender deliberately wants a synchronous instead of asynchronous convo. They do…

That motivation is logical, but I think it's more considerate to type out just a few words so the recipient has some idea what's up. For example, "hi, i have a question about web config files" or "hi, i need help with a SQL query" or "hi, we may have a production issue" or "hi, i want to propose a change to how we do builds". This allows the recipient to prioritize. Just because they are present doesn't mean that now…

Totally agree. I also hate it when people assume that I'm synchronous even though I may respond quickly to the first query by chance.

I usually periodically take breaks to batch process all instant messages and then mute notifications until the next break. If I've already responded to your first question chances are I won't return to your chat window until the next break.

I'm also not opposed to synchronous conversations, it just needs to be scheduled. So the first question should not be "Hey how was your weekend" but rather "Hey how was your weekend, and what time this afternoon could you spend 30 minutes with me chatting about (A) (B) (C)"

Re: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

#100

Post by jaredsohn »

corty wrote: post #19
DangitBobby wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this bother you?

because every time someone hits return, the messenger goes bling . Then I'll read what was sent because I was interrupted anyways. Then I'll discover it was incomplete and I can't make sense of it. I'll go back to productive work until the next snippet of this flow of consciousness madness interrupts me. Then I'll read that message, plus the preceding ones for context. Now you interrupted me multiple times, forcing m…

>because every time someone hits return, the messenger goes bling.

I realize there are still distractions re: notifications, etc. but I recommend people turn off chat sound effects to make the notifications less distracting.

It bugs me when on a Zoom call, I slack something, and I hear the Slack notification sound.

Post reply on HN