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

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

#171

Post by rafael09ed »

kempbellt wrote: post #152
happyopossum wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. No. Slack does not know if I’m at my desk, busy, or even taking a protected me-time lunch break. And no, you cannot expect me to manually update my status in Slack, Teams, Zoom, and every other communication tool I…

Slack sets you to "Away/Offline" after 10 minutes of inactivity by default, and by "relatively quickly" I mean, within an hour or two. If you can't close Slack or update your status to let people know you are unavailable for long periods of time, what is the point of being on Slack? Or a team for that matter? Barring an emergency, I'm not going to call someone directly because they're too busy working to (team)work.…

> Barring an emergency, I'm not going to call someone directly because they're too busy working to (team)work.

I think that's the point. Very rarely do you need someone to respond immediately.

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

#172

Post by retrac »

llaolleh wrote: post #164
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…

This is something I have not considered before. I've always thought chat was a medium where you can go asynchronous at any time. This indicates a failure in design. If they want a sync chat, then there should be an easy UI element for it.

I'm pretty sure "... is typing right now" messages are meant to aid that synchronous style. Though, I have a habit of leaving half-typed messages in the buffer which drives my friends and colleagues nuts.

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

#174

Post by joshmanders »

kempbellt wrote: post #152
happyopossum wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. No. Slack does not know if I’m at my desk, busy, or even taking a protected me-time lunch break. And no, you cannot expect me to manually update my status in Slack, Teams, Zoom, and every other communication tool I…

Slack sets you to "Away/Offline" after 10 minutes of inactivity by default, and by "relatively quickly" I mean, within an hour or two. If you can't close Slack or update your status to let people know you are unavailable for long periods of time, what is the point of being on Slack? Or a team for that matter? Barring an emergency, I'm not going to call someone directly because they're too busy working to (team)work.…

> If you can't play nicely on a team then maybe a different job is for you?

This is a bullshit copout. It's a cultural issue if people cannot be respectful of their co-workers time.

It is very common that if something is important to use important modes of communication such as phone calls.

My team for example is very asynchronous because that is our culture. Our team is located all over the country and some people in different parts of the world. If any of us needs each other during our typical work hours and its important, it's usually a call over our VOIP system. NONE of us take Slack as an immediate answer messaging platform.

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

#176

Post by arpa »

mgalgs wrote: post #157
arpa wrote: post #141

Chat is not email. It's perfectly normal to do a handshake (syn? Syn ack. Syn ack.) in this medium, as it's fine to say "hello" or "mushi-mushi" at the beginning of the phone convo. Please don't push your lack of social skills on others.

"social skills" LMAO. This is highly annoying and absolutely not good chat etiquette. Just ask your damn question!

Spend 20 more years on irc before teaching me online etiquette.

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

#177

Post by FabHK »

jayd16 wrote: post #162

Its a silly thing but many years ago the Andorid dev IRC channel's pinned subject was "Don't ask to ask. Just ask." I feel like that helped me, haha.

Yes. And goes to show that async chat is totally different from a presentation, where I've been recommended this structure:

1. Tell them what you're going to tell them.

2. Tell them.

3. Tell them what you've told them.

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

#178

Post by marcosdumay »

kempbellt wrote: post #152
happyopossum wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would appreciate a more standardized practice around, "If Slack says you are available, we can expect you to respond relatively quickly" than seeing a green dot and not hearing back for hours or a day. No. Slack does not know if I’m at my desk, busy, or even taking a protected me-time lunch break. And no, you cannot expect me to manually update my status in Slack, Teams, Zoom, and every other communication tool I…

Slack sets you to "Away/Offline" after 10 minutes of inactivity by default, and by "relatively quickly" I mean, within an hour or two. If you can't close Slack or update your status to let people know you are unavailable for long periods of time, what is the point of being on Slack? Or a team for that matter? Barring an emergency, I'm not going to call someone directly because they're too busy working to (team)work.…

I am active.

I am just focused on an important task, and won't throw my hard earned flow away just to answer your "hi" for you to trap me into waiting you slowly type stuff and maybe even disappearing without getting to the point. If you can't articulate what's your subject at the moment you contact me, you'll get a very low priority.

(Yeah, there are some people that do it out of a paranoid level of politeness and are easy to talk with even though they won't initiate a request. I will gladly make an exception for them.)

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

#179

Post by dasil003 »

_underfl0w_ wrote: post #105
jonbronson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty presumptive. There are any number of factors that might make a synchronous conversation desirable or even necessary. Merely seeking that out implies nothing about how someone values other people's time.

Could you please name at least one that would warrant a "naked greeting" like that though? "Production issue" comes to mind, but that would just as likely warrant a quick summary of the situation, since waiting for a response to "hi" wastes even more time.

Your boss has 10 reports and he needs to talk to all of them within an hour to tell some bad news face to face before it’s announced impersonally via email.

I probably would be slightly more verbose saying “hey, got a sec?” but honestly it’s a style question and if I’m on the receiving end it’s not going to bother me.

I find much of the discourse around slack etiquette to be slightly self-absorbed. The fact is, things work best when everyone is a bit flexible and understanding. Bottom line is there are reasons why a synchronous ping is justified, but it’s impossible for both parties to agree on it without knowing their mutual disposition. Generally it’s nice to not ping people too often, but also it’s okay to set boundaries and not respond right away (or just turn off slack for heads down time). In extreme cases I suppose I can imagine a company with an unbearable slack culture that makes it impossible to be an effective developer by enforcing an “always available” policy, but I think that’s probably pretty rare compared to places where things will go fine just by having the assertiveness to use some simple tactics mentioned above.

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