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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)

#221

Post by tene »

dorkwood wrote: post #158
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…

> 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. I'm trying really hard to understand this mindset. What sort of question either needs to be answered immediately or not at all?

Personally, I always try to give people all the details up-front, but here are some rough situations where I'm likely to give people a very short summary instead of a full verbose request for reasons like you asked about:

If they respond immediately they can save me 30 minutes of work, but if not I'll be done doing it the slow way by the time they get back to me.

I'm making slow progress on a tricky problem. If I write a summary now, it would be theories I'm trying to disprove and evidence that currently seems relevant, but that summary will be less useful and accurate as the situation evolves and I better learn about the issue.

I can be unblocked on this task in three different ways, so I've reached out to three different people. I'll ask for help from whoever responds first.

I don't know if this is going to take me 30 minutes, or 3 days to figure out, but I'll keep working on it until I do. If it's still a problem when you get back to me, I'll ask for help then, but there's a good chance I might have solved it myself by the time you get back to me.

I'm dealing with an outage, and it's very time-sensitive. I don't have time to waste writing stuff up if you're not here to help out right now. If you show up while it's still broken, great! If you show up after the outage is fixed, I don't need your help anymore. I'm not calling you, because if you're not currently at your computer, you probably can't help me in the timeframe I need.

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

#222

Post by JoeAltmaier »

joshmanders wrote: post #212
kempbellt wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the bullshit copout is showing that you are available when you are not, to give the illusion that you are working I have nothing but respect for my coworkers personal time. I couldn't care less, personally, if you need to take hours, days, weeks, or even months off of work for whatever reason. Do what you need to do. However, if you are on Slack and suggesting to people you are available when you are not, that is…

Online status does not mean I am available, the online status tells my team that I am indeed, in my work day and they can message me and get a response when I'm actually available. Clocking in physically at your job tells your employer you're working, but it doesn't mean you're available immediately for their attention.

Yes text chat tools have too little engagement.

I worked on a startup called Sococo (still exists; pivoted to be a WebRTC clone) that used a map. You could see each little bobblehead on the map, either in their office, in a conference room, in a break room, with our without their headset on.

You clicked your guy into the room to conference with people in that room. If you didn't want to be bothered, you put your bobblehead into your office and closed the door, maybe took your headset off.

You could see who was in meetings and with whom. You could see them flashing as they talked in turn. You wanted to interrupt somebody, you could knock on their door. They could 'let your in' or chat 'give me a minute' or whatever.

It included chat tools in the rooms, so you could have text side-conversations while the talking was going on.

It was very, very useful. The company that made it, had employees on 3 continents and 7 states. I didn't actually know where my coworkers lived, unless they told me. Yet I could communicate without friction.

I miss the old Sococo.

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

#223

Post by mattkrause »

dorkwood wrote: post #158
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…

> 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. I'm trying really hard to understand this mindset. What sort of question either needs to be answered immediately or not at all?

Perhaps they want to move onto someone else who may be available sooner.

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

#224

Post by r0m4n0 »

tldr plz take this very short survey: https://linkto.run/p/SXDD5T38

After reading many of the comments here, it actually seems like most people think there is good enough reason to still use a quick hello (as do I). I’m curious though... so I made the survey. With the result I might just change my ways :)

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

#225

Post by namelosw »

surfsvammel wrote: post #216

In the old ICQ times, back in 1996, instant messaging was a bit different. At least to me. Back then, we always sent a single “Hi”. Just as an acknowledgment that we where both online at the same time. The chat was also a more central thing back then, it was a major part of even being online. Nowadays. Everyone is online , always. The chat is not as central anymore and it’s like the need to acknowledge each other lik…

This. We are being too much overloaded by information and tasks nowadays. There was even a time we take our time just for chatting and it actually felt good.

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

#226

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

kempbellt wrote: post #134
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 a common theme in my workplace. Especially with everyone working remote and odd hours these days. We use both email and Slack, but most conversations tend to be asynchronous regardless and I frequently wonder why we even have an instant messenger. That said, I find that even if a message is asynchronous, it is much easier to track conversation flow via slack than email. Reply chains and indentations get messy…

I disagree, because putting the whole request in at the outset puts the responsibility on me, even if I'm not available.

Consider the following exchange:

Co-worker: Hi, AA.

Me: Hello.

Co-worker: I need some help, are you available?

Co-worker: Well, I'm actually past my shift, and you probably saw me available because I was reading an email. Can I hit you up in the morning?

Coworker: Sure.

---VS-----

Co-worker: Hi, AA. We have a client with a problem, and I could use your help. Please do X, Y, and Z. Okay thanks, bye.

Next Morning,

Boss: Why hasn't anyone responded to the client yet!?!

Co-worker: Gee, I dunno. I told AA about it hours ago...

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

#227

Post by graton »

Same idea back in 2009 for IRC

https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/

  From: Adam Jackson
  To: memo-list
  Subject: On “ping” etiquitte
  Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:21:30 -0500

  IRC has developed a “ping” convention for getting someone’s attention. It works because most clients will highlight channels in which your name has been mentioned, so something like

  ajax: ping

  will make that channel show up pink instead of white for me [1].

  I wish to correct, or at least amend, this behaviour. The naked ping should be Considered Harmful, for at least two reasons. The first is that it conveys no information. The recipient of your ping, like you, is a Busy Person. They may be in the middle of something requiring intricate thought, and should not be interrupted for anything less than fire, flood, or six figures of revenue. Worse, _you_ may forget why you pinged someone; when, four hours later, your victim gets back to IRC and responds to you, _you_ will be disrupted in turn trying to remember what was on your mind in the first place.

  The second, more subtle reason proceeds from the first. A ping with no data is essentially a command. It’s passive-aggressive; it implies that the recipient’s time is less valuable than yours. [2] The pingee will respond in one (or both) of two ways. Either they will experience increased stress due to increased unpredictable demands on their time, or they will simply ignore naked pings.

  The fundamental issue here is a misunderstanding of the medium. IRC is not a telephone. It’s volatile storage. The whole reason the ping works is because the client remembers seeing the ping, and can save it in your history buffer so you can see who was talking to you and why.

  The naked ping removes this context.

  Please. Save your time. Save my time. Make all of our lives more efficient and less stressful. Ping with data. At a minimum:

  ajax: ping re bz 534027

  See the difference? Now you’ve turned slow, lockstep, PIO-like interaction into smooth pipelineable DMA. It’s good for your hardware, and it’s good for you.

  [1] – irssi 4 life.

  [2] – Their time may well be less valuable than yours. That’s not the point.

  – ajax

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

#228

Post by leetcrew »

gonehome wrote: post #166
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…

Is it harsh to say that the people I know who do this are also just not as sharp generally? I’m not sure if this is unique to me, but there’s a tight correlation between people who send naked initial “hi” messages and people who can be more tedious to work with. I’d also wonder if it’s related to being bad at typing.

I don't think they're any less "sharp" in general; it's just a lazier communication style that offloads (perhaps unintentionally) some of the work onto the other person.

to be effective at async communication, you have to not only ask your question, but also anticipate all the context that person will need to give a good answer. then you do your best to condense that into a clear and concise initial message.

in synchronous communication, I find that much more often the asker just asks their question and expects the recipient to come up with all the pertinent followup questions themselves. the asker might even feel they are more productive in this mode, since they don't have to account for the time/effort needed to gather context.

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

#229

Post by eganist »

oauea wrote: post #210
eganist wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked page advocates against these on the same premise, which is my primary challenge with it. It ignores urgency.

If it's urgent then you should probably take a few seconds to explain why.

Probably, yes, but not always. It depends on the matter.

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

#230

Post by eganist »

airstrike wrote: post #218
eganist wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absolutely, but it's still polite to schedule the synchronous call via async. Maybe this is a failing on my part, but I'm having a hard time understanding how these: > × "Hello, are you around?" > × "hi sophie - quick question." > × "You got a sec?" (specifically the first and last of these) aren't a form of urgent scheduling. At the very least, the last one is unambiguously asking if there's immediate availability…

The difference is those examples don't allow the listener to decide how urgent the matter is. If my boss tells me something is urgent, by definition it is. If anyone tells me it's an emergency , I drop what I'm doing and help—but it better be a real emergency. Now, if Mike from Accounting wants to talk urgently , I may not be available because I have my own list of urgent things to tackle. I will try to carve out tim…

> Now, if Mike from Accounting wants to talk urgently, I may not be available because I have my own list of urgent things to tackle. I will try to carve out time and prioritize his request, but I am in no way committed to his personal sense of urgency.

That's fine, and that's for you to decide. But Mike from Accounting may have a reason to withhold the details for a different channel or to mitigate against other potential risks. It's up to you to decide with the information you have whether it meets your standard of urgency.

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