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No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

nohello.net

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Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#41

Post by unfocussed_mike »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #36
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am saying is, don't get into the habit of making requests like this that make you look smaller. Forks are inexpensive. Here, I suggest that it is probably better for office harmony and one's career to do the inexpensive thing rather than burdening other people with dealing with your lack of tolerance for doing the inexpensive thing. Being a little rude like this won't ever blow back on you in ways that you can…

I like this, I'll strive to buy more forks. > Being a little rude like this won't ever blow back on you in ways that you can directly measure. But it will blow back. I do want to comment that I consider the just saying hello messages to be rude, itself. It's a balance isn't it, I don't want to be rude to others (buy more forks), but I also don't want people to be rude to me. So depending on the situation I might comm…

> I do want to comment that I consider the just saying hello messages to be rude, itself. It's a balance isn't it

That is fair of course. And it really is a balance!

I just think that it's almost always better to take the high road, deal with this as best you can, and benefit from being seen as accommodating.

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#43

Post by unfocussed_mike »

pas wrote: post #38
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am saying is, don't get into the habit of making requests like this that make you look smaller. Forks are inexpensive. Here, I suggest that it is probably better for office harmony and one's career to do the inexpensive thing rather than burdening other people with dealing with your lack of tolerance for doing the inexpensive thing. Being a little rude like this won't ever blow back on you in ways that you can…

it's not rudeness. (I assume the rules about workplace kitchenware is that everyone has to return them, etc.) sure, I completely see your point. I am the buy more fork guy in almost all of my social circles. like you said, it's just inexpensive, easy, etc. but that doesn't necessarily works for attention. it's pretty scarce, so if someone feels they are really bothered by these hellos, then stating their preference u…

> but that doesn't necessarily works for attention.

It definitely does not, indeed.

But I still think this kind of approach is damaging. And putting the link in your slack status or sharing it to a list is reputational self-harm.

> career advancement is important, but the recruiter won't care, the interviewer won't care, and your next team also won't care about what happened on the internal lists at the previous workplace. (even if it's the first hit for your name in Google)

Haha luckily it didn't make it into the Google era (or if it did I never found it).

I mean more that, how to put it: you don't have control over how and when briskness and terseness is interpreted as rudeness, and how long that rudeness is remembered.

So things like this website: to me it just comes across as very entitled. Creating a movement around something as small as this is just exactly why people don't like approaching tech people with questions.

We're not actually entitled to be approached in any particular way except politely, and politeness is not something with a single definition that everyone must know for us to be expected to respond at all.

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#44

Post by yakubin »

I expect a lot of it comes from people not being aware of what Shift+Enter does in Slack. There is a setting in Slack which makes Enter break lines, and Ctrl+Enter send the message. IMO it should be the default. It could break away with the habit of standalone hellos and with big messages being broken into 7 smaller ones (each generating a notification, and making it harder to judge when the other person stopped forming their message). Instead, sending a message would be a separate action from composing it.

Of course, it's inevitable that some people won't appreciate other's time and attention, but that's probably unsolvable.

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#45

Post by unfocussed_mike »

ghusto wrote: post #37
OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's much worse. But it's the same problem, no? People should just write the damn message and don't drag it out, then we'll all be happy.

Err, actually yes, I didn't realise but it is :) While we're all venting: How's about when you're writing a considerate reply that takes a while because it's a complicated answer, and they just blooming fire off another random message in the middle, destroying thread chronology!

There are so many things like this that are challenges we just have to suck up.

Like, how do you write a multi-stage message where multiple stages are absolutely unavoidable, without the recipient answering just the first bit and not reading the rest?

I really struggle with it. (Because I am verbose. Overly verbose.)

But I try to frame that request in the context of each message.

Whereas someone I know has basically a copied and pasted demand letter at the top of each email, saying he won't reply unless people have read the whole thing. It's not as cute as the legendary Van Halen rider M&Ms request [0], and it just comes across as damaging.

[0]: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/van-halens-lege...

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#46

Post by chc »

efdee wrote: post #7

The real question is why Tim waits 4 minutes to reply to the "Hello!", but instantly replies to "Hello! ". What a selfrighteous jackass. Seriously though - as someone who's a 20-year resident in technical channels, who's had to deal with plenty of "Hello!"'s - this website comes off as incredibly condescending and very stereotypical for people working in an IT department.

The real question to me is why you expect somebody to drop everything and reply to "hello." It's not about being righteous, it's just not a productive use of your time. If I'm not busy, I'll reply quickly, but if I'm in the middle of something, chit-chatting with somebody who just wants to say hi is usually lower priority.

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#47

Post by chc »

jader201 wrote: post #34
pas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are upfront about their preference, what's wrong with that? why is this too far? :o

What if I like just saying “Hello” up front for reasons I find just as valid as the reasons you don’t like “Hello”? (For the record, I don’t — I agree with “No hello”.) But being “upfront about your preference” is basically saying my preference trumps your preference. And to the OPs point, it makes me hesitate to even engage in the first place. I have people that communicate with me in ways that I don’t communicate w…

> What if I like just saying “Hello” up front for reasons I find just as valid as the reasons you don’t like “Hello”?

Then you should ask yourself if the reason you're sending this message if that you want something from them (in which case you should accommodate their preferences) or if you're just talking to please yourself (do it your way).

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#48

Post by unfocussed_mike »

pas wrote: post #29
dghlsakjg wrote: post #12

I think there's a dichotomy of people here. I'm one of the ones that minds because it can disrupt my work. I realize that sometimes interruptions are necessary but I want it to be efficient. So get to the point already Then there are the people that don't mind the interruption and sense of suspense. A "hi" feels to me like someone has just come up and poked me, but is just staring at me waiting to respond. Over chat…

if someone really wants something they can call :) disable desktop notifications and sounds and when you are finished with something switch to slack to see who wrote what doesn't this work?

> if someone really wants something they can call :)

Now that I just won't put up with! ;-)

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#49

Post by chc »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #16

I know I am going to be downvoted so hard for this, but this is the most Hacker News thing ever. People have all sorts of different ways to converse; people have different models of politeness, people are shy, uncertain or awkward in all sorts of different ways. Some things just can't be blurted out. Some things need the scene setting. People are people. Not robots. Producing a website to demand that people address y…

Setting boundaries that ask people to respect your time is not "staggeringly entitled," it's pretty much the bare minimum of self-respect.

Re: No hello – please don't just say hello in chat

#50

Post by lamontcg »

There's also vaguebugging that usually goes along with this, and which gets used in public channels:

"Hey team, is anyone seeing a problem with ?"

(well, I have a bugtracker with around 300-400 issues in it, so yes... what is your specific problem?)

That is counter productive because I get this mental image of you with a fishing rod with bait on the hook waiting for me to bite, and my natural reaction is to not bother respond to you. If you'd just post what you're doing and what the error message is, I'd be way more likely to point you in the right direction if I know what the issue is.

EDIT: oh there we go its the other related post today on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225

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