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No Hello: A New Wave

sbmueller.github.io

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Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#11

Post by NikolaNovak »

gyulai wrote: post #4

I disagree. I start text chats with "hello" all the time. It basically relates to channel choice. For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel. So I start a convo with "hello" to probe if the other party is available for near-real-time text chat, because away-status indicators are frequently unreliable. There are also special…

I fully understand your predicament. If you type all of the problem to a person, and they don't respond, you don't know when to switch it to another.

I must confess though that by default I am very slow to respond to message that starts with hello. I just don't know if they have a 5s question or 2hr problem. So I don't respond until I can commit the upper bound of time. This will result sometimes in slow responses to quick questions - but over years I started to feel the asker should take some responsibility for their own success. A dangling Hello is just insufficient offer.

Perhaps a good compromise is "hey, can you help me troubleshoot this webserver log?" (30min ask) or "hey do you know who's on shift today" (5s ask) or "hey I need to create a new ops manual for payroll processing, when can we Get together" (4hr ask) . It's polite, not assumptive, still inquires on whether they can help in needed timeframe without committing them, but it provides receiver something to help them reply on their own terms.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#12

Post by gyulai »

gryfft wrote: post #7
gyulai wrote: post #4

I disagree. I start text chats with "hello" all the time. It basically relates to channel choice. For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel. So I start a convo with "hello" to probe if the other party is available for near-real-time text chat, because away-status indicators are frequently unreliable. There are also special…

I think you're still missing the point that the question isn't about what kind of conversation the initiator is ready and willing to have, but rather about the information asymmetry and time/emotional costs imposed on the recipient. When you open a conversation with "Hello," *you* know generally what you want to have a conversation about and that this is a good time for you to have it. The recipient receives only the…

...I really don't think there's "emotional cost" on the part of the recipient in entertaining a "hello", at least not in peer-to-peer scenarios.

Now, if you're someone's boss and hitting up a subordinate with whom there is known "bad blood" then I get the point about the "emotional cost" of a scenario where you write, close to the end of the business day, "hello", then your subordinate doesn't respond for 10 minutes. Then you go home, or get into a block of meetings that will make you unavailable to continue the convo for several hours.

But if you have that little emotional intelligence, you shouldn't be anyone's boss, and if a mere "hello" from your boss freaks you out, you should probably just quit then and there.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#13

Post by gryfft »

gyulai wrote: post #12
gryfft wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're still missing the point that the question isn't about what kind of conversation the initiator is ready and willing to have, but rather about the information asymmetry and time/emotional costs imposed on the recipient. When you open a conversation with "Hello," *you* know generally what you want to have a conversation about and that this is a good time for you to have it. The recipient receives only the…

...I really don't think there's "emotional cost" on the part of the recipient in entertaining a "hello", at least not in peer-to-peer scenarios. Now, if you're someone's boss and hitting up a subordinate with whom there is known "bad blood" then I get the point about the "emotional cost" of a scenario where you write, close to the end of the business day, "hello", then your subordinate doesn't respond for 10 minutes.…

Again, this is not about you and your personal experience. You do not know what kind of day someone else has had, and when Slack has 25+ notifications and you have deadlines, little failures to be considerate DO take a toll, just like when someone honks their car horn at you for no reason or refuses to hold the elevator for you. Sure, it's not genocide, but it's inconsiderate. Just because littering isn't murder doesn't mean it's fine.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#14

Post by [deleted] »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #9

I've got a similar issue with people emailing IT to ask if they should raise a ticket - just raise the ticket and if it's the wrong place to ask a question then you'll get a response telling you that. Instead we get email question->response: raise a ticket->ticket raised->actual response to question It's especially annoying as our ticket system can just be emailed, so the original email question could just include th…

[deleted]

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#15

Post by gyulai »

rglullis wrote: post #8
gyulai wrote: post #4

I disagree. I start text chats with "hello" all the time. It basically relates to channel choice. For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel. So I start a convo with "hello" to probe if the other party is available for near-real-time text chat, because away-status indicators are frequently unreliable. There are also special…

> If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person. Succinctly, your whole strategy is wrong. Instead of round-robin'ing your way around the people, you should be broadcasting your message to an appropriate channel set to the group of people that can respond to your query.

Group chats have a problem with "diffusion of responsibility" [1], and sometimes you have reasons for not wanting to broadcast whatever it is you're about to say (e.g. you're in a toxic culture where your bosses will use the fact that you need help from others against you).

I wouldn't round-robin my way through 10 people, but with 3 people it kind of seems fine to me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#16

Post by rgoulter »

rglullis wrote: post #8
gyulai wrote: post #4

I disagree. I start text chats with "hello" all the time. It basically relates to channel choice. For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel. So I start a convo with "hello" to probe if the other party is available for near-real-time text chat, because away-status indicators are frequently unreliable. There are also special…

> If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person. Succinctly, your whole strategy is wrong. Instead of round-robin'ing your way around the people, you should be broadcasting your message to an appropriate channel set to the group of people that can respond to your query.

Also: Slack allows for both private group channels, and public group channels. - If you post in a public group channel, then others who may face the same problem (maybe months later) will be able to benefit from you asking the question.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#17

Post by mkl95 »

I follow a simple rule.

If I'm looking for a written conversation, I say hello followed by whatever I want to say next in the same message.

If I want to call someone, I say hello and ask them if they are available in the same message.

I avoid situations in between because they are usually highly entropic and confusing. And sending a single message works, so there's no need to fix it.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#18

Post by jameschensmith »

I tend to share https://nohello.net/. It may be newer, but it's also open source, is available in multiple languages, emphasizes asynchronous communication [1][2], and uses _The Office_ as its setting which makes sharing it a bit more lighthearted.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_communication#Ele...

[2]: https://async.twist.com/asynchronous-communication/

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#19

Post by rgoulter »

gyulai wrote: post #15
rglullis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person. Succinctly, your whole strategy is wrong. Instead of round-robin'ing your way around the people, you should be broadcasting your message to an appropriate channel set to the group of people that can respond to your query.

Group chats have a problem with "diffusion of responsibility" [1], and sometimes you have reasons for not wanting to broadcast whatever it is you're about to say (e.g. you're in a toxic culture where your bosses will use the fact that you need help from others against you). I wouldn't round-robin my way through 10 people, but with 3 people it kind of seems fine to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_re…

I think if you're the kind of person who often asks for help, I'd strongly advise you to listen to advice like "no hello" (because "no hello" is broadcasted by people who are often asked for help).

Rather, you can't have both "I often ask for help" and "I don't need to listen to advice".

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#20

Post by lupire »

lunarplague wrote: post #3

I've seen these for years, and I've sent it to people who needed it, but as I get older and learn more emotional intelligence, I'm starting to consider the reality is some people just want to build relationships at work because of how terribly difficult it is to make friends as an adult. Also, depending on your job, you may have to accept that some jobs require you to be malleable to having wrenches thrown into your…

You can be sociable in chat without awkward asynchronous hellos. Just say your sociable message in the first line.

And you can throw a necessary wrench at someone without prefacing it with an unnecessary extra wrench. Bundle the two wrenches together.

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