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Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

nohello.com

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Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#101

Post by placatedmayhem »

michaelt wrote: post #61

It depends on the nature of your work. In some types of work, individuals are supposed to do their own time management, and carve out chunks of time for activities that require sustained concentration, and respond appropriately to occasional requests, which are a mixture of low- and high-urgency. For example, someone who needs to read complex academic papers, but occasionally might be interrupted for an urgent produc…

If we stop treating asynchronous communications mechanisms (chat, email, etc.) as synchronous (voice/video calls, face-to-face), the urgency issue goes away for everyone.

Async comms should regularly (and, perhaps, by default) be muted to enhance focus. Let them collect and allow the person to manage their own time. "No hello" allows them to have the question ready for them to address when they process their incoming queues.

Synchronous comms should be used to get immediate attention on an urgent issue that needs to be addressed immediately, or be used for tight, rapid iteration in a discussion (e.g. rapid design discussions). Because it necessarily takes attention away from another task, the activation energy should be higher.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#102

Post by npteljes »

throwaway598 wrote: post #4

> It's as if you called someone on the phone and said "Hi!" and then put them on hold! Typically you both say a greeting then a conversation starts. > Instead of being polite, you are just making the other person wait for you to phrase your question, which is lost productivity. Please don't count every second of your life in productivity lost to someone else. The root of the problem might be frustration with not gett…

If people followed up immediately after they said "Hi", "nohello" would not exist, or it wouldn't be relevant. Saying just hi is a problem because often, people interrupt each other by "hi", followed by several literal minutes of "Typing..." on the bottom of the screen, or nothing at all.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#104

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

michaelt wrote: post #61

It depends on the nature of your work. In some types of work, individuals are supposed to do their own time management, and carve out chunks of time for activities that require sustained concentration, and respond appropriately to occasional requests, which are a mixture of low- and high-urgency. For example, someone who needs to read complex academic papers, but occasionally might be interrupted for an urgent produc…

> For the latter, though? A dozen interruptions per hour is completely normal, what's the problem?

It's still needless overhead. Just because interruption 13 is proportionally less painful doesn't make it free.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#105

Post by conor- »

brisketbbq wrote: post #96

This annoys me, along with people asking about a jira but just sending the number. That means I'll need to copy it and go to my browser to type in the URL and the jira number. Chances are the colleague was just looking at the jira in their browser, so why wouldn't they copy/paste the link...

You can always reply and say "can you send me a link to that" and place the onus back onto whoever is asking something about that Jira.

Do that enough times and eventually people start to get the hint.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#106

Post by jpl56 »

I tried to set my status message to something like "Please ask me the question directly", but people didn't like it.

And I hate to have to take my mouse, click on the notification, read "Hello", answer "Hello" and wait 30 seconds watching the "is typing" dots...

I'm thinking of writing a macro (I have many) that answers "Hello" to the last message with a key combination. That way, no interruption if I was typing. A new notification will happen when the actual question arrives.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#107

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jpl56 wrote: post #106

I tried to set my status message to something like "Please ask me the question directly", but people didn't like it. And I hate to have to take my mouse, click on the notification, read "Hello", answer "Hello" and wait 30 seconds watching the "is typing" dots... I'm thinking of writing a macro (I have many) that answers "Hello" to the last message with a key combination. That way, no interruption if I was typing. A n…

Maybe an application for an AI chatbot! It can get all the chitchat over for you and only then give a notification when a real question is asked.

A question other than 'Can I ask you a quick question?' God I hate that. You mean two questions, since that was a question already. And why does it always have to be 'quick'? Does no one ever have a meaty question that will take effort to answer?

I know; I'm a crusty old fart. But boy howdy would I use that AI chatbot if it existed.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#108

Post by supermatt »

smeej wrote: post #45
supermatt wrote: post #17

I much prefer when people acknowledge my availability first. Otherwise, if i am busy or unavailable and they then end up answering their own question, i would be wasting more cognitive effort to answer it than i would than to respond to a "hello".

The whole point if async messaging is that you'll reply when you're available. It's built into the system itself. There's no reason to add delays on both sides so people can hope they finally overlap and can have a synchronous chat. If that's what you want, just ask for a time for it in the initial message.

> The whole point if async messaging is that you'll reply when you're available.

Yeah, exactly. So how does someone sending you ANY message make a difference? If you are getting distracted by a "hello" you are getting distracted by ANY message, so you may as well turn your notifications OFF and handle messaging asynchronously - its built into the system itself...

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#109

Post by smeej »

Chris2048 wrote: post #95
smeej wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be gathering this by everyone's responses to every single one of your comments, but you're using this tool fundamentally differently than everyone else and than it's meant to be used, and you're doing it in a way that inconveniences everyone who has to use it to interact with you. Since it's a communication tool, you'll get better results if you use it like it was designed and like everyone else does.

I gather by the responses that there are a lot of HNers that feel strongly a certain way, but I do not confuse HN, or the participants of a pile-on, with "everyone"; nor am I fond of promoting this reddit style group-think. I'm not asking for a poll, but reasoning (which is the explicitly stated purpose for this forum). If a thousand (apparently annoyed) HNers agreed on something but could not reason why, I wouldn't…

People are replying to you explaining why your reasons don't support your arguments, and explaining what the real reasons for using it differently are.

There's no opportunity for discourse, but it's apparently because your idea of "reason" is also different from everybody else's.

Re: Don't Just Say "Hello" in Chat

#110

Post by smeej »

supermatt wrote: post #108
smeej wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point if async messaging is that you'll reply when you're available. It's built into the system itself. There's no reason to add delays on both sides so people can hope they finally overlap and can have a synchronous chat. If that's what you want, just ask for a time for it in the initial message.

> The whole point if async messaging is that you'll reply when you're available. Yeah, exactly. So how does someone sending you ANY message make a difference? If you are getting distracted by a "hello" you are getting distracted by ANY message, so you may as well turn your notifications OFF and handle messaging asynchronously - its built into the system itself...

My notifications are always off. When I do have time to respond, if someone has sent me an actual question, I can just send them an answer. If all they've said is "Hello," now I have to send them a message asking what they want, which they may or may not receive and respond to while I'm still available to actually answer their question.

What's more likely is that they won't receive the message right away, and when they finally do get it and respond, I probably won't be staring at messages anymore, so there will probably be another delay, only to FINALLY reach the point we could have been at initially if the other person had just started with asking the question.

That's the delay on both sides that is needlessly introduced by sending a message with no value.

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