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No Hello: A New Wave

sbmueller.github.io

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Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#21

Post by lupire »

mkl95 wrote: post #17

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.

You can do better. "hello, are you available?" creates false urgency and stress.

Use "Hello, not urgent, please ping me when your are a available for a live chat. I have a complicated question about $topic."

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#22

Post by gyulai »

rgoulter wrote: post #19
gyulai wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

...this is some rando posting something on github. Advice that's binding on the recipient is not advice, it's a command. And I don't take commands from randos on github.

I also don't understand how this thread got so ad-hominem so quickly, with you acting like you know me well enough to put me in a category of people "who often ask for help", and then imply that those people are less entitled to autonomous choices on how to conduct themselves.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#23

Post by flagsrule »

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.…

I think there is an emotional cost in receiving a work-related message that only says "hello".

My data point: it enrages everyone I know. And they lose respect for the person who said "hello" and wasted their time.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#24

Post by bambataa »

I’ve seen colleagues share this or link to it in their Slack status. It feels a bit… odd to me.

Yeah it’s maybe a bit annoying when people do this, but does it really need a whole campaign website? Not everyone is going to communicate in exactly the way you like.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#25

Post by mkl95 »

lupire wrote: post #21
mkl95 wrote: post #17

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.

You can do better. "hello, are you available?" creates false urgency and stress. Use "Hello, not urgent, please ping me when your are a available for a live chat. I have a complicated question about $topic."

Thanks, I will be applying that.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#26

Post by nthj »

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 don't know your culture or your boss, but I have worked with people who could not code their way out of a paper bag, and round-robbined there way through DMs to "pair" to complete their assigned work. These people were highly paid and highly damaging to productivity and morale. I suspect I'm not alone, and I'll freely admit I have a large amount of bias in how I perceive your arguments due to that.

I will also say that your mentioned group chats should probably be a team channel, and the responsibility then becomes the Team Manager if the team members don't step up on their own. "#team-channel: @BobTeamManager are you able to help here?" would get a specific team member assigned.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#27

Post by gardenhedge »

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…

Pro tip - continue the casual conversation after the initial question. For a few reasons:

* If you do the social chat and then ask the question it really feels like you're buttering the person up and not being genuine.

* If you do the casual chat after, it allows the person responding more freedom of when to reply. E.g. they know the important work stuff is out of the way and now it can be a slower casual chat.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#28

Post by rgoulter »

gyulai wrote: post #22
rgoulter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

...this is some rando posting something on github. Advice that's binding on the recipient is not advice, it's a command. And I don't take commands from randos on github. I also don't understand how this thread got so ad-hominem so quickly, with you acting like you know me well enough to put me in a category of people "who often ask for help", and then imply that those people are less entitled to autonomous choices on…

> this is some rando posting something on github

Sure, but it's a post which strongly resonates with many people.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#29

Post by gardenhedge »

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…

You're wasting so much time and annoying people by doing that. This whole nohello thing was made exactly for people like you.

Re: No Hello: A New Wave

#30

Post by gardenhedge »

My coworkers have it down to a tee (the wrong way that is):

Co-worker: hello

Me: Hi, what's up?

Co-worker: got 5 mins?

Me: Sure

Co-worker: rings me to ask a question that could have been a single chat message

In isolation, this would be fine but this can happen multiple times a day.

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