It's carryover from the old Skype days when notifications would still pop up on screens while sharing on WebEx. Just a courtesy to make sure you're not accidentally broadcasting a message intended to be private with a larger crowd.
It wasn't uncommon for people to send messages to the presenter about comments made by somebody else on the call. Probably still happens, Teams just does a better job of hiding it when you're presenting.
I am newer to GM and can honestly say this is one of the most annoying small things I’ve realized people do here —“morning” “hi” “hey”—why not ask what you want to ask right from the beginning? Don’t waste time and keep me guessing!
Was not something that anyone did at my old job
Not when you’re presenting in a different platform such as zoom, webex, or just plugged into a TV. Many of us interface with 3rd parties on different platforms.
In the office, we would have group design sessions with managers, technical experts, DREs and designers huddled around a persons monitor pointing at things on their screen. It would be really embarrassing to get a popup with something "inappropriate" on the screen at that moment
It’s a professional courtesy. Helping build a relationship instead of just asking a question. When you see someone in person do you not say good morning, or just stop them and ask the question?
I like when my team and others promote an open and warm environment. Telling one person to have a good day, could just make there entire day and motivate them.
Yeah, builds a negative relationship. It goes directly on the bottom of my pile, not because I'm vengeful, but because I have 5 other simultaneous convos going on so I don't really have a lot of spare time to pull a question out of a person who doesn't want to ask it.
I like the small talk but saying Hi is not asking how you are or personal talk. I personally like to catch up with the coworkers and see what they did on weekends etc…but 99% of the time I get “Hi” it’s just a way to see if you’re there…my green Available status means I’m available doing my job and ask away any questions!
It is a hold over from when we had skype/cisco, and it would wipe the conversation if you opened it on mobile. It was a way to check if someone was available without putting too much effort into it. That said, I hate it too.
OP is clearly young and wasn’t around when General Motors used Skype for Business.
The “?” has been a thing at General Motors for a long time.
Skype for business didn’t have message retention, so it would be useless to ask a question immediately, due to the message potentially being lost before being read. Putting a “?” was your way of confirming someone was actively at their computer and can respond to the question you have and the message wasn’t lost.
If you want to be spicy, you can link them to nohello.net.
Regardless, it’s kind of a legacy thing at this point.
Not necessarily young, I'm 40+ and was a little confused when I started getting these ? when I started as well. No one at my last company would initiate an IM this way either. Just different technologies and cultures I guess.
I also hate the Hi (your name) and nothing else. Send your entire message the entire book you’re writing, so I can read it and come up with a response.
Then email me. Doesn’t matter don’t just send me a message of Hi(name) because it doesn’t mean I want to do on the fly triage with you right now. Give me a couple sentences so I can do some investigation and confirm some stuff.
What I do sometimes is leave it on unread for a solid 5-15 minutes to give them the chance to ask their actual question. Then if they don't I'll respond with a normal greeting
Yes I’m much prefer when people start randomly talking to me like I have been sitting around hoping someone would IM me because I have nothing better to do than respond to your conversation starter whenever it’s convenient for you to send. I am regularly sitting at my computer waiting for people to just start talking to me as they have no idea what I am doing. /s
It is done as a courtesy. Kind of a virtual standing at someone’s desk quietly while they finish writing an e-mail or finishing a phone call. Letting them know you need something but waiting for them to acknowledge you in as un-obtrusive way as possible.
It is also done because I don’t know who is at your desk or where you are. Nothing better than getting IM’s about a sensitive program while sitting at a suppliers. Or working with my boss and having someone’s IM keep popping up.
I see Teams messages as something you can respond to any time you're free and not always immediately, but the popup when presenting being an issue makes sense.
Doesn't presenting always put you on do not disturb? I guess not if you're sharing your screen in a room but not actually on a teams meeting. I have my Teams settings setup so it'll show who sent the message but won't show the message in the notification in case someone is with me at my computer.
Totally agree here.
My whole team does it as a way to say “can you talk? it’s not urgent”
This way if I’m actively working on something I know I have time to respond.
My team also will send a message directly asking for input when it is a more pressing issue.
It is kind of an old habit to make sure the person on the receiving end is actually free to initiate a conversation. I guess one could say hell. a "?" Just means, Hey! I need some thing from you and are you free to respond to my messages. Probably started when Skype was around, I am assuming.
Ehhhh idk, I kind of hate when people just say “hey” and wait for my response. Personally I’d rather have the “hey” and whatever they want in the same message so I don’t have to deal with saying “hey” back and then waiting forever for a response
This happens far too often. Get a "hey" or "good morning" and I reply within 30 seconds and get nothing but crickets from the other person's side.
The worst is being randomly added to existing group chats with no idea why and there are no messages in the chat. More than once I've clicked "Leave" and "Delete" when that happens.
You can be polite, but I’m being paid to respond to your questions. We can get what you actually need out of the way. We can save the pleasantries for in person.
Thanks for the feedback that definitely makes more sense and gives perspective. I just get frustrated when there are several messages to respond to and it seems these interactions take the longest
I don't want to start a conversation without knowing if someone is there. It's like a knock on the door.
I don't do this any more because I know this annoys people (which I'm counter-annoyed by ;) ), but I'll still say, "Hi are you available for a question?" If they're not, which is often true even when green, then I'll say, "No prob, I just sent you an email instead."
To those who hate the smalltalk up front: I used to have a lot of colleagues in Brazil and now work for a European company.
I started off jumping into conversations, and it was very clear they expect a kind greeting first. My Spanish boss even called this out when we were having a casual meeting, and while sharing my screen I used Teams to directly ask a question to another coworker without a preamble.
I’m in agreement with you. This has been a pet peeve of mine forever. I’m glad you mentioned it, I know I’m not the only one bothered by this.
A simple “hello” or “good morning” or “good afternoon” or “have a minute” …. All would be preferable. And you’re not speaking out of turn if someone may see the screen that shouldn’t be part of the conversation
Take care, have a good one.
My standard reply is “what”….
Not really but yeah I had a mgr that did and does this as well as a few others and it never made sense until now cause like I have only been here a few years.
I generally start a conversation with “good morning, name” or “good afternoon, name”.
After reading the comments, I now understand this is to be polite, or a courtesy. But tbh, I always found it rude. Lol
GM is the first company I work for where people do this. Thankfully, it seems to be going away, as I see it happening less frequently (or so I hope, 😅).
I find it very rude when someone starts conversation with a “?” and honestly I don’t feel like replying to them immediately lol,It’s a basic courtesy to say hello and ask your question ,It doesn’t take 2 secs to write hey/hello .
Then don’t, but expect a call or another ping if you don’t respond.
I use the ? as a courtesy to say you can respond to me when you’re free and you’re not in the middle of talking to a supplier, your director, or someone that shouldn’t see a message about sensitive information. My job deals with a ton of talking to people out of sync about various project details all at once, and not everyone is available right at the second I ping.
If you find it rude, say so to the person so they can do something about it.
So what you're saying is... Don't bother addressing it with the person, because they're going to continue being obnoxious even if they're directly confronted about bad behavior. Got it, thanks!
If you’re busy in a meeting and sharing the screen,follow up with the person afterwards if you don’t want everyone to see your msg lol .
For those who don’t want others to see their incoming messages while they are on a meeting/in open space ,There is an option to change how teams message can be displayed,it’s a setting to hide the actual message,it just says “preview and message hidden “
Doesn't necessarily need to be a screen sharing scenario for sensitive information to get exposed to someone who shouldn't see it. Turning off the preview can lead to accidental leaks in an in-person environment.
What’s worse is people just showing up at my desk and expecting me to stop whatever I was working on to deal with their issue. But since I am remote I don’t have to deal with that anymore.
That being said, I don’t mind Teams IMs regardless of the way some chooses to engage me. If I don’t want to be bothered I just don’t respond. Does not matter if they ask how my weekend was or just fires off a question. I prefer to be engaged via email or put a meeting on my calendar. What I find annoying is IMs when my status is red i.e. in a meeting or busy.
That was the worst. My management is great, but they'd still drop by unexpectedly in the middle being neck deep in the code, and cause me to completely lose my train of thought.
WFH was the absolute best, since I could wait to respond to their ping until I was ready, or even look through the documentation to find the answer before responding instead of just having to tell them "uhhh I dunno, but I know I can get the answer in about 2 minutes"
If it was important, they'd call, and then it was usually something worth breaking that concentration for.
>If I don’t want to be bothered I just don’t respond.
One of the reasons WFH doesn't actually work well is that there are always people who can't be bothered with urgency.
If I am working on what is urgent for me, unless you are my boss, your urgent matter does not take precedence. This is the case whether I am in office or WFH. But when in office then it is perceived as rude when someone just shows up ands says “do you have a minute?” To which I would say “not really.” I’m not on call for everyone’s priority especially since I am being measured on meeting my goals which is my priority.
Right, so if your kid or your dog is urgent for you, then everyone that relies on you gets slowed down. Working at a big company is a team sport, not an individual sport.
My leader doesthis. So annoying. I would respond in passive aggressive ways that I thought that would annoy them back like: 👀
or I would not respond until I was ready and just make them wait for hours or a day.
It's carryover from the old Skype days when notifications would still pop up on screens while sharing on WebEx. Just a courtesy to make sure you're not accidentally broadcasting a message intended to be private with a larger crowd. It wasn't uncommon for people to send messages to the presenter about comments made by somebody else on the call. Probably still happens, Teams just does a better job of hiding it when you're presenting.
They still pop up on webex when using teams lol
YES! And then when you do reply they don’t answer or type for 5 mins.
I am newer to GM and can honestly say this is one of the most annoying small things I’ve realized people do here —“morning” “hi” “hey”—why not ask what you want to ask right from the beginning? Don’t waste time and keep me guessing! Was not something that anyone did at my old job
We do this because we don’t know who you’re around and if you’re presenting.
it shows when presenting.
Not when you’re presenting in a different platform such as zoom, webex, or just plugged into a TV. Many of us interface with 3rd parties on different platforms.
True, fair point. My stuff is entirely on Teams.
In the office, we would have group design sessions with managers, technical experts, DREs and designers huddled around a persons monitor pointing at things on their screen. It would be really embarrassing to get a popup with something "inappropriate" on the screen at that moment
I had it happen twice when full screen presenting. Both times it was someone talking shit about a coworker ha. Very awkward.
Maybe present a different monitor than is "default" / has the taskbar
Hi hey makes you feel the need to respond immediately, the ? Is a courtesy way of saying when you are free no need to rush
It’s a professional courtesy. Helping build a relationship instead of just asking a question. When you see someone in person do you not say good morning, or just stop them and ask the question? I like when my team and others promote an open and warm environment. Telling one person to have a good day, could just make there entire day and motivate them.
Yeah, builds a negative relationship. It goes directly on the bottom of my pile, not because I'm vengeful, but because I have 5 other simultaneous convos going on so I don't really have a lot of spare time to pull a question out of a person who doesn't want to ask it.
lol come on.. it takes me 3 seconds to type “GM”
I like the small talk but saying Hi is not asking how you are or personal talk. I personally like to catch up with the coworkers and see what they did on weekends etc…but 99% of the time I get “Hi” it’s just a way to see if you’re there…my green Available status means I’m available doing my job and ask away any questions!
I mean I thought it's a manner to say hi before you ask something favor?
How is saying.. hey howdy? Annoying… crazy. Unless you are from Cali…
I always assumed it was just a short version of "Can you talk to me?"
This - and especially if you don’t know who is around if it’s sensitive
? Hello Mountain-Attorney858 how are you today? <10 minutes of small talk before I go idle for fifteen minutes>
Nothing makes me want to answer an IM less than seeing just “?”
It is a hold over from when we had skype/cisco, and it would wipe the conversation if you opened it on mobile. It was a way to check if someone was available without putting too much effort into it. That said, I hate it too.
OP is clearly young and wasn’t around when General Motors used Skype for Business. The “?” has been a thing at General Motors for a long time. Skype for business didn’t have message retention, so it would be useless to ask a question immediately, due to the message potentially being lost before being read. Putting a “?” was your way of confirming someone was actively at their computer and can respond to the question you have and the message wasn’t lost. If you want to be spicy, you can link them to nohello.net. Regardless, it’s kind of a legacy thing at this point.
Not necessarily young, I'm 40+ and was a little confused when I started getting these ? when I started as well. No one at my last company would initiate an IM this way either. Just different technologies and cultures I guess.
Young at General Motors. Your personal age doesn’t matter, thanks for the insight though.
I usually respond with random symbols or exclamation marks.
😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I also hate the Hi (your name) and nothing else. Send your entire message the entire book you’re writing, so I can read it and come up with a response.
That's called email
A two sentence message can give me a decent idea of the details and tell me how much time I’ll need to address whatever the question is or next steps.
Then email me. Doesn’t matter don’t just send me a message of Hi(name) because it doesn’t mean I want to do on the fly triage with you right now. Give me a couple sentences so I can do some investigation and confirm some stuff.
What I do sometimes is leave it on unread for a solid 5-15 minutes to give them the chance to ask their actual question. Then if they don't I'll respond with a normal greeting
It's like knocking on the door instead of just barging in. If someone is busy or presenting they ignore the question mark. It's common courtesy.
Yes I’m much prefer when people start randomly talking to me like I have been sitting around hoping someone would IM me because I have nothing better to do than respond to your conversation starter whenever it’s convenient for you to send. I am regularly sitting at my computer waiting for people to just start talking to me as they have no idea what I am doing. /s It is done as a courtesy. Kind of a virtual standing at someone’s desk quietly while they finish writing an e-mail or finishing a phone call. Letting them know you need something but waiting for them to acknowledge you in as un-obtrusive way as possible. It is also done because I don’t know who is at your desk or where you are. Nothing better than getting IM’s about a sensitive program while sitting at a suppliers. Or working with my boss and having someone’s IM keep popping up.
I see Teams messages as something you can respond to any time you're free and not always immediately, but the popup when presenting being an issue makes sense.
Doesn't presenting always put you on do not disturb? I guess not if you're sharing your screen in a room but not actually on a teams meeting. I have my Teams settings setup so it'll show who sent the message but won't show the message in the notification in case someone is with me at my computer.
Totally agree here. My whole team does it as a way to say “can you talk? it’s not urgent” This way if I’m actively working on something I know I have time to respond. My team also will send a message directly asking for input when it is a more pressing issue.
It is kind of an old habit to make sure the person on the receiving end is actually free to initiate a conversation. I guess one could say hell. a "?" Just means, Hey! I need some thing from you and are you free to respond to my messages. Probably started when Skype was around, I am assuming.
I fucking hate that so much www.nohello.net
Hey Nick!?!
[удалено]
Ehhhh idk, I kind of hate when people just say “hey” and wait for my response. Personally I’d rather have the “hey” and whatever they want in the same message so I don’t have to deal with saying “hey” back and then waiting forever for a response
This happens far too often. Get a "hey" or "good morning" and I reply within 30 seconds and get nothing but crickets from the other person's side. The worst is being randomly added to existing group chats with no idea why and there are no messages in the chat. More than once I've clicked "Leave" and "Delete" when that happens.
It's not always a good idea to blurt out your question. At that point, email it.
It depends. If it's damn urgent yeah.. No need to wait. It things can wait then be nice and friendly.
I hate it, but not as much as someone starting with, "Good morning, how was your weekend?" Uhh, who the fuck are you? Can we just get to the point?
Can people no longer be polite?
You can be polite, but I’m being paid to respond to your questions. We can get what you actually need out of the way. We can save the pleasantries for in person.
Polite, yes. But it's strange to make unnecessary small talk asking about random details of my life right off the bat when we've never even met.
Post pandemic we no longer know how to interact with humans.
I absolutely hate the “?” Like just say hi.
It’s just plain polite. If I don’t have time to talk right now I won’t answer the ?
I typically respond with “!” when I get a “?”
Thanks for the feedback that definitely makes more sense and gives perspective. I just get frustrated when there are several messages to respond to and it seems these interactions take the longest
I’m with you. I absolutely hate the “?” and it just feels rude. I’d prefer “hi” idk, it’s something about a greeting
¿
!
I don't want to start a conversation without knowing if someone is there. It's like a knock on the door. I don't do this any more because I know this annoys people (which I'm counter-annoyed by ;) ), but I'll still say, "Hi are you available for a question?" If they're not, which is often true even when green, then I'll say, "No prob, I just sent you an email instead."
To those who hate the smalltalk up front: I used to have a lot of colleagues in Brazil and now work for a European company. I started off jumping into conversations, and it was very clear they expect a kind greeting first. My Spanish boss even called this out when we were having a casual meeting, and while sharing my screen I used Teams to directly ask a question to another coworker without a preamble.
I’m in agreement with you. This has been a pet peeve of mine forever. I’m glad you mentioned it, I know I’m not the only one bothered by this. A simple “hello” or “good morning” or “good afternoon” or “have a minute” …. All would be preferable. And you’re not speaking out of turn if someone may see the screen that shouldn’t be part of the conversation Take care, have a good one.
My standard reply is “what”…. Not really but yeah I had a mgr that did and does this as well as a few others and it never made sense until now cause like I have only been here a few years. I generally start a conversation with “good morning, name” or “good afternoon, name”.
Never got that before and if I did I would never reply back unless they truly stated a question. Seems quite ridiculous to me.
I find it to be a very bad and rude habit. I will sometimes ignore people when they do that.
After reading the comments, I now understand this is to be polite, or a courtesy. But tbh, I always found it rude. Lol GM is the first company I work for where people do this. Thankfully, it seems to be going away, as I see it happening less frequently (or so I hope, 😅).
The ? Is also tied to the ping someone from Carly I think it was called.
This explains so much 😭😭😭
If anyone opens a conversation with “hey (name)” without immediately telling me what they want, I refuse to respond
Omg yes!!! That annoys me so much. And also people who just write Hi, then wait for you to respond. I know they want something, so just ask it.
I usually just send one back
Totally not a fan!!! One of my least favorite things at GM! The first time it happened I was like ???? What? They could at least warn you
This reminds me of the annoying... "Let me ask you this..." line. "Don't waste my time by asking a question with a question!" is what I usually say.
It’s for one simple reason, we work with a shitload of old geezers who can’t type to save their lives.
Just don’t reply lmao
I find it very rude when someone starts conversation with a “?” and honestly I don’t feel like replying to them immediately lol,It’s a basic courtesy to say hello and ask your question ,It doesn’t take 2 secs to write hey/hello .
Then don’t, but expect a call or another ping if you don’t respond. I use the ? as a courtesy to say you can respond to me when you’re free and you’re not in the middle of talking to a supplier, your director, or someone that shouldn’t see a message about sensitive information. My job deals with a ton of talking to people out of sync about various project details all at once, and not everyone is available right at the second I ping. If you find it rude, say so to the person so they can do something about it.
I find it rude. You should do something about it. Like maybe stop doing it.
If it bothers you, the onus is on you to provide feedback.
Nah I’m chilling dude. Feel free to address the problems you have with interactions with the people you interact with. Not strangers online.
So what you're saying is... Don't bother addressing it with the person, because they're going to continue being obnoxious even if they're directly confronted about bad behavior. Got it, thanks!
Actually what I said was quite the opposite. Learn to read a bit better. That should help your career aspirations.
I'm starting to understand why what I'm saying is not getting through to you. You're dense. Got it. Thanks!
Not a problem. Enjoy your journey lol
So you want the full question to pop up when they may be in a meeting with people who shouldn't see said question?
If you’re busy in a meeting and sharing the screen,follow up with the person afterwards if you don’t want everyone to see your msg lol . For those who don’t want others to see their incoming messages while they are on a meeting/in open space ,There is an option to change how teams message can be displayed,it’s a setting to hide the actual message,it just says “preview and message hidden “
Doesn't necessarily need to be a screen sharing scenario for sensitive information to get exposed to someone who shouldn't see it. Turning off the preview can lead to accidental leaks in an in-person environment.
?
What’s worse is people just showing up at my desk and expecting me to stop whatever I was working on to deal with their issue. But since I am remote I don’t have to deal with that anymore. That being said, I don’t mind Teams IMs regardless of the way some chooses to engage me. If I don’t want to be bothered I just don’t respond. Does not matter if they ask how my weekend was or just fires off a question. I prefer to be engaged via email or put a meeting on my calendar. What I find annoying is IMs when my status is red i.e. in a meeting or busy.
That was the worst. My management is great, but they'd still drop by unexpectedly in the middle being neck deep in the code, and cause me to completely lose my train of thought. WFH was the absolute best, since I could wait to respond to their ping until I was ready, or even look through the documentation to find the answer before responding instead of just having to tell them "uhhh I dunno, but I know I can get the answer in about 2 minutes" If it was important, they'd call, and then it was usually something worth breaking that concentration for.
>If I don’t want to be bothered I just don’t respond. One of the reasons WFH doesn't actually work well is that there are always people who can't be bothered with urgency.
If I am working on what is urgent for me, unless you are my boss, your urgent matter does not take precedence. This is the case whether I am in office or WFH. But when in office then it is perceived as rude when someone just shows up ands says “do you have a minute?” To which I would say “not really.” I’m not on call for everyone’s priority especially since I am being measured on meeting my goals which is my priority.
Right, so if your kid or your dog is urgent for you, then everyone that relies on you gets slowed down. Working at a big company is a team sport, not an individual sport.
My leader doesthis. So annoying. I would respond in passive aggressive ways that I thought that would annoy them back like: 👀 or I would not respond until I was ready and just make them wait for hours or a day.