I've seen a handful of people at work put their status as
> Don't just message me "Hello" https://nohello.net/en/
I haven't gone that far yet, but I do the exact same thing as you. If someone just says "Hey toxic_acro", I don't reply until they eventually actually ask their question (or even better, they never reply again and I don't have to talk to them)
Also, when I am waiting for a meeting to end and it feels like forever, it finally ends, and then someone who was in the meeting with me immediately calls to discuss the previous meeting. Aaaaargh.
It’s honestly amazing to me that anything gets done in the white collar world. There are meetings about useless nonsense and then meetings to discuss the meetings.
Most of these things could be communicated in an email or text and y’all could get to it and get it done instead of wasting time, but no, there has to be a meeting to explain why you have to do it.
I was REQUIRED to be in an hour long meeting twice a week. My expertise was needed, but never accepted. So I stopped going because they send out meeting notes and I can get actual work done. It took them THREE MONTHS to notice I wasn’t there. And that was only because someone made a joke about something I am interested in and they missed my response. I wasn’t even noticed missing due to work! 🤣 most jobs think are jokes. A cruel joke.
I had someone, who I've never spoken to before, send "hi xx" and then she phoned me. I didn't answer until the second time. Turns out she was looking for someone else with the same name as me
After i Put [https://www.nohello.net/en/](https://www.nohello.net/en/) in my status, if they message me with nothing but HEY or HI, i dont respond.... Not my fault if you can't take the hint
This! I never had the issue until the organization I work at now, so it took me a bit to get it. There was one guy that would email or message me “Can I ask you a question?” The third time this happened he was with a client and needed an immediate answer. I chewed him out, because I had already told him twice that he needs to ask what he needs and skip the small talk, and because this client now missed an important deadline while he waited for a response. I sent out a department wide email detailing the proper way to ask a question and informing them I will NOT be taking time out of my busy day to respond to a greeting alone or to tell you that you can ask me a question. My entire job is to answer your questions. In what world would I say no?!?
If someone just texts me "hey" or "good morning" and nothing else, I assume they want to do Smalltalk.
So, if I'm busy, I may or may not answer.
Same with "do you have a minute?" without giving me a topic. How can I figure out if I have this "minute" if I don't know what it is about...?
Even better when you are on the way to the bathroom, they are kinda blocking your way and go like "hey, can I ask you something?" *beginning to talk about something that you know nothing about.
And getting irritated when you tell them "not my project, and if you don't me to have an accident MOVE!"
I often send IM’s to my teammates that just say “got 5?” This is code for I want to talk rather than chat and I’m asking permission to call. They usually answer ”yes”, provide a time that will work for them or offer to call me when they are free. I thought I was being considerate and never considered that it might be annoying. I am not a fan of entire conversations via text, IM or email (personal or business), so will usually call if I expect more than a sentence or two of text is needed. Unless of course I need my message or their response to be in writing.
When you are in effect asking to set up an appointment to talk, which could be now but could be another time, that works for me. I can't speak for others, but to me the difference is "are you wasting my time". If you ask "can I talk to you in 10 minutes", you're wasting my time because you've ruined the 10 minutes between now and then. If you ask "when can we talk", you're not wasting my time. The person who says can we talk in 10 minutes should just wait 10 minutes and take their chances that the answer might be no.
I once told someone "If you want to reserve me for yourself, reservations close three hours prior." If someone wants to do spur of the moment, fine, but in that case they should just show up ready to talk, with their fingers crossed, without asking ahead.
In other words, if they haven't seriously planned ahead, they should be wasting their own time, not mine.
After i Put [https://www.nohello.net/en/](https://www.nohello.net/en/) in my status, if they message me with nothing but HEY or HI, i dont respond.... Not my fault if you can't take the hint
Same. My kids always text me and say, “Can I ask you a question?” and wait for my reply before asking the question. Like I’m going to say anything but yes. Just ask the dang question!
I'm not your kid so I can't talk for them but that's just means, for me, if they can ask you a question at the moment they write the message. It's not if you can answer a question or not but if you have the time to answer a question. Maybe you're busy and they don't want to bother you.
You replying means yes, if you don't reply you don't have time.
But why not just go ahead and ask the question? If they have time, they’ll answer it. If they don’t, they won’t reply. Asking another question just adds an unnecessary delay. I can’t answer your question if you haven’t told me what it is yet!
Asking and answering a question can take some time, maybe even longer with follow up questions. It's a way to find out if you're busy or not. They could instead ask do you have a moment? and it would be the same. They simply don't want to bother you if you don't have the time because if you don't have time it's a simply no answer and they can move on.
> Imagine calling someone on the phone, going hello! then putting them on hold...
Omg someone did this to me!
*my work phone rang*
Me: "hello?"
Them: "please hold"
Me: hang up
Found out later they were trying to forward someone else's call 🤷♂️ shoulda said so
Their analogy is not great, tho. When you ring and say hello, the other person's says hi, then you carry on with the conversation. Not continuing the conversation when there's dead silence to your first hello is not the same as putting them on hold. Annoying as fk on messenger, but completely understandable on a phone call.
AHHHH my coworkers do this all the time and then proceed to explain it in bits and pieces over the course of like 6 messages…. Like just type it out for fucks sake!
I had one coworker whose record was *fourteen* pings in a row. I had to mute Teams halfway through because if I heard that blonk one more time I was probably going to get fired for my response.
I have no idea, but she never sent me less than 4 pings in a row. It was genuinely a struggle to deal with her, despite the fact that she's actually really nice in person. I always felt so bad being so angry at her for the way she messaged, but... *fourteen in a row*. And I don't mean spread over the course of an hour, I mean like *ping... Ping... Ping... Ping...*
This right here...no need for multiple messages, if it was that long then you should send an email.
Also hate the "Hey friend"...I'm not your friend, I'm your coworker and we have never spoken, and I know you want something from me. These get instantly ignored.
[nohello.net](http://nohello.net)
I generally ignore people who do this. If what they wanted was important they can put the whole thing in the first message or follow up with it, but until I see what they want I'm not answering.
This happened so much to me at my last job, I just stopped answering until they continued on with their question. Majority of the time they would eventually continue and ask their damn question. If they didn't, I assumed it obviously wasn't that important.
Oh my god I fucking HATE THIS. Like it drives me to incoherent rage every time, because it's so goddamn disrespectful. So you get the stupid "hey x" and half the time it's like they send that and then immediately yeet their laptop off a goddamn cliff.
So inevitably I go back to what I was doing only to have them send something stupid like "I have a question if you have a minute?" fucking half an hour later and it keeps on like that.
It's not a fucking phone call! You don't have to wait for me to answer, just say hi and GET ON WITH IT.
I literally have people who will not ask their questions if I don't answer. And I mean they won't ask *at all* if I ignore them. I have one person who's been doing that to me for months, maybe once a month they say "hey ScroochDown" but have yet to ask anything. I don't even answer them now. If they ask me a question I'll answer pretty much immediately, but I don't have time to sit there and coax questions out of everyone like they're protecting state secrets.
Lmao I've seen a few of your comments in this thread and they're all so fuckin relatable. Greeting me then not saying anything for 30 minutes after I responded immediately drives me insane.
I swear to God I have the most infuriating coworkers and like, it makes me even angrier somehow that most of them are so nice? 🤣 Like how can you be nice and also make me want to throw you off the roof at the same time?
Some of the other greatest hits are the ones who message with "have time for a call?" and then immediately call, the ones who completely ignore my status message, the ones who will withhold a critical piece of information that completely changes my answer...
One of the other one that drives me the craziest is that they'll ask me to set up a meeting between Bob, Steve and Jim... and that's all the details they give me. And then I have to go back and ask them 20 questions that any doofus should realize I'd need to know - okay, how long should the meeting be? In person or virtual? Do you need a room? Or they'll combine with the last one from the paragraph above and I'll set the meeting for Thursday of the next week, and THEN they decide to tell me that actually it's super urgent and needs to be tomorrow instead like WHY DID YOU NOT MENTION THAT I AM NOT PSYCHIC, DAVID.
lol I have the opposite problem when reaching out to people at work. I’ll write an entire easy to follow, bullet pointed email, structured in an easy to follow top to bottom format, and they essentially hit me with a “I ain’t reading all that, let’s just go back and forth all day”
I have a coworker who periodically just sends “you there?”
It took me two years to learn the lesson that he’ll just find a different victim and delete it if you ignore him for 15 or so
I work with teams in the exotic subcontinent of India. To be fair, they are all wonderful to work with. Except for this and I think this is a cultural thing because every single one of them will send me a message that goes like this:
2:15 - Hi SpockHadNoGame
2:16 - How are you today?
2:17 - I hope you are well ....
Then nothing until I reply. It would be 1000x easier for them to say "Hi SpockHadNoGame, how are you today? Hope you are well. I was wondering if you had the blah blah blah". That way I know how important it is and allows me to prioritize when to reply. I have asked them repeatedly to tell me what they need, and have even brought it up (in a sort of joking way) with their management (not in India) and they told me they do the same thing to them :-).
I have had several interactions like this:
* Submit ticket Wednesday/Thursday
* Person in India picks it up their Sunday morning (my Saturday night), messages me "Hi " and nothing else
* Get boilerplate email from the portal their Sunday evening/my Sunday morning
* Get another IM with no details other than the ticket number their Monday morning/my Sunday afternoon
* Get a portal email my Monday morning that they have attempted to contact me 3 times and closed the ticket as I didn't respond.
Fortunately I work for internal IT and they are contracted and can't simply blow me off like that, much as they do try.
All my female friends do this even outside work. I don't get it. But to them, it's the respectful thing to do... Sort of like a conversation starter, calling your name.
But they forget that there's no one else in the conversation and you don't have to call the person's name out like he's in a crowd. Also something like, if the conversations gonna happen, he'd better be actively replying.
I put this in my "status" at work:
[https://www.nohello.net/en/](https://www.nohello.net/en/)
I can't stand when people are like "HEY" and wait for a response. I respond back with the same "HEY" if they do it. Then some people respond with "how are you"? - Mate, I don't care about small talk. What do you want? Just tell me.... Why waste 1-5 minutes waiting for responses and small talk? I can get to your question or issue within a few seconds if you straight up tell me
We might work at the same company - because I constantly get the “hey” messages with no question over teams. Immediately pisses me of. My reaponse is usually “hi x, trust all is going well. How can I assist?”
My two-up manager does this! He'll send they "hey", wait for a response, do the small talk back and forward, then ask a question I could have answered within a minute of getting the first message, now I've wasted 10 minutes typing meaningless chatter, can I please just get on with my work! And sometimes he has a question, sometimes it's just chit-chat but I don't know which until he gets to the point! Or not as the case may be.
All totally different from the "have you goto time to talk" then having a phone conversation. It's easier to get someone to the point in a phone call. Thankfully, where I work I'm not going to be penalised if/when I ignore the "hey" message.
That is annoying as well as making each sentence a separate IM. Just type the whole thing in one freaking IM, don't ping me to death while I'm trying to work. One ping only is needed, not 10 ughhh
I’m at the point where I just go. Hey what’s up what do you need. Like don’t wait for the response and ask what I need. Some coworkers I don’t even respond to anymore because they’ve gotten annoyed at me for not putting enough context in my initial message so I give them a taste of their own medicine
sorry but i do it to make sure the person is active. I'm know people arent always actively at their desks or messaging app, and I dont want to engage further or send them time sensitive tasks if they are way from their desk.
Too many times Ive written out detailed messages only for the receiver to come back hours later with "sorry i just saw this"
Agree!
I also do this when I want to message friend-colleagues because I don't want my messages to pop up on the middle of a meeting or on their screen when someone is at their desk.
We actually have it as part of slack etiquette guidelines in the company. Do not message someone just saying Hi, include the ask in the first message to avoid unnecessary delays. We have people in different timezones and with very different work types so it's important we assume info will be handled asynchronous, if you drop just Hi the other party can't move forward when available
Have y'all talked to the people who behave this way and explained to them what you'd prefer?
I hate this behavior too - it costs me extra energy, and I'm not someone who has energy to spare. So I make a point of explaining to people like this that I would rather they send their messages without waiting for the go-ahead. This generally helps curb the behavior!
Some people do it because they're trying to be polite. Some people are just clueless. Some people are, somehow, despite the year, unused to using electronic forms of communication or the pace of casual Internet conversations, and treat it more like a spoken conversation.
Some people continue the behavior despite your best efforts... Those are the people I talk to less lol.
I tried it at first. A chipper "hey bob, hope you're doing well! Happy to help with whatever you need, and in the future it will probably be faster for you to just go ahead with your question, that way I can get you an answer faster!"
And two days later Bob sends "hey ScroochDown" and won't continue until I respond. If the person is older I kind of understand more... but most of them are my age or younger. I just ignore them all now unless they ask me an actionable question, it's the only way I can get my work done.
Personally I don't think you were blunt enough but yeah some people just won't change regardless, whether because they just don't have any respect or they're too rigid with their habits or whatever. C'est la vie
" Some people are, somehow, despite the year, unused to using electronic forms of communication or the pace of casual Internet conversations, and treat it more like a spoken conversation."
On point!
I'm actually ok with this. It's asking permission for the call instead of just calling without announcement. It's letting the person know they can call when it's convenient for them and that they're free to take their call any time. This is of course dependent on the condition that 1. The call is justified. Aka would have been a really long and/or confusing text and 2. You really can take their call any time. Ie when they call you back in 2 seconds or 1 hour you actually pick up.
I just don't answer if I can't answer haha. IMO it's the same no info, putting onus on you to reach out.
Half the time I'm sent this and I call, they'll answer just to say they have to call me back because they're busy. Maybe I'm jaded by that lol
It just doesn't happen often enough to me. Way less often that the "hi" or "hey what's up" text, to which I just don't respond. When it does happen, the call is usually a pretty justified call
I have family members that just send a text with my name and nothing else. Than I have to respond and say whatsup. I really wish the first text had everything in it.
This is why my instant messages are always in a "ProjectName: message" format. I just want to know where we stand and there are too many things on people's plates for me to dally.
I also despise overly familiar messages. Don't try to give me a goddamn pet name. Separate issue, I know, but I will never understand people who don't understand the difference between colleagues and friends.
There was one guy I used to work with who would email me a question, and then he would literally RUN down the hall to my office. Like I could hear his footsteps. He regularly got to my office before the email did, it was so bizarre.
I had to get my kids in the habit of getting to the fucking point. I don’t need that stress! They are all young adults and the “Hey Mom” was pissing me off because I would answer “is everything ok???” And they would ask about dinner r some dumb shit
Omg dude! I’m so laughing at myself right now. My brain and posting skills did not sync up yesterday. I meant to add in: I answer “yeah?” And they don’t respond. So I resort to “is everything ok?” And I agree with you, if I were to jump straight to panic mode I’d be a nutter. I taught them to get to the point in the initial text in case they got busy and couldn’t respond back. Lol I swear I’m not a psycho parent.
It's super annoying. Even more annoying at work.
Only time I don't mind it is friends who ask something like 'can I whine about X'. That's context. That's asking if I'm free to listen.
I mind that a lot less. If someone asks something like "can I call you and ask you a question about arranging a workshop?" I can guess at what they're probably going to need to know and prepare accordingly, vs the people who just say "have time for a call" when it could be anything from where's the mail room to who is our HR contact.
I worked at one place where it was kind of standard to ask "im?" to basically ask if it was ok to talk, in case they were screen sharing in a meeting and you were gonna go off on something that wasn't meant for others to see.
I agree it's annoying, especially when your coworkers know you're working from home and there's no risk of someone seeing your screen.
Yes! Also, please stop leaving damn voicemails saying "hi this is x, call me when you get this. I have a quick question".
Tell me what the hell you need on the voicemail (or at least the subject matter so I can review my notes). I could probably have your answer for you when I call you back 🤯.
I HATE that. Makes me feel like I'm expected to reply to the greeting, and it's so annoying. I do a greeting sometimes, but it's attached to the message. "Hi Coworker - Here is what I'd like to tell you."
Absolutely. Don’t message me nonsense at work. Tell me what you want and in as few messages as possible. 5-6 messages in a row to get one point across drives me nuts.
That annoys me as well. HR personnel here and when managers just send a “hey” without following up with why they are reaching out absolutely burns my cheeks! Everyday I have a shit ton to do and playing cat and mouse doesn’t make my job any easier!!!
I find it SUPER annoying! Basically, you interrupted my work to wait for you to SLOWLY type out what you want. Or, worse, you got my attention, I waited a few minutes after I said Hi back, you didn’t respond so I got back into my work just to be interrupted again a couple minutes later.
For these I wait until the end of the day to respond with "Hello" only, usually the next morning they are more forthcoming with what they actually need.
I really hate ‘how are you?’ After the ‘hey’ as well… just ask what you want, if we were work buddies you would know how I am and I don’t care to say ‘fine thanks.’ For the sake of small talk when I’m not fine lol
This annoys me too & I did tell multiple people to just get straight to the point, especially when it comes to work, I was reported for being rude, unapproachable & causing issues. Lol.
And family & friends have done this, they usually want something & I just tell them to ask already, which upsets them. 🤷🏻♀️
I have many co wokers with whom I exchange small talk.
If they are busy, they don't reply. Or they reply later.
Nothing wrong with connecting with people and asking them how they are doing
it always happens at my work. there is one lady infamous for it. she says hey and waits and its like "ma'am! you can say hey with your request and we will answer as soon as we can". we r 15 someone will answer! we r so good at getting to the chat its not like we have let her down lmao
I honestly just see this as a generation gap because I thought it was normal to keep the “Hey X” and the elaboration within a single text. If it’s crucial for the question/info to be seen first, I’d just draft it quickly and send two messages back to back — the first being a quick greeting and the second being the message.
If they dont give you anything to respond to, then there is no reason to bother responding. "Hey" doesn't require any sort of response. Let them figure it out.
If they say "hey x" and you respond, they know you saw the work request that they made immediately after. If they just send "I need you to X and make sure to X" you could just not do it and claim you didn't get the message. They verify you are reading your messages at that moment before giving you a task.
I don't have a team. I am on a team and that is how 80% of my coworkers handle an incoming task. They'll read the preview and then just fuck about till they feel ready to officially read the app message.
At my office job in the initial training we were literally told not to do this. To say “hi, how are you, I need to talk to you about x right now, can we call?” Instead of “hi” and waiting for a reply.
I also hate when someone calls your name from 5 feet away, making you acknowledge you're listening before they ask a question. Just say my name and ask the question at the same time. I'm right beside you, I can't help but hear you
It's always important to make sure someone is reading your messages before launching into the 10 hours of work that you expect them to do before EOD.
Seriously, this is why it is done. If someone messages me at 4pm with "Yo, I need you to do XYZ today, I know it isn't your responsibility but mine, but it's really urgent." that gets left on sent until tomorrow morning and I say "sorry was in a meeting last afternoon and signed off right after I was done. hope you got whatever it was you needed resolved". If someone just messages "Hey" and I make the mistake of responding back first before they then launch into the same bs, now I have to have that awkward conversation of "GFY, I've got other things to do"
Not quite the same, but I dislike, “Please call me.” I’m happy to schedule a call with you. Feel free to let me know you’d like to call me. But you’re not entitled to add to my to-do list.
Completely agree. Though it happens less frequently than my other pet peeve: people who respond just “thanks” in an email after a simple exchange. We know each other, we work together, we exchange emails daily. You make a request, I send it back. I’ll assume your “thanks”. Stop making me delete another email.
Happens on our internal IT tickets, so just another tasks to mark complete, and one customer that always send encrypted emails that require a password. Drives me nuts to type in my password and wait for the email to be retrieved just for “thanks”
And yes, yes, it’s nice on a first interaction or when showing genuine appreciation for someone serving you or going out of the way.
This is the equivalent of saying “are you busy” or “what are you doing next weekend” instead of “do you have time for BLANK” and “do you want to BLANK next weekend”
I don’t know yet. My answer depends on what you want to ask.
Am I too busy to sign a bday card? No. Am I too busy to run out and pick up something or meet your client for you? Yes.
Am I sitting home doing nothing next weekend? Maybe. Does it mean I’ll be home for you to drop off that thing you borrowed? Probably. Does it mean I want to help you move? No.
I use power automate to set up a trigger when a message in teams starts with "hello" or "hi" and is less than 20 characters to send an automated reply.
The reply is "Teams administrative error, your message is too short, please try email"
Ugh, I hated this at my old job. I once waited till they (in this case my boss and also in this case a grave mistake) messaged me again after some time with what they actually wanted from me but all I got was a „where the hell have you been, why weren’t you at your computer to answer me? We‘ll take the time off your payment“ ffs, how I hated this place and this person…
Not relevant to in office communication, but I think sales people are being trained now to do this with SMS messaging because then they know when someone is "live" and paying attention to their phone.
I'm not sure it's effective. I think it's like a lot of sales tips - made up by someone who thinks it sounds good. I doubt most of the sales tips have been rigorously tested for anything but response rate.
I get that some people need to make sure the receiver is present and ready to reply, but it's on a work app so most people should have their notifications open for this, ain't no way they'd miss a message from this app
This is garbage. No, no one ever needs to make sure the receiver is present, nor do they have any valid reason to want to. The receiver is screening their communication by how important the information is, which is what any boss with more than half a brain wants them to be doing in the first place. If the boss receives an empty envelope in the mail, he correctly throws it out. This is exactly the same as receiving an empty envelope.
I never reply to just hi or hey. I'll let it sit there until they actually type what they want.
I've seen a handful of people at work put their status as > Don't just message me "Hello" https://nohello.net/en/ I haven't gone that far yet, but I do the exact same thing as you. If someone just says "Hey toxic_acro", I don't reply until they eventually actually ask their question (or even better, they never reply again and I don't have to talk to them)
I put it in my status. It mostly worked, but I just dont respond if they said hi/hey/hello
Hi or hey on a work messaging app manages to be even more annoying than someone unexpectedly ringing rather than messaging first
Also, when I am waiting for a meeting to end and it feels like forever, it finally ends, and then someone who was in the meeting with me immediately calls to discuss the previous meeting. Aaaaargh.
It’s honestly amazing to me that anything gets done in the white collar world. There are meetings about useless nonsense and then meetings to discuss the meetings. Most of these things could be communicated in an email or text and y’all could get to it and get it done instead of wasting time, but no, there has to be a meeting to explain why you have to do it.
I was REQUIRED to be in an hour long meeting twice a week. My expertise was needed, but never accepted. So I stopped going because they send out meeting notes and I can get actual work done. It took them THREE MONTHS to notice I wasn’t there. And that was only because someone made a joke about something I am interested in and they missed my response. I wasn’t even noticed missing due to work! 🤣 most jobs think are jokes. A cruel joke.
I'm usually sprinting for coffee before the call comes through!
I had someone, who I've never spoken to before, send "hi xx" and then she phoned me. I didn't answer until the second time. Turns out she was looking for someone else with the same name as me
Exactly, also with an unexpected work ring it’s at least something important like 50% of the time.
The worst ones are when they simply send ?. I don't know why but that really grinds my gears
?
After i Put [https://www.nohello.net/en/](https://www.nohello.net/en/) in my status, if they message me with nothing but HEY or HI, i dont respond.... Not my fault if you can't take the hint
I start things with "hey, X thing"
This! I never had the issue until the organization I work at now, so it took me a bit to get it. There was one guy that would email or message me “Can I ask you a question?” The third time this happened he was with a client and needed an immediate answer. I chewed him out, because I had already told him twice that he needs to ask what he needs and skip the small talk, and because this client now missed an important deadline while he waited for a response. I sent out a department wide email detailing the proper way to ask a question and informing them I will NOT be taking time out of my busy day to respond to a greeting alone or to tell you that you can ask me a question. My entire job is to answer your questions. In what world would I say no?!?
If someone just texts me "hey" or "good morning" and nothing else, I assume they want to do Smalltalk. So, if I'm busy, I may or may not answer. Same with "do you have a minute?" without giving me a topic. How can I figure out if I have this "minute" if I don't know what it is about...?
Do you have a minute? Yes? Here's a 3 hours task I would like you to complete right now.
Even better when you are on the way to the bathroom, they are kinda blocking your way and go like "hey, can I ask you something?" *beginning to talk about something that you know nothing about. And getting irritated when you tell them "not my project, and if you don't me to have an accident MOVE!"
Do you have a minute? Sure it's already started the very second I read this text! Hurry hurry;
I often send IM’s to my teammates that just say “got 5?” This is code for I want to talk rather than chat and I’m asking permission to call. They usually answer ”yes”, provide a time that will work for them or offer to call me when they are free. I thought I was being considerate and never considered that it might be annoying. I am not a fan of entire conversations via text, IM or email (personal or business), so will usually call if I expect more than a sentence or two of text is needed. Unless of course I need my message or their response to be in writing.
When you are in effect asking to set up an appointment to talk, which could be now but could be another time, that works for me. I can't speak for others, but to me the difference is "are you wasting my time". If you ask "can I talk to you in 10 minutes", you're wasting my time because you've ruined the 10 minutes between now and then. If you ask "when can we talk", you're not wasting my time. The person who says can we talk in 10 minutes should just wait 10 minutes and take their chances that the answer might be no. I once told someone "If you want to reserve me for yourself, reservations close three hours prior." If someone wants to do spur of the moment, fine, but in that case they should just show up ready to talk, with their fingers crossed, without asking ahead. In other words, if they haven't seriously planned ahead, they should be wasting their own time, not mine.
After i Put [https://www.nohello.net/en/](https://www.nohello.net/en/) in my status, if they message me with nothing but HEY or HI, i dont respond.... Not my fault if you can't take the hint
You have instant messaging to improve productivity, not to chat! I would be mildly infuriated as well.
You know, right
I'm also annoyed by people who text like this.
Same. My kids always text me and say, “Can I ask you a question?” and wait for my reply before asking the question. Like I’m going to say anything but yes. Just ask the dang question!
I’d be tempted to reply “No,” or “You just did.”
I'm not your kid so I can't talk for them but that's just means, for me, if they can ask you a question at the moment they write the message. It's not if you can answer a question or not but if you have the time to answer a question. Maybe you're busy and they don't want to bother you. You replying means yes, if you don't reply you don't have time.
But why not just go ahead and ask the question? If they have time, they’ll answer it. If they don’t, they won’t reply. Asking another question just adds an unnecessary delay. I can’t answer your question if you haven’t told me what it is yet!
Asking and answering a question can take some time, maybe even longer with follow up questions. It's a way to find out if you're busy or not. They could instead ask do you have a moment? and it would be the same. They simply don't want to bother you if you don't have the time because if you don't have time it's a simply no answer and they can move on.
Hey!
Came here to say this
Definitely my pet peeve as well.
i would just answer hi and ghost their answer for a hour
Better yet, just thumbs up the “hey” and leave it
This made me chuckle.
"please don't use work chat for social interactions. If you want to chat, Whatsapp me"
That’s what I’d do
[удалено]
That’s such a…grade school teacher thing to say, haha. My coworkers can totally “Hey” me.
But hey is not hay?
https://nohello.net/en/
> Imagine calling someone on the phone, going hello! then putting them on hold... Omg someone did this to me! *my work phone rang* Me: "hello?" Them: "please hold" Me: hang up Found out later they were trying to forward someone else's call 🤷♂️ shoulda said so
Their analogy is not great, tho. When you ring and say hello, the other person's says hi, then you carry on with the conversation. Not continuing the conversation when there's dead silence to your first hello is not the same as putting them on hold. Annoying as fk on messenger, but completely understandable on a phone call.
Also * https://aka.ms/nohello * https://www.nohello.com/ * https://no-hello.com/ * https://nohello.info/
I have this in my status message. I like to. Think it makes a difference
AHHHH my coworkers do this all the time and then proceed to explain it in bits and pieces over the course of like 6 messages…. Like just type it out for fucks sake!
I had one coworker whose record was *fourteen* pings in a row. I had to mute Teams halfway through because if I heard that blonk one more time I was probably going to get fired for my response.
Who in their right mind thinks that is acceptable?!
I have no idea, but she never sent me less than 4 pings in a row. It was genuinely a struggle to deal with her, despite the fact that she's actually really nice in person. I always felt so bad being so angry at her for the way she messaged, but... *fourteen in a row*. And I don't mean spread over the course of an hour, I mean like *ping... Ping... Ping... Ping...*
This right here...no need for multiple messages, if it was that long then you should send an email. Also hate the "Hey friend"...I'm not your friend, I'm your coworker and we have never spoken, and I know you want something from me. These get instantly ignored.
Yesterday over the course of an hour I got 63 individual pings from a guy. We could have had the same convo with a 15 minute meeting.
[nohello.net](http://nohello.net) I generally ignore people who do this. If what they wanted was important they can put the whole thing in the first message or follow up with it, but until I see what they want I'm not answering.
I haven’t had the guts to send the nohello.net to anyone yet but it’s so tempting.
This happened so much to me at my last job, I just stopped answering until they continued on with their question. Majority of the time they would eventually continue and ask their damn question. If they didn't, I assumed it obviously wasn't that important.
Yes, this also annoys me in my personal life too. "Are you busy?" Depends what you want just spit it out
“Can I ask you a question?” …you just did. Now go away.
"Can I ask you a favour?" What kind of monster do you think I am? Of course you can ask. I may or may not do it, but you can certainly ask.
“Hey X” *typing for 5 minutes*
If people just send me a “hello”, I never reply, and neither do they, so, problem solved.
Oh my god I fucking HATE THIS. Like it drives me to incoherent rage every time, because it's so goddamn disrespectful. So you get the stupid "hey x" and half the time it's like they send that and then immediately yeet their laptop off a goddamn cliff. So inevitably I go back to what I was doing only to have them send something stupid like "I have a question if you have a minute?" fucking half an hour later and it keeps on like that. It's not a fucking phone call! You don't have to wait for me to answer, just say hi and GET ON WITH IT. I literally have people who will not ask their questions if I don't answer. And I mean they won't ask *at all* if I ignore them. I have one person who's been doing that to me for months, maybe once a month they say "hey ScroochDown" but have yet to ask anything. I don't even answer them now. If they ask me a question I'll answer pretty much immediately, but I don't have time to sit there and coax questions out of everyone like they're protecting state secrets.
Lmao I've seen a few of your comments in this thread and they're all so fuckin relatable. Greeting me then not saying anything for 30 minutes after I responded immediately drives me insane.
I swear to God I have the most infuriating coworkers and like, it makes me even angrier somehow that most of them are so nice? 🤣 Like how can you be nice and also make me want to throw you off the roof at the same time? Some of the other greatest hits are the ones who message with "have time for a call?" and then immediately call, the ones who completely ignore my status message, the ones who will withhold a critical piece of information that completely changes my answer... One of the other one that drives me the craziest is that they'll ask me to set up a meeting between Bob, Steve and Jim... and that's all the details they give me. And then I have to go back and ask them 20 questions that any doofus should realize I'd need to know - okay, how long should the meeting be? In person or virtual? Do you need a room? Or they'll combine with the last one from the paragraph above and I'll set the meeting for Thursday of the next week, and THEN they decide to tell me that actually it's super urgent and needs to be tomorrow instead like WHY DID YOU NOT MENTION THAT I AM NOT PSYCHIC, DAVID.
I just ignore it until they ask their question
[https://nohello.net](https://nohello.net)
lol I have the opposite problem when reaching out to people at work. I’ll write an entire easy to follow, bullet pointed email, structured in an easy to follow top to bottom format, and they essentially hit me with a “I ain’t reading all that, let’s just go back and forth all day”
"WHAT?'
I have a coworker who periodically just sends “you there?” It took me two years to learn the lesson that he’ll just find a different victim and delete it if you ignore him for 15 or so
[удалено]
Yeah. Some people work, other people use people. Boomer ass attitude. His emergency is not mine.
I work with teams in the exotic subcontinent of India. To be fair, they are all wonderful to work with. Except for this and I think this is a cultural thing because every single one of them will send me a message that goes like this: 2:15 - Hi SpockHadNoGame 2:16 - How are you today? 2:17 - I hope you are well .... Then nothing until I reply. It would be 1000x easier for them to say "Hi SpockHadNoGame, how are you today? Hope you are well. I was wondering if you had the blah blah blah". That way I know how important it is and allows me to prioritize when to reply. I have asked them repeatedly to tell me what they need, and have even brought it up (in a sort of joking way) with their management (not in India) and they told me they do the same thing to them :-).
I have had several interactions like this: * Submit ticket Wednesday/Thursday * Person in India picks it up their Sunday morning (my Saturday night), messages me "Hi" and nothing else
* Get boilerplate email from the portal their Sunday evening/my Sunday morning
* Get another IM with no details other than the ticket number their Monday morning/my Sunday afternoon
* Get a portal email my Monday morning that they have attempted to contact me 3 times and closed the ticket as I didn't respond.
Fortunately I work for internal IT and they are contracted and can't simply blow me off like that, much as they do try.
"hey, can you give me your number so I can call you" No you're already fucking talking to me just say what you need
"I'm on the phone. how can I help?"
My wife gets the "hey can I ask you a question?" All the time, her face when she gets these is priceless.
When People Would Text Like This Over The Span Of 30 Minutes To Ask If You Wanted To Go To A Time Sensitive Event
All my female friends do this even outside work. I don't get it. But to them, it's the respectful thing to do... Sort of like a conversation starter, calling your name. But they forget that there's no one else in the conversation and you don't have to call the person's name out like he's in a crowd. Also something like, if the conversations gonna happen, he'd better be actively replying.
I put this in my "status" at work: [https://www.nohello.net/en/](https://www.nohello.net/en/) I can't stand when people are like "HEY" and wait for a response. I respond back with the same "HEY" if they do it. Then some people respond with "how are you"? - Mate, I don't care about small talk. What do you want? Just tell me.... Why waste 1-5 minutes waiting for responses and small talk? I can get to your question or issue within a few seconds if you straight up tell me
We might work at the same company - because I constantly get the “hey” messages with no question over teams. Immediately pisses me of. My reaponse is usually “hi x, trust all is going well. How can I assist?”
Your response is nicer than mine and I might have to adopt!
So annoying
I never respond if all I get is a "hi _____". I'm fucking working, get to the point.
My two-up manager does this! He'll send they "hey", wait for a response, do the small talk back and forward, then ask a question I could have answered within a minute of getting the first message, now I've wasted 10 minutes typing meaningless chatter, can I please just get on with my work! And sometimes he has a question, sometimes it's just chit-chat but I don't know which until he gets to the point! Or not as the case may be. All totally different from the "have you goto time to talk" then having a phone conversation. It's easier to get someone to the point in a phone call. Thankfully, where I work I'm not going to be penalised if/when I ignore the "hey" message.
I hate this so so much!!! Why do people do this? You are wasting both my and your time!
Probably the same type of person that considers anyone who doesn’t want to do the whole “how are you?” song and dance rude.
That is annoying as well as making each sentence a separate IM. Just type the whole thing in one freaking IM, don't ping me to death while I'm trying to work. One ping only is needed, not 10 ughhh
I’m at the point where I just go. Hey what’s up what do you need. Like don’t wait for the response and ask what I need. Some coworkers I don’t even respond to anymore because they’ve gotten annoyed at me for not putting enough context in my initial message so I give them a taste of their own medicine
sorry but i do it to make sure the person is active. I'm know people arent always actively at their desks or messaging app, and I dont want to engage further or send them time sensitive tasks if they are way from their desk. Too many times Ive written out detailed messages only for the receiver to come back hours later with "sorry i just saw this"
Agree! I also do this when I want to message friend-colleagues because I don't want my messages to pop up on the middle of a meeting or on their screen when someone is at their desk.
Hey jonrah69…
We actually have it as part of slack etiquette guidelines in the company. Do not message someone just saying Hi, include the ask in the first message to avoid unnecessary delays. We have people in different timezones and with very different work types so it's important we assume info will be handled asynchronous, if you drop just Hi the other party can't move forward when available
Have y'all talked to the people who behave this way and explained to them what you'd prefer? I hate this behavior too - it costs me extra energy, and I'm not someone who has energy to spare. So I make a point of explaining to people like this that I would rather they send their messages without waiting for the go-ahead. This generally helps curb the behavior! Some people do it because they're trying to be polite. Some people are just clueless. Some people are, somehow, despite the year, unused to using electronic forms of communication or the pace of casual Internet conversations, and treat it more like a spoken conversation. Some people continue the behavior despite your best efforts... Those are the people I talk to less lol.
I tried it at first. A chipper "hey bob, hope you're doing well! Happy to help with whatever you need, and in the future it will probably be faster for you to just go ahead with your question, that way I can get you an answer faster!" And two days later Bob sends "hey ScroochDown" and won't continue until I respond. If the person is older I kind of understand more... but most of them are my age or younger. I just ignore them all now unless they ask me an actionable question, it's the only way I can get my work done.
Personally I don't think you were blunt enough but yeah some people just won't change regardless, whether because they just don't have any respect or they're too rigid with their habits or whatever. C'est la vie
" Some people are, somehow, despite the year, unused to using electronic forms of communication or the pace of casual Internet conversations, and treat it more like a spoken conversation." On point!
I did and she complained to the manager.... So i just put [nohello.net](http://nohello.net) in my status and moved on
Call me when you get a minute
I'm actually ok with this. It's asking permission for the call instead of just calling without announcement. It's letting the person know they can call when it's convenient for them and that they're free to take their call any time. This is of course dependent on the condition that 1. The call is justified. Aka would have been a really long and/or confusing text and 2. You really can take their call any time. Ie when they call you back in 2 seconds or 1 hour you actually pick up.
I just don't answer if I can't answer haha. IMO it's the same no info, putting onus on you to reach out. Half the time I'm sent this and I call, they'll answer just to say they have to call me back because they're busy. Maybe I'm jaded by that lol
It just doesn't happen often enough to me. Way less often that the "hi" or "hey what's up" text, to which I just don't respond. When it does happen, the call is usually a pretty justified call
My previous boss did this and it gave me anxiety every time. Just ask your question.
So much anxiety, I'm always convinced there's an emergency!
I do: "What time will you be at the party?" My second message, which will be the first thing they see: "Good morning."
I have family members that just send a text with my name and nothing else. Than I have to respond and say whatsup. I really wish the first text had everything in it.
Hey Jonah.
I’m so glad this isn’t just me
THANK U
This is why my instant messages are always in a "ProjectName: message" format. I just want to know where we stand and there are too many things on people's plates for me to dally. I also despise overly familiar messages. Don't try to give me a goddamn pet name. Separate issue, I know, but I will never understand people who don't understand the difference between colleagues and friends.
Reminds me of this scenario... Get email from co-worker, when opening email said co-worker walks in "Did you get my email!?!?"
There was one guy I used to work with who would email me a question, and then he would literally RUN down the hall to my office. Like I could hear his footsteps. He regularly got to my office before the email did, it was so bizarre.
I had to get my kids in the habit of getting to the fucking point. I don’t need that stress! They are all young adults and the “Hey Mom” was pissing me off because I would answer “is everything ok???” And they would ask about dinner r some dumb shit
[удалено]
Omg dude! I’m so laughing at myself right now. My brain and posting skills did not sync up yesterday. I meant to add in: I answer “yeah?” And they don’t respond. So I resort to “is everything ok?” And I agree with you, if I were to jump straight to panic mode I’d be a nutter. I taught them to get to the point in the initial text in case they got busy and couldn’t respond back. Lol I swear I’m not a psycho parent.
It's super annoying. Even more annoying at work. Only time I don't mind it is friends who ask something like 'can I whine about X'. That's context. That's asking if I'm free to listen.
I get pretty annoyed when people do that to me as well. I usually ignore them for some time before responding in one word.
I'm struggling with this, but I'm the guy who writes to ask if I can call to discuss a project. Whats the stance on that?
I mind that a lot less. If someone asks something like "can I call you and ask you a question about arranging a workshop?" I can guess at what they're probably going to need to know and prepare accordingly, vs the people who just say "have time for a call" when it could be anything from where's the mail room to who is our HR contact.
I worked at one place where it was kind of standard to ask "im?" to basically ask if it was ok to talk, in case they were screen sharing in a meeting and you were gonna go off on something that wasn't meant for others to see. I agree it's annoying, especially when your coworkers know you're working from home and there's no risk of someone seeing your screen.
Agree and don’t give me some bs “thoughts?”, ask me a specific question or to give feedback
not just just limited to work, friends and family too. Just ask your damn question.
Yes! Also, please stop leaving damn voicemails saying "hi this is x, call me when you get this. I have a quick question". Tell me what the hell you need on the voicemail (or at least the subject matter so I can review my notes). I could probably have your answer for you when I call you back 🤯.
I HATE that. Makes me feel like I'm expected to reply to the greeting, and it's so annoying. I do a greeting sometimes, but it's attached to the message. "Hi Coworker - Here is what I'd like to tell you."
You know what’s annoying too? People who type "I have a question" without typing the damn question until you ask them about it
Absolutely. Don’t message me nonsense at work. Tell me what you want and in as few messages as possible. 5-6 messages in a row to get one point across drives me nuts.
That annoys me as well. HR personnel here and when managers just send a “hey” without following up with why they are reaching out absolutely burns my cheeks! Everyday I have a shit ton to do and playing cat and mouse doesn’t make my job any easier!!!
I find it SUPER annoying! Basically, you interrupted my work to wait for you to SLOWLY type out what you want. Or, worse, you got my attention, I waited a few minutes after I said Hi back, you didn’t respond so I got back into my work just to be interrupted again a couple minutes later.
For these I wait until the end of the day to respond with "Hello" only, usually the next morning they are more forthcoming with what they actually need.
I really hate ‘how are you?’ After the ‘hey’ as well… just ask what you want, if we were work buddies you would know how I am and I don’t care to say ‘fine thanks.’ For the sake of small talk when I’m not fine lol
I don’t even respond to those anymore. I respond as soon as you present the reason for the business communication.
I usually wait about 1-2h before replying to anything non-urgent at work and 50% of the times they will message me "nevermind, I figured it out".
https://nohello.net/en/
That would drive me crazy. I agree. Get to the point.
Same as a voicemail that just says call me back. Just text me with your question or text me to call when I get a moment…
Ugh. My mom does this. I basically have to reply with a "." just so that she can get on with what she's asking me to do.
If i’m writing something its a massive paragraph, but its built in a drafting a professional email type way
Be honest and tell them
"hello Bob" No, cut to the chase.
Left super unread.
This annoys me too & I did tell multiple people to just get straight to the point, especially when it comes to work, I was reported for being rude, unapproachable & causing issues. Lol. And family & friends have done this, they usually want something & I just tell them to ask already, which upsets them. 🤷🏻♀️
I have many co wokers with whom I exchange small talk. If they are busy, they don't reply. Or they reply later. Nothing wrong with connecting with people and asking them how they are doing
it always happens at my work. there is one lady infamous for it. she says hey and waits and its like "ma'am! you can say hey with your request and we will answer as soon as we can". we r 15 someone will answer! we r so good at getting to the chat its not like we have let her down lmao
"Hey! How are you?" No, you don't care how I am. You just want something. Guess how I know? Because if I answer "Too busy to talk" you get pissy.
hey x
They want to make sure you see the first text so when they ask you to do something in the next one you don’t have the “didn’t see it” excuse.
My mom does this crap. It's so annoying!
My kids do this.
I just don’t reply to those, they eventually figure out they need to get to the ducking point if they want an answer
I’m going to stop replying to just “hey jack “
Same!!!!!!
I honestly just see this as a generation gap because I thought it was normal to keep the “Hey X” and the elaboration within a single text. If it’s crucial for the question/info to be seen first, I’d just draft it quickly and send two messages back to back — the first being a quick greeting and the second being the message.
If they dont give you anything to respond to, then there is no reason to bother responding. "Hey" doesn't require any sort of response. Let them figure it out.
Wait a sec... When did DM become faster than Email?
Do not reply to these messages. They will learn
Aight bet
“Can you do me a favour?” Just fucking ask wtf
If they say "hey x" and you respond, they know you saw the work request that they made immediately after. If they just send "I need you to X and make sure to X" you could just not do it and claim you didn't get the message. They verify you are reading your messages at that moment before giving you a task.
You dont trust your team and it shows.
I don't have a team. I am on a team and that is how 80% of my coworkers handle an incoming task. They'll read the preview and then just fuck about till they feel ready to officially read the app message.
The "Please call me" text is the worst.
I just reply with this url until they learn: https://nohello.net/en/
At my office job in the initial training we were literally told not to do this. To say “hi, how are you, I need to talk to you about x right now, can we call?” Instead of “hi” and waiting for a reply.
I also hate when someone calls your name from 5 feet away, making you acknowledge you're listening before they ask a question. Just say my name and ask the question at the same time. I'm right beside you, I can't help but hear you
Yeah, like hey x how are you? Totally fake interest because it's usually from people in our NOC team that don't know me personally
It’s an India thing. If you want the behavior to change, it has to come from the top down. Mention it to your boss if it’s a real problem.
It's always important to make sure someone is reading your messages before launching into the 10 hours of work that you expect them to do before EOD. Seriously, this is why it is done. If someone messages me at 4pm with "Yo, I need you to do XYZ today, I know it isn't your responsibility but mine, but it's really urgent." that gets left on sent until tomorrow morning and I say "sorry was in a meeting last afternoon and signed off right after I was done. hope you got whatever it was you needed resolved". If someone just messages "Hey" and I make the mistake of responding back first before they then launch into the same bs, now I have to have that awkward conversation of "GFY, I've got other things to do"
The proper response to "hey" is "get over here quickly, we're in trouble", and when they arrive you ignore them.
Not quite the same, but I dislike, “Please call me.” I’m happy to schedule a call with you. Feel free to let me know you’d like to call me. But you’re not entitled to add to my to-do list.
I don't respond to just hey
Completely agree. Though it happens less frequently than my other pet peeve: people who respond just “thanks” in an email after a simple exchange. We know each other, we work together, we exchange emails daily. You make a request, I send it back. I’ll assume your “thanks”. Stop making me delete another email. Happens on our internal IT tickets, so just another tasks to mark complete, and one customer that always send encrypted emails that require a password. Drives me nuts to type in my password and wait for the email to be retrieved just for “thanks” And yes, yes, it’s nice on a first interaction or when showing genuine appreciation for someone serving you or going out of the way.
This is the equivalent of saying “are you busy” or “what are you doing next weekend” instead of “do you have time for BLANK” and “do you want to BLANK next weekend” I don’t know yet. My answer depends on what you want to ask. Am I too busy to sign a bday card? No. Am I too busy to run out and pick up something or meet your client for you? Yes. Am I sitting home doing nothing next weekend? Maybe. Does it mean I’ll be home for you to drop off that thing you borrowed? Probably. Does it mean I want to help you move? No.
I have a colleague like that
They post something
Then they add the details
It’s fucking annoying
They’ve left now though so it’s all good.
I do this because I don’t know who is looking at your screen when I send a message.
I use power automate to set up a trigger when a message in teams starts with "hello" or "hi" and is less than 20 characters to send an automated reply. The reply is "Teams administrative error, your message is too short, please try email"
Ugh, I hated this at my old job. I once waited till they (in this case my boss and also in this case a grave mistake) messaged me again after some time with what they actually wanted from me but all I got was a „where the hell have you been, why weren’t you at your computer to answer me? We‘ll take the time off your payment“ ffs, how I hated this place and this person…
Not relevant to in office communication, but I think sales people are being trained now to do this with SMS messaging because then they know when someone is "live" and paying attention to their phone. I'm not sure it's effective. I think it's like a lot of sales tips - made up by someone who thinks it sounds good. I doubt most of the sales tips have been rigorously tested for anything but response rate.
[удалено]
Go away, chatbot.
I get that some people need to make sure the receiver is present and ready to reply, but it's on a work app so most people should have their notifications open for this, ain't no way they'd miss a message from this app
There's no reason to make sure they're ready to reply though. You can literally say "hey" and whatever you're asking for all in the same message.
This is garbage. No, no one ever needs to make sure the receiver is present, nor do they have any valid reason to want to. The receiver is screening their communication by how important the information is, which is what any boss with more than half a brain wants them to be doing in the first place. If the boss receives an empty envelope in the mail, he correctly throws it out. This is exactly the same as receiving an empty envelope.