Pet hate: "Hi, how are you?" as an opener on work chat software

[HangTime]

I realise this thread will make me sound a bit 'special' and I'm putting it here rather than in GD in the vain hope it will provoke slightly fewer 'hilarious' replies...

So for a while now, especially since working largely remotely I have got frustrated with the habit people have of messaging me on chat software and just stating a greeting, without any context of what the purpose of their communication is.

"Hello"
"Hi, how are you doing?"
etc

I know this is probably just seen by many as 'being polite' but it annoys me, perhaps more than it should. This is because:

• I have no idea what they want from me
• I feel compelled to write some drivel about my state of mind "I'm good thanks and you?" despite the fact I just injured myself / argued with the family / received some bad news that I don't want to discuss with them. And I have to invest in that without it adding any value since I don't know yet what the real reason for them reaching out to me is. I might have never spoken to them before so without sounding harsh, I really don't care that much how their day is going and I don't see that my state of mind is necessarily any of their business either.
• I might not be in a position to reply straight away (often I will be in meetings). So I reply later, perhaps when they are busy. Another couple of hours go past. Then perhaps 4hrs after their original message I might find out the reason for their contact. Sometimes it might be the next day.

It's like people are treating unsolicited messages on chat software as something other than asynchronous conversation. If you phone me up, sure, ask me a question and get an answer within 5 second. But generally people don't just send an email or a voicemail saying "Hi how are you?" and wait for a response, which is effectively the equivalent of a opening message on Teams or whatever.

Am I alone in wishing people would just clearly state what they need in their opening message? Maybe it is deemed impersonal by some, but I'd find it a lot more efficient.

edit: as clarified during the replies, to be clear it's not so much being saying "Hi" that I have an issue with, just the saying "Hi" without any further info provided about the the purpose of the communication.

 

[HangTime]

I forgot to mention, my frustration is compounded if before I have a chance to reply, they follow up with another prompting message like "hello??". As if the sole purpose of my existence is sitting there looking at chat waiting to respond to questions. This seems more common with offshore people expecting me to be at their beck and call.

I'm the same. I treat this with the same distain as "hope you're well" in emails. No you don't just get to the point and tell me what you want from me

I think I'm just getting grumpy in my old age.

Most of the time in an email they at least tell me what they want after they've conveyed their hopes, so it's only a 5s delay in getting to the point, compared to the potentially many hours in chat messages
In other words emails tend to be much better constructed for async conversation.

 

[HangTime]

Yeah that's why it's a bit of a minefield, what one person considers rude another considers more efficient. I think the hybrid approach of a pleasantry immediately followed by the ask is the best approach, personally, although I suppose it can come across as not particularly genuine.

 

[HangTime]

It's really a non-issue isn't it? Oh no, someone tried to be polite!

The politeness isn't the issue, the issue is them being inefficient in their communication by not stating what they want up front. You can do both.

I prefer this approach, tell me upfront what you need. It also allows me to prepare ie do some research so i know the answer.

If i just get a "hello", i also don't really mind enough that it winds me up, i just reply, "all good, what can i do for you?". That puts it back in their court and i don't get involved in the small talk.

Yes the research factor is important too. We might open up a conversation and then I have to go away and look stuff up anyway, the conversation may be more productive if I know what they want up front. Similar to how meetings can be more efffective with an agenda etc.
I might borrow the "all good, what can I do for you?"

 

[HangTime]

Inefficient by writing one sentence which you're more than welcome to ignore? You can easily prompt them to continue the conversation just by replying with 'Hi, how can I help?'.

No, inefficient because as I already described, it can delay them stating what they want by hours, sometimes longer (I've had some occasions where it has delayed things by over a week). The point is, I'm not just sat there staring at the chat software waiting for people to ask me how my day is going, primed to respond. I might not be in a position to engage in a conversation with them before one of us finishes work (especially if we are in different time zones). Or to put it another way, I might be in meetings and hence my 'easy prompt' gets delayed by hours. They've finished for the day. Maybe one of us isn't working the next day. etc. Messaging software should be considered asynchronous until such time as both parties are actively engaged.

I've no issue with them writing a sentence I can ignore, my issue is when they ONLY write that sentence.
I frequently wish people well on chat if we haven't spoken recently, but I immediately proceed to state my business rather than waiting for them to respond.

Not going to lie I do it sometimes to people who can be a bit hard to pin down. If you keep it vague they don't know topic rather that seeing on a topic maybe they don't want to engage with and thus can pretend not to have seen.

Ah yes, the ambush conversation Seems reasonable if they are difficult to engage with on certain topics.

I think you need to arrange company training for web chat

Not that simple unfortunately, I've discussed it with people in our company (some who agree) but in consulting a lot of conversations are with clients, third parties etc so I can't fully influence that.


In summation I think people like myself and @NotAGolf are saying we have no issue whatsoever with pleasantries and idle chit-chat, what we don't like is the delays to professional communication that are introduced by only stating what you want once you've done the former. In other words, do both, not just one.

 

[HangTime]

In fact, when I moved to remote work last year, this was the one things that struck me. You join a meeting, on the dot, and launch into work talk. You likely get to the end of the meeting and just move onto your next meeting. A drastic change to in person chat were often meetings wouldn't start for 5 or 10 mins while people chat. I've made it a point to inject some of the random chat into some meetings to keep things a little 'lighter'.

Equally one thing that is lost with remote meetings is the post meeting chat in smaller groups as you leave the room / get in the lift / get a drink etc - it tends to elicit more candid conversations "hey what did you think about item XYZ, I'm not sure they've thought that through...", or asking quick questions you didn't want to clog up the meeting with etc. Logically this could still happen remotely (arguably it's more inclusive because you can chat online to anyone not just those in close proximity), but I think the maturity isn't quite there yet.

 

[HangTime]

The work item is not "delayed" if they haven't initiated it.

It's delayed more than it could have been if they did initiate it though, that's the point. If they told me what they wanted I might be able to answer/action it when I get to that message, instead of having to wait for a future message to find out what they need.

I don't get that either. Why would you not speak up in a remote meeting? But will in person?

I think you misunderstand, it's not about speaking up IN the meeting. It's about the conversations that happen AFTER the meeting, that are facilitated by physical proximity when exiting a meeting.

I start with "Hi, How are you?" Then begin typing what I actually want (unless it's just to say hi which is rare) before getting a response. Normally this results in the person getting 2 messages from me at the start of the conversation - not sure how people feel about that?

That's exactly what I want.

I wouldn't leave them hanging it could be a quick question along the lines of "are you free for a meeting tomorrow?" or it could be something urgent but if it isn't and you're busy and it would take time away from your current task then I'd just go with "hey, I'm busy at the moment, can you send me an e-mail about this and I'll get back to you later".

I do think it's better, in general, to take a few seconds to answer promptly if you're "online", just have the confidence to answer without feeling the need to waste time on small talk or to commit to anything if you're already busy.

I feel like I'm not getting my point across, the point is I may not be in a position to respond. I'm chairing a meeting, sharing my screen, or heck maybe just actually paying attention in a meeting rather than sat there staring at chat software, I'm not going to switch focus and say "hold on everyone, someone just asked me how my day is going, give me 30s to respond to them...". It's the equivalent of answering a phonecall in a meeting, complete no-no IMHO.

Maybe it's more a expectations thing, some people think of messages as some sort of ice breaker ship that should be allowed to smash past whatever a person is dealing with and engage them immediately, I view it as just another task that needs addressing when I'm able to. If it's that urgent at least tell me what it is you need!

 

[HangTime]

Why does them delaying what they need annoy you so much? You can just ignore them, surley?

I'm not sure, that's why I described it as a pet hate and stated "it annoys me, perhaps more than it should" in the OP. I think it's just that personally I find it hard to completely ignore something, it effectively becomes an unofficial potential task where the start time is delayed but the desired completion date may not be, so it simply reduces the total time we have to address it.

Just answer after the meeting then, just as you'd do with a phone call. (Unless of course, you're waiting for something important then you just leave the meeting to deal with it.)

Answering after a meeting doesn't compel you to engage in small talk, the reply I gave still applies, presumably most of the time you're not in meetings though even if you do have one or two a day.

The point I'm making is that after the meeting could be many hours in the future (in many cases there is another meeting starting immediately when the last one finishes), when they may not be able to reply themselves to my reply asking what they want. So I reply at the earliest available opportunity and then they reply at the earliest available opportunity and that might be 18 hours in the future by the time I read it compared to them just telling me what they wanted up front.

Meetings represent probably at least half of the working hours, so most of the time I am in a meeting...
Even if I'm not in a meeting, I might need to use the available time to do other stuff, like responding to emails / other messages, writing up meeting minutes, preparing for my next meeting, or working on an offline task. If I know what the person wants when I pickup their message I can then prioritise it accordingly, if it's just a unsolicited "hi" with no context from someone lacking seniority then it's not going to be top of the pile but in some cases it might actually be something important / time sensitive / of relevance when they finally tell me.

 

[HangTime]

Nah if I was making it the equivalent of these direct messages, I would've posted just that sentence, waited for you to ask "what makes you sound special???", and then told you
Basically imagine every thread on OcUK was just a one-liner with no actual topic and you had to reply to them for them to actually tell you what their post was about.

 

[HangTime]

Saying 'Thanks' when someone does something for you is petty chat and seems to really upset you?! So... I guess you never say thanks to anyone at work?

I don't mind people saying thanks, but I did used to work with someone (a nice guy that I've kept in touch with nearly 10 years later) who hated it when sent over email. He brought it up on a training course and was met with general incredulity from the room. Basically he said if someone wanted to say thanks they should say it to his face, and he was surprisingly argumentative about how it was disrespectful to send it over email.

Obviously for the next couple of weeks we all said "Thanks!" in reply to all his emails...

 

[HangTime]

You don't like people asking how you are before requesting something from you in a chat? I guess if you get asked this 20 or 30 times a day then it can get tiresome, but either way you're being very precious about it.

I've no issue with people asking me how I am before requesting something from me, providing they request it straight away rather than waiting for a response and introducing unnecessary delays:

The politeness isn't the issue, the issue is them being inefficient in their communication by not stating what they want up front. You can do both.

 

[HangTime]

It's not about who's fault it is for me, I just don't like the inefficiency - I don't say "well, that's their fault for not being effective in their comms, so it doesn't matter that we've failed as a team". I understand that perhaps I should just let it pass me by and not give it any thought but it's hard to do that if for example they say "hi" on Day X and I respond later on Day X saying "hi" back, but they've packed up for the day, so on Day X+1 they respond saying what they want, by which time I'm perhaps really busy with something else but naturally getting more cognitive load from this additional ask that I could've dealt with the day before had I known what it was.

I've badged it as a 'pet hate' because it's one of those things I find annoying despite not being THAT big a deal.

In hindsight reading my OP, I probably could have been more explicit that it's the lack of info that is annoying not the fact they say "Hi", I'll edit that in at the bottom. Basically I view it like an email or voicemail (or to take to anl extreme, a letter), what's the point in just saying "Hi" in a professional context if you have no idea at what point the recipient will be in a position to read/respond to your communication.