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

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.

Childish but everyone is a child deep down.
 
While the false pleasantries bug me in emails or chats as they're generally from people I don't know or literally only interact with when they want something. I do actually enjoy giving someone a call on teams or finding them in the office to shoot the **** for a bit before getting down to work so I'm not quite as antisocial under bridge dweller as I may sound :cry:
 
tom_e said:
While the false pleasantries bug me in emails or chats as they're generally from people I don't know or literally only interact with when they want something. I do actually enjoy giving someone a call on teams or finding them in the office to shoot the **** for a bit before getting down to work so I'm not quite as antisocial under bridge dweller as I may sound :cry:
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You have a great day...
 
NotAGolf said:
I gave an example in my post. It's only the one guy I know that does it, and it doesn't waste my time, he wastes his own, so I don't care. It's just baffling.
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Your example didn't give a "colossal waste of time". You gave an example of time lag.

Unless of course you both do nothing while waiting for the other to respond. Which would be weird.
 
sigma said:
Why even bother saying hello? What does it achieve? It's pretty inefficient?
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My old boss used to do this when he used to ring me at work.

"Hello, Park Garage?"

"How many litres of unlead have we done?"

"Er.... 2300 on the readings currently"

"Good, don't forget to bring in the flowers"

"No worries, and I've done the extinguishers already"

"Click"

Bye then :p
 
OspreyO said:
Actually it's not.

Good practice is not too allow any device that not managed by the company. Access to company resources. Otherwise you've massive security hole on your network.

Smaller places obviously let people do it, to save money. But it will bite them in the butt. It will also mean they have an easy means to contact those people out of hours.
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Surely that's what work profiles are for?
randomshenans said:
My leadership meeting always, without fail, has us all go round and chat about what we've been up to outside of work. No one gives a flying **** what i've been doing.
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I'm glad our team isn't like that. I guess there are likely a few who are just thinking "For gods sake, just get on with it..." but we have some lively chat most mornings about what we've each been up to.

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'.
 
sigma said:
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?'.
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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.

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


radderfire said:
I think you need to arrange company training for web chat :D
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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.
 
AndyCr15 said:
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'.
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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 said:
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.
....
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The work item is not "delayed" if they haven't initiated it.
 
HangTime said:
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.
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I don't get that either. Why would you not speak up in a remote meeting? But will in person?
 
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?
 
HangTime said:
"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?"
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If it isn't actually someone you're friendly with/would normally be talking about your weekend or whatever with then I'd treat it more like the old-fashioned greeting; "how do you do?" to which the response is also; "how do you do?".

So a quick "Hey, how can I help?" in response and ignoring the small talk/treating the question as a standard greeting is fine IMO.

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.
 
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HangTime said:
Ah yes, the ambush conversation :) Seems reasonable if they are difficult to engage with on certain topics.
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It is a technique a lot of managers seem to utilise (and yeah I can probably be a bit difficult to engage with) - personally it doesn't work on me if I don't know how to prioritise a conversation it goes to the bottom of the pile - sure leading in with the topic can also result in people putting it to the bottom of the pile if they don't want to engage on it.
 
OspreyO said:
The work item is not "delayed" if they haven't initiated it.
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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.

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

iamdjdz said:
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?
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That's exactly what I want.

dowie said:
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.
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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 said:
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 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.


That's exactly what I want.


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