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

HangTime said:
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.
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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.
 
Point is if they'd given some idea what they wanted you'd be more likely ready to drop them a reply when you had finished stuff - especially if you have other stuff pending and don't want to be waiting around on them then getting back to you so you can reply with what they need.
 
This really doesn't bother me. Unless I'm in a meeting I'm generally quite responsive; I tend to reply pretty much immediately to Slack messages if I'm not in a meeting/workshop.

I work in a "remote first" setting, so communication internally is usually a top priority for most people.
 
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Even just seeing the thread title made me angry - totally agree lol.

The best bit are those that then do not tell you the issue at all until you acknowledge them - just let me know what your problem is or what information you need and when I have free time I can reply..
 
Rroff said:
Point is if they'd given some idea what they wanted you'd be more likely ready to drop them a reply when you had finished stuff - especially if you have other stuff pending and don't want to be waiting around on them then getting back to you so you can reply with what they need.
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I'd not avoid people based on what they want, responding doesn't mean you necessarily need to drop everything so I'm pretty ambivalent on that.

As per my other reply, if busy and it's not important then, once you know what they want: "hey, I'm busy can you send me an e-mail about that?" or "You're probably better off speaking to [some other person] about that as I'm in the middle of X and he knows Y better anyway".

That sort of thing takes like 2 seconds, if you don't bother with the small talk/treat it as a greeting and are confident enough to push back on things then not knowing what people want is just a trivial irritation at best and shouldn't need phase you.
 
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Yeah it’s a difficult one particularly with people making assumptions and judgements etc which could be incorrect.

If I know the person could be busy I could say how are you but then follow up with the question I need to ask. Two birds with one stone.

Reality is if someone’s messaging you they need something.
 
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sigma said:
Why does them delaying what they need annoy you so much? You can just ignore them, surley?
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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.

dowie said:
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.
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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 said:
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.
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Well, that's really their problem in most cases no? From your perspective it's 2 seconds to say "hey how can I help you?" after the meetingand if it's not a quick question then whether they are there to answer immediately or not doesn't matter surely - you're not going to drop everything anyway right? Presumably, you're going to schedule it as something to look at next week or next month?

On the other hand, if it's urgent and the dealy impacts you then you've just got to tell them - this isn't acceptable, you need to let people know when [urgent] issues occur, don't just say "hi" just before you're about to leave then log off and go home if you've not received a reply yet... really, urgent things ought to have a process and other people copied in, that is an issue for that person or their manager to address. Especially if this is happening frequently for urgent issues, I'd maybe try and influence some change there, what are all these junior guys doing walking off home and not telling anyone after something major has happened?
 
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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 :D
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.
 
I am the exactly the same.

The other two that get my goat it people who reply with "Thanks" after you do something it's my job I don't need thanks mother ****** and the special one when you get a phonecall and they say just sent you a email.... Well done your at the bottom of the list mother ****** then they phone you back after 5mins when you have not even looked at it :) ***** !!
 
I love my job, I just dislike the petty chat in emails/terms etc. Get to the point instantly so I can decide instantly and prioritize whatever needs doing.
 
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?

As I say, glad I don't work with some of you guys... You'd all definitely hate working with me. I intentionally inject small talk into the start or end of meetings. We're all very polite and respect each other two. It would drive you up the wall apparently.
 
We need to bring msn statuses back.

“ Don’t message without asking a question. Not interested if you wanna know how I am “

You could just reply with “ Peas, Farts and Carrots “. That might leave them as confused as you are then maybe they might go away or maybe they might get to the point and just ask the question as quickly as possible. Or maybe they will just leave you alone after that.
 
AndyCr15 said:
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?
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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... :)
 
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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.
 
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