- cross-posted to:
- internetisbeautiful@feddit.de
- cross-posted to:
- internetisbeautiful@feddit.de
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I agree very much, major pet peeves in a busy day
Isn’t this very context dependent?
For a small question it makes the most sense to just ask but often in work question can be much more complex. And the pre question or hello is pretty much: “Do you have a few minutes of time to read about and discuss this issue”
I have a colleague who just drops a wall of text on me. With varying levels of work-related/importancy and i find it very annoying depending on what i am doing.
Also if i contact someone who i know is very busy id like to know if they have time available to chat or call about x.
I am neurodivergent though, i am used to bigger chats because i hate calling and phone calls without heads up really bother me. It seems so pretentious to just on a whim go “STOP WHAT YOUR DOING AND HEAR ME”
It’s fine if your actually mention what you want to talk about
But just “hi” is terrible
If you need a few minutes or a one on one then that is the question and it’s perfectly fine to ask for it. “Hey, I need help with X, can you assist me? when would it be a good time to call each other for a couple of minutes or have a long real time chat?” There, now the person has the power to say no, thus it is not imposing on their time anymore and you have used the strength of text chat to it’s full extend.
Hello does not imply any of that, quite the opposite, hello incites anxiety and ambiguity on most people precisely because you don’t know if this will be a short fired one off question, a friendly salutation, or a long technical problem solving convo.
For what is worth, I’m neurotypical and absolutely hate massive group chats. Can’t tolerate stream chats, despise discord with a passion, avoid slack and team’s group chat like the plague. Most of my coworkers think the same, we call all of those the productivity theater. They exist to massage management egos into thinking they are providing value to a team by performing public assistance scenes to project a productivity that is not actually happening. Actual productivity occurs when fulfilling solo task or very tight group tasks of two or three people max. But management likes to see the monkeys dance.
There’s one guy at work who calls unprompted. If I don’t answer, he messages me asking to call him back.
I don’t call him back anymore. I can’t know if it’s going to be a 5-minute call or a 45-minute call so I assume the latter and I don’t have time for that
You can choose to answer the call or not, and the person calling should be okay with that. If they want you to call back they should tell what it’s about.
But getting mad at people for not asking to call as a blanket response is madness. (I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing, BTW.) Sometimes you can solve things with synchronous communication much faster than you could messaging.
I didn’t say I get mad that he calls without asking. My comment was about the “please call me back” - that message could have been the question. It’s the same as “hi”
I think straight calling someone on a chat program is rude because it unnecessarily breaks flow. I have to connect my Bluetooth headphones so I can hear you from the start, but that takes a couple seconds. If I’m not quick you’ll stop calling before I’m ready, and it happens frighteningly often that people don’t answer when calling back immediately, so you’ll break my flow a second time.
Usually, 15-30 seconds are enough for me to mentally “put away” whatever I’m working on, which allows me to quickly resume once we’re done. Often I write a comment describing what my last thoughts were. That can sometimes save a good 5 minutes or more.
At worst I’ll say “give me 5 minutes” or “if not important, does 14:30 work?”, but that’s because I’m deep in thought and it will take a long time to get back to where I am.
Just don’t pick up, finish your thoughts and call back. You are absolutely under no obligation to drop everything to pick it up immediately.
As I said, this regularly leads to breaking focus again a couple of minutes later.
Same as “don’t ask if you can ask a question, just ask directly”
I had never articulated this before, but this is good.
It’s a very common issue among programming/tech help communities.
Similarly, the XY problem: https://xyproblem.info/
The worst part of the XY problem is that it destroys searchability. If drag googles X and finds a thread where the gurus are answering Y, that’s great for the noob who asked the wrong question, and bad for everyone else. That noob didn’t need X, but someone else will probably need X sooner or later, and now the search results for X are full of Y.
Worse, if someone who needs X asks for X on stackoverflow, it could be closed as a duplicate, despite the fact that all the answers in the original thread are Y. Now it’s impossible to answer X.
I don’t think you quite understood the xy problem. A better way to explain the core concept is “don’t ask how to do your erroneous solution, ask how to solve your problem”, the corollary to this is “don’t just ask how to do something, explain why are you trying to do it or what you’re trying to accomplish with it”. This helps people to contextualize their answers when trying to help you. Remember that the problem is that the person is not asking for X because they don’t understand their problem in the first place. You’re right about stack overflow though, very useful info sometimes but incredibly toxic place most of the time.
I’m a member of a Discord server that’s primarily used for support, and this happens way too often. I’ve taken to just reacting with a wave emoji and waiting for them to actually ask for help. Most of the time they’ll just leave some time later, without ever asking a question.
This was my teams status for a couple years at my old job. I’ll probably end up doing the same at my new job once I’m here long enough for it not to come off as an “overly aggressive new guy” move.
This is how I learned about this site and one of my team has it as his status after I told him about it. Which is kinda annoying as it’s always there in group chats. I have taken to just ignore hi and wait till I get an actual question
Hi…
Hey there…
Hello…
So, ya have a movie for me?
I was delighted to see the “don’t be mad at the person who sent you here” link at the bottom was sent to a different and appropriate video in the Spanish version of the site. That’s great localization work.
Edit: it appears only Spanish and Swedish have unique videos
This is fair, though the reason we do it is to make sure the other person is okay enough to answer the question or talk about the thing first and if not we would want to help them out or take that into consideration.
Just asking the question feels rude or dismissive if they aren’t doing well.
…so do both?
“Hi, coworker! How’s your day? Anyway bossman is on me about the TPS reports, are those going to be done today?”
See? You were polite, checked in on them, AND got to the point all at once!
I’ll think about it. Thank you so much for the suggestion though!
Sounds like a them problem
I don’t really like seeing caring about others or folks feeling down as a ‘problem’.
I don’t think caring about other people is the problem. I think this particular manifestation is of dubious value, and in fact annoys enough people that someone made a website asking you to stop doing it.
Furthermore, if “Hey man what’s up? Do you remember if there’s lunch provided at this meeting?” is going to push them over the edge, then they’re so close to a breaking point already that anything is going to do it.
I think it’s condescending to assume people are so unwell that they can’t answer a text message without being mothered.
wow, okay…
Hello.
I am now mad at you. /s
Well by including the hi they have to provide a response rather than put it on hold for a few hours.
