No Hello: A New Wave

https://sbmueller.github.io/nohello/

by Exorust • 4 years ago

41 57 4 years ago

sbmueller.github.io

panki27• 4 years ago

So this is a direct copy of https://www.nohello.com/ ?

gryfft3• 4 years ago

It also includes some additional wording about modern phone etiquette.

neogodless• 4 years ago

https://github.com/sbmueller/nohello

This website was inspired by the original at nohello.com. Acknowledgements go to the original anonymous author. I felt an urge to modernize this gem with a more suitable layout, https connection and open-sourced code.

vultour• 4 years ago

But that's what https://nohello.net already is

sam_goody• 4 years ago

I would have closed nohello.com without reading.

I don't have time to wait for their fancy scroller at the top of the page before getting to the punch. A page with so many sections, you have to read it all to know what the point is.

The OP realizes that you should not waste time on a fancy hello, but get straight to the message.

;)

lunarplague• 4 years ago

I've seen these for years, and I've sent it to people who needed it, but as I get older and learn more emotional intelligence, I'm starting to consider the reality is some people just want to build relationships at work because of how terribly difficult it is to make friends as an adult.

Also, depending on your job, you may have to accept that some jobs require you to be malleable to having wrenches thrown into your flow state. It feels like people expect life to always have their boundaries in mind, but none of us are the main character here.

lupire2• 4 years ago

You can be sociable in chat without awkward asynchronous hellos. Just say your sociable message in the first line.

And you can throw a necessary wrench at someone without prefacing it with an unnecessary extra wrench. Bundle the two wrenches together.

gardenhedge3• 4 years ago

Pro tip - continue the casual conversation after the initial question. For a few reasons:

* If you do the social chat and then ask the question it really feels like you're buttering the person up and not being genuine.

* If you do the casual chat after, it allows the person responding more freedom of when to reply. E.g. they know the important work stuff is out of the way and now it can be a slower casual chat.

gyulai9• 4 years ago

I disagree. I start text chats with "hello" all the time.

It basically relates to channel choice. For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel.

So I start a convo with "hello" to probe if the other party is available for near-real-time text chat, because away-status indicators are frequently unreliable.

There are also special kinds of communication needs like if I need help with something and there are 3 people who could potentially help me out on something that's a blocker for me. I then just want to probe for the first person capable of unblocking me. The protocol is then something like: "me-to-person-a: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no respone. "me-to-person-b: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no response. "me-to-person-c: hello" wait for 5 minutes. all of a sudden person b has become available and replies "person-b-to-me: hello, what can i do for you?" ...now i start chatting with person b. meanwhile, 20 minutes after my initial prompt when I'm already well into my way, discussing my blocker with person b, person c comes online and says "hello". I respond "oh, never mind: person b is already helping me out". ...person a, as it happens, is fighting a production issue and not responding to me right now, knowing that i'm a newbie developer who likely has newbie questions. fair enough, he's entirely within his rights to ignore me.

If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person. Because now, I don't want to start wasting another person's time by "cross-posting" to a second 1-on-1 chat, as that is likely to duplicate work. In that case, to be polite, I'd have to at least wait a few hours, cross-post to a second person, and then say to the first person something like "oh, it seems like you're unavailable. actually never mind, I guess person-b might be able to help me out faster". ...this latter kind of communication is kind of awkward, and in any case inefficient.

gryfft3• 4 years ago

I think you're still missing the point that the question isn't about what kind of conversation the initiator is ready and willing to have, but rather about the information asymmetry and time/emotional costs imposed on the recipient. When you open a conversation with "Hello," *you* know generally what you want to have a conversation about and that this is a good time for you to have it. The recipient receives only the notification that you would like to talk about something and is left to imagine what that might be as you type, or wait for a reply to begin typing.

Beginning a text chat with "Hello, I have a few questions about xyz and was wondering if now would be a good time to talk?" is considerate of the other party's time and attention, and it does not cost you anything but seconds to provide this context up front.

Edit: you edited and lengthened your comment.

The protocol is then something like: "me-to-person-a: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no respone. "me-to-person-b: hello". wait for 5 minutes. no response. "me-to-person-c: hello"

I'm sorry, this is _insane_! That's 10 minutes to send out 3 words of communication, and the people who don't get back to you right away will now be getting back to you later to clarify, further worsening your signal to noise ratio! You could have spent 20 _seconds_ composing the first message with a one sentence synopsis. "Don't worry, no one is dead" or "The factory is on fire" are useful to know up front. You could copy and paste it to the next two people if they don't get back to you.

gyulai9• 4 years ago

...I really don't think there's "emotional cost" on the part of the recipient in entertaining a "hello", at least not in peer-to-peer scenarios.

Now, if you're someone's boss and hitting up a subordinate with whom there is known "bad blood" then I get the point about the "emotional cost" of a scenario where you write, close to the end of the business day, "hello", then your subordinate doesn't respond for 10 minutes. Then you go home, or get into a block of meetings that will make you unavailable to continue the convo for several hours.

But if you have that little emotional intelligence, you shouldn't be anyone's boss, and if a mere "hello" from your boss freaks you out, you should probably just quit then and there.

rglullis2• 4 years ago

If instead, I just open the convo with a drawn-out description of the issue i need help with, I'm kind of stuck after firing off a message to the first person.

Succinctly, your whole strategy is wrong. Instead of round-robin'ing your way around the people, you should be broadcasting your message to an appropriate channel set to the group of people that can respond to your query.

gyulai9• 4 years ago

Group chats have a problem with "diffusion of responsibility" [1], and sometimes you have reasons for not wanting to broadcast whatever it is you're about to say (e.g. you're in a toxic culture where your bosses will use the fact that you need help from others against you).

I wouldn't round-robin my way through 10 people, but with 3 people it kind of seems fine to me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

rgoulter4• 4 years ago

Also: Slack allows for both private group channels, and public group channels. - If you post in a public group channel, then others who may face the same problem (maybe months later) will be able to benefit from you asking the question.

padjo• 4 years ago

I’m guessing people seem to not answer you over IM a lot?

NikolaNovak• 4 years ago

I fully understand your predicament. If you type all of the problem to a person, and they don't respond, you don't know when to switch it to another.

I must confess though that by default I am very slow to respond to message that starts with hello. I just don't know if they have a 5s question or 2hr problem. So I don't respond until I can commit the upper bound of time. This will result sometimes in slow responses to quick questions - but over years I started to feel the asker should take some responsibility for their own success. A dangling Hello is just insufficient offer.

Perhaps a good compromise is "hey, can you help me troubleshoot this webserver log?" (30min ask) or "hey do you know who's on shift today" (5s ask) or "hey I need to create a new ops manual for payroll processing, when can we Get together" (4hr ask) . It's polite, not assumptive, still inquires on whether they can help in needed timeframe without committing them, but it provides receiver something to help them reply on their own terms.

gardenhedge3• 4 years ago

You're wasting so much time and annoying people by doing that. This whole nohello thing was made exactly for people like you.

grog454• 4 years ago

For some kinds of messages a near-real-time text chat is the right channel but async email-like flow would be entirely the wrong channel.

What's an example? I encounter maybe one situation per month where I'd consider asynchronous communication "wrong", despite having multiple synchronous meetings per day.

In the situations where it is wrong, no one (IME) pings anyone with "hello......", They schedule time on a calendar (asynchronously).

ndsipa_pomu• 4 years ago

I've got a similar issue with people emailing IT to ask if they should raise a ticket - just raise the ticket and if it's the wrong place to ask a question then you'll get a response telling you that. Instead we get email question->response: raise a ticket->ticket raised->actual response to question

It's especially annoying as our ticket system can just be emailed, so the original email question could just include the ticket system as well which would enable us to answer it and not waste attention and time for both us and them.

mkl952• 4 years ago

I follow a simple rule.

If I'm looking for a written conversation, I say hello followed by whatever I want to say next in the same message.

If I want to call someone, I say hello and ask them if they are available in the same message.

I avoid situations in between because they are usually highly entropic and confusing. And sending a single message works, so there's no need to fix it.

lupire2• 4 years ago

You can do better. "hello, are you available?" creates false urgency and stress.

Use "Hello, not urgent, please ping me when your are a available for a live chat. I have a complicated question about $topic."

mkl952• 4 years ago

Thanks, I will be applying that.

mfrw• 4 years ago

I do start with a Hello, followed by whatever I have to say in the same message. In addition I also annotate with an `<async>`/`<urgent>` at the end as appropriate.

It has seemed to work for me.

jameschensmith• 4 years ago

I tend to share https://nohello.net/. It may be newer, but it's also open source, is available in multiple languages, emphasizes asynchronous communication [1][2], and uses _The Office_ as its setting which makes sharing it a bit more lighthearted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_communication#Ele...

[2] https://async.twist.com/asynchronous-communication/

bambataa• 4 years ago

I’ve seen colleagues share this or link to it in their Slack status. It feels a bit… odd to me.

Yeah it’s maybe a bit annoying when people do this, but does it really need a whole campaign website? Not everyone is going to communicate in exactly the way you like.

jim-jim-jim• 4 years ago

It's needlessly prickly and reinforces the Comic Book Guy image that normal people have of programmers.

lo_zamoyski• 4 years ago

Yeah, it is suggestive of "first-world problems" and a bizarrely rigid personality (and a lack of a sense of humor). (According to the "About" page, the author is "specialized in software engineering and digital signal processing". Perhaps a case of déformation professionnelle?)

rgoulter4• 4 years ago

Not everyone is going to communicate in exactly the way you like.

Sure, but do you put these differences down to individuality, or to culture?

If someone messages "hello", is this just social, is it that the person is blocked and cannot do anything, or is it a request for help where the person will probably be able to solve the problem (but would be quicker with help)?

Mismatches in cultural expectations lead to friction/conflict. I think it's generally going to be better to be aware of what the different expectations are.

gardenhedge3• 4 years ago

My coworkers have it down to a tee (the wrong way that is):

Co-worker: hello

Me: Hi, what's up?

Co-worker: got 5 mins?

Me: Sure

Co-worker: rings me to ask a question that could have been a single chat message

In isolation, this would be fine but this can happen multiple times a day.

JackFr• 4 years ago

I used to be infuriated with colleagues who felt the need to preface questions with “Question…” and then ask the question. Just ask the damned question. I should be able to figure out that it’s a question.

Now I am more patient.

jcelerier• 4 years ago

It's not about the question, it's about the interaction. I scream internally everytime I get messages without "hello" on a new day, to me this is so rude

michaelsalim• 4 years ago

I had a similar experience with one coworker that almost drove me nuts

Co-worker: Hello

Me: Hey, what's up?

Co-worker: Do you have a minute?

Me: Sure

Co-worker: Can I ask you a question?

Me: Yeah, what is it?

Co-worker: Actually, it's a bit hard to explain, can we can on a call?

Me: (screaming internally)

jkukul• 4 years ago

I'm always annoyed by "hello" messages. I once got to a point where I almost started creating a Slack bot that automatically replies with a "Hello" to such hello messages. In the end I never got to implement it but I still think that it is the right way to make the problem go away.

For now, I just settled on being more patient and stoic about the "Hello" kind of people and to lead by example and not do it myself.

newbieuser• 4 years ago

people who are obsessed with this subject usually have poor communication skills.

mberning2• 4 years ago

Usually the biggest office asshole and last person you want to talk to for anything. The living embodiment of Nick Burns.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=25J3u3P-HHg

jbergstroem• 4 years ago

When these types of conversations come up, I prefer the phrase “optimize for the receiver” - thinking on how to best be understood versus what is easiest/most convenient for the sender (in the hello case: requiring someone’s attention).

LAC-Tech• 4 years ago

This seems to stress a lot of people out. But doesn't stress me out at all. After a bit of thought, I think it's because I turn off notifications for all slack/email type stuff at work. Instead I just habitually check them. If someone really urgently needs me, I'm sure they'll call.

mberning2• 4 years ago

Imagine being this triggered because somebody opened their conversation with “Hello”. In my experience not many people will simply leave it at “Hello” for more than a few minutes. At which point you can respond to their question. And if they never provide more details then the problem solved itself.

prepend• 4 years ago

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone just wrote letters?

I suspect the author is annoyed when the cashier says “hello, how are you?” before they start ringing them up.

This is just culture. Being upset about it is an inefficient waste of energy.

I think people frequently say hello to ease people into their request. To note that we’re all human and more than just doing jobs. Also to prove and see if you’re there and available for an interruption. If you don’t respond to “hello,” then perhaps instead of messaging they will call or email or wait.

If they wanted async, they would just email.

jemmyw• 4 years ago

I used to do the nohello thing but since seeing this popup a few years ago I switched back to hello to be annoying. I've got an instinctive reaction whenever I'm told what to do to try doing the opposite.

No Hello: A New Wave

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