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Question

I am a huge proponent of nohello in the workplace - I get way too many Slack messages and other interrupts to waste time on pointless pleasantries. I keep my Slack status set to "nohello.com" as a way to remind my coworkers of this, and generally don't respond to Slack messages unless they contain something I can respond to. Most of my coworkers are fine with this, and many do the same.

However, I have one coworker who doesn't seem to notice or care. Her messages to me always look like this:

Her: Good morning!

Her: How are you?

Then silence until I answer her and engage in pleasantries for a few minutes, after which she'll finally get to the point. This can occupy several minutes or more as I answer her, go back to what I was doing while waiting for her to respond, then get interrupted again when she responds a few minutes later with another pleasantry, etc. I've tried ignoring her until she asks an actual question, but she'll just wait (possibly assuming I'm busy/afk?), meaning her question doesn't get answered.

How can I politely inform her that I need her to get to the point immediately and not waste my time on pleasantries? Ignoring her means her question doesn't get answered because she won't ask it until I respond to her pleasantries, and also means I am constantly low-level aware of her hanging ping, which makes it hard to concentrate on my work. But if I don't ignore her, I waste a bunch of time engaging in meaningless "hi, how are you, how was your weekend, what are you up to?" back-and-forth in Slack that constantly interrupts my flow. This also encourages her to continue opening with pleasantries, further interrupting my flow later.

Just saying "hey stop with the pleasantries and get to the point" is likely to come across as rude to her. Her job is focused around people management and contractor interfacing, and I suspect some of the disconnect comes from the fact that her job normally requires her to be extra-pleasant and friendly, while mine is all about speed and getting to the point.

What is a polite way to make clear to a coworker that I will not respond to empty pleasantries in Slack, and she needs to ask her question up front before I will respond?

Does, "Hi co-worker. What can I do for you?" not work? It usually does the trick for me. — 20 hours ago
"I've tried ignoring her until she asks an actual question, but she'll just wait" - I don't really see the problem here (except for the fact that some will consider it rude). Why do you care whether or not her question gets answered? She hasn't asked you the question yet, it's not your responsibility to answer what you don't know. — 20 hours ago
@GOATNine I don't think that is always the case. That is simply a communication style that differs from the OP's communication style. — 20 hours ago
Related / duplicate on IPS: How do I convince someone formalities between internet friends aren't necessary over a casual, informal text chat? — 20 hours ago
@AdamN why is that an optimisation over just writing the question? — 53 mins ago

score 120 · Answer 1 · 2018-09-13 01:02:13Z

Respond politely by asking them what they need from you.

Your co-worker likes to begin conversations with small talk, which is a style of communication that some people prefer. They find it necessary or comfortable to engage in warmup dialogue before stating their intent. These preferences are developed over time and are hard to unlearn. So let's assume that permanently changing your co-worker's communication habits is not a feasible option.

If you respond to her small talk with your own small talk ("How was your weekend?" "It was nice, how was yours?") then you're prolonging the conversation and delaying the point.

Avoid saying "get to the point" or telling the co-worker to stop the pleasantries. That would likely be seen as rude, and could sour your professional relationship with your colleagues.

Instead, here is what you do: Respond politely, and immediately follow up by asking them what they need, because they probably need something from you. If communication involves a messaging service (like Slack) then you may want to combine them into a single message.

For example:

Her: Good morning! How was your weekend?

You: Hi, I had a nice weekend, thanks for asking. How can I help you?

Minimize your own small talk, and prompt your co-worker with a direct question, so that her next response should get to the point.

I am going to use this! Hi, I had a nice weekend, thanks for asking. How can I help you? — 20 hours ago
@AzorAhai "The weekend is only a distant memory, but thanks for asking. How can I help you?" — 13 hours ago
Or respond a bit less politely: "Is this message going to be about work eventually, or are you just wasting my time as well as yours?" — 13 hours ago
@alephzero, the primary point of this thoughtful answer is to respond politely. No one wants to waste anyone's time and the OP's coworker would likely be mortified if they were accused of wasting time for nothing. They're trying to be kind, and there is no faster way to make enemies than to return kindness with a brusque response. — 12 hours ago

Kevin 6741513 · Answer 2 · 2018-09-12 17:21:42Z

It's important to remember that other people can't read your mind. It's perfectly fine to have ways you prefer to do things, but you need to let people know what your preferences are before you expect them to respect your preferences.

Along these lines, ignoring your coworker's pleasantries in the hope that she'll jump into her question for you isn't going to work. By ignoring her, you're not giving her any indication why you're not responding. It could be that you're busy with something else, away from the keyboard, or just being rude. She's not going to guess that it's because she broke an unwritten rule you haven't communicated to her.

(You have put a link to nohello.com in your Slack status, but that's an ineffective way of communicating something you really want people to notice. I know that I never pay attention to Slack statuses myself. The only thing I want to know is whether someone is available or not, and Slack reports that automatically.)

What you need to do is tell your coworker what your expecations are. I suggest going along with her pleasantries the next time she reaches out to you. Then, after she gets to her question and you finish helping her out, you can end the conversation by asking her not to spend so much time saying hello the next time she talks with you. Be very polite and pleasant when you do so - you haven't communicated this to her before, so she hasn't yet done anything wrong.

If she continues to try to say hello before getting into the point, you can be a little bit more direct. Don't be rude, but you can respond to her saying "hello" with, "Hi! Do you have a question? Like I said last time, I appreciate it when we start conversations by getting to the point - I think it saves us both time :)"

In the grand scheme of things, spending 5 minutes going back and forth chatting with a coworker is not the worst thing that will happen to you. It's fine for you to prefer a more direct style of communication and to ask others to communicate with you that way. But at the end of the day, you have to choose your battles. Do stand up for your preferences, but keep in mind that this isn't something worth being confrontational or rude about.

Yeah, I agree that this feels like a silly thing to be upset about. :) But at the same time, conversations with her are exactly like those described on nohello.com, taking upwards of 10-15 minutes to get to the point and repeatedly interrupting me and disrupting my focus. If she just asked up front, I could answer her question immediately and save us both quite a bit of time and frustration. — 19 hours ago
Yep! I think it's reasonable for you to want to cut that time down. That's why I think you should talk to her about it, telling her how you'd appreciate the conversations going in the future, the next time you chat with her. — 19 hours ago
"Hi! Do you have a question? Like I said last time, I appreciate it when we start conversations by getting to the point - I think it saves us both time :)" - For this I would answer "You just wasted much more time with your comment than me with my half-second hello" and deliberately continuing to say hello every time I call. Because I find it rude to order me around this way, no matter how "politely" it is formulated. So it's not always about not reading the OP's mind or recognizing the status. — 9 hours ago
A response to "you wasted more time typing that" could be "but typing this one phrase is less time consuming that doing smalltalk over the next minutes" ;-) I read the question as if it's not only this one hello that upsets her. One shouldn't forget that forcing the OP into this smalltalk every time is ordering around as well. I'd add something like "could we please come to the point right now because I am into some thoughts on my work and get distracted by new messages" to make clear what my problem is. If possible point out that the colleague is wasting time too. — 7 hours ago
@puck : a simple "hi, what can I do for you?" would be stopping the smalltalk and continuing the flow of conversation much more efficiently than acting offended by the other one daring to start with a short greeting. Remember, the other party didn't yet start a smalltalk at all, it was just a simple greeting. Would she start a smalltalk, then it might be more appropriate to rebuff her. — 6 hours ago

Sopuli 25214 · Answer 3 · 2018-09-12 23:12:57Z

I work for a small/medium sized company. When we grew from just being one office, where almost everything could be discussed face to face, into a notch larger one, having offices on multiple time zones and countries, this issue was brought up.

In one company wide event, where everyone was present, we discussed ways of how to improve communications and we agreed on few things:

Go straight to the point when using online collaboration tools, no hellos

You are allowed to ignore chat/email/calls if you are busy

You need to be available on certain times, to prevent you from becoming the bottleneck

You can put a "do not disturb" note on your desk to notify others that they should avoid disturbing you or having a random chat nearby your desk/room

And I think the key point was to have this discussion without pointing any fingers. It was done in a neutral and constructive manner and without naming or shaming.

We didn't enforce any of these things, they were more of a soft guidelines, but they worked quite nicely. Now, after couple of years since we agreed on these rules, they have become a bit forgotten so it might be a good time to bring this topic up again.

WoJ 2,015811 · Answer 4 · 2018-09-13 09:35:20Z

In the companies I work or worked in, the initial "hello" was less of a chit-chat and more of a way to poke someone and check whether they can freely read the IM.

The idea being that if someone does not respond to the initial "hello", it means that it may not be the best moment to send them something which they may not want to see displayed (presenting, someone is watching the screen, etc.)

You may consider this in your "nohello" approach, and take into account that aspect of the "hello" too.

Even this situation would be more effectively handled with "Hi, can I send you something sensitive?" which immediately makes it clear what's going on. When it comes to a presentation, you don't want to see a "Hi" pop up either, so both sentences are equally annoying (and you should really mute chat when presenting). — 1 hour ago
@Erik: from experience, it all depends on the culture. Where I work now a "Hi" is a test on whether the discussion can continue. Presenting is one example, having someone looking at your screen is another one and not everyone want to juggle with switching the IM on and off. — 18 mins ago

Shadow 29526 · Answer 5 · 2018-09-13 02:09:49Z

One way I used to get around this was to set an away message.

In some chat clients, you can use a setting or plugin to automatically reply when a new conversation starts. So if you set this message to something generic like "Hi, how can I help?" you don't have to write it yourself.

This does have the potential to not make much sense if they either jump straight to the question or say something that doesn't quite flow with this response, but if this cooworker is predictable enough then it's an option.

An alternate way I have dealt with it is to reply to their greeting, and immediately close the window.

It'll pop back up again when the person has an actual question, and given that it takes less than a second to do (HiEnterAlt+F4) you haven't really lost any time. They get their greeting, and maybe afterwards you could hint that they could merge the greeting and the question if you get a chance to. In my experience they will ignore you though...

Kittoes0124 1492 · Answer 6 · 2018-09-12 23:13:32Z

up vote
4
down vote

The other answers in here are fantastic but I still wanted to add another option, just reply back with a simple acknowledgement:

Hi.

Yo.

Hey.

Oiy.

What's up?

Your coworker clearly prefers to communicate using a chatty protocol by default but I've found that most humans don't mind switching to less chatty ones when prompted to do so. It definitely helps to sprinkle in some pleasantries, at least every now and then, to appear approachable.

answered 14 hours ago

Kittoes0124

1492

New contributor

1

OPÃ¢Â€Â™s main complaint isnÃ¢Â€Â™t the chattiness per se, itÃ¢Â€Â™s the interruption and pause implied by the greeting preceding the question. They need to context-switch away from what theyÃ¢Â€Â™re currently doing in order to go to the chat, and (in their opinion) waste time waiting for the real question to arrive. Your answer is probably what OP is already doing at the moment, and doesnÃ¢Â€Â™t solve their problem.
â€“Â Konrad Rudolph
4 hours ago

Except that the OP explicitly stated that the strategy they've been using is to just leave the other individual hanging. Being silent clearly won't ever solve the problem because the other individual is likely following a protocol where they don't waste time describing their issue unless they know someone else is at the other end listening. Giving a terse acknowledgment might not immediately solve the problem of being interrupted but will likely prompt his assailant to get to the point.
â€“Â Kittoes0124
14 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

Keith Loughnane 1652 · Answer 7 · 2018-09-13 06:43:15Z

Get a ticket system. You seem to be annoyed that people are using a chat system for chatting and you would like them to use it for sending you tasks. I think its unreasonable for you to expect 1) people to just change their nature like that 2) expect people to use a system that encourages chatting and informal communication in a way it wasn't really intended without a (real) explanation. You can't just dictate how people behave like that and frankly if you go on like this I think it will hurt your career.

What you're really looking for is a ticket system where people can put in tasks, you can prioritize and do them when you see fit with out the chit chat but I would still recommend using slack in scheduled blocks throughout the day to answer peoples questions.

not sure why this got a downvote, it's a perfectly reasonable answer — 3 hours ago
Because a ticketing system isn't an alternative for asking a question over a chat system. — 1 hour ago
@AaronF i don't think OP can just "get" and make someone else use a ticket system. those things cost money, and a good, rational argument for a ticket system definitely isn't "because i don't like small talk" — 50 mins ago

score 4 · Answer 8 · 2018-09-13 09:15:21Z

Use Slack's auto-reply feature

You mention that you are using Slack. I've never used it, but it seems to have a feature called Slackbot which you can configure to automatically ignore the "hello"s while still being polite.

_{Setup and use auto-reply on Slack

To get started, open the group on Slack. Next, click the group name and select Customize Slack. It will open the Customize Your Workspace page. By default, it will open Emoji tab. You need to switch to Slackbot tab.

Here you can setup keyword-based auto-reply. For example, you can send a particular text, when someone says Ã¢Â€ÂœHiÃ¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœHelloÃ¢Â€Â (...)}

_{_{Emphasis mine. Source: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/set-up-and-use-auto-reply-on-slack}}

So just configure an auto-reply for messages containing "Hello", "Hi", "Good morning" etc. and have the Slackbot reply with something simple that hints for them to go straight to the point:

Hello there! How can I help you?

Or, if you want to be more explicit:

Hello there! I recently started following the "nohello" rule for Slack conversations, I hope you find it as useful as I do :) How can I help you?

That way you don't have to waste your time replying to the "hi"s and "howdy"s, and hopefully the first message you see will be the actual question.

Even if this kind of configuration falls short of your needs, there probably exists some kind of plugin that fits the bill.

WouldnÃ¢Â€Â™t this kick in when someone starts the conversation with the message proposed by nohello.com? Hi -- I'm working on [something] and I'm trying to do [etc...] — 4 hours ago
@Melebius As I said, I'm not a Slack user, so I'm not sure how finely grained Slackbot's configuration is... but I wouldn't be surprised if you could tell it to only auto-reply to messages that contain nothing else but the configured words. Even if that kind of configuration wasn't as simple, I think letting Slack take care of this for you (via Slackbot or some other plugin) is an option worth exploring. — 4 hours ago
Slackbot is a server wide bot and cannot be set up for individual use so having it setup for individual users when they say "Hi" probably isn't a good idea.. Having said that, I had Slackbot respond to "doesn't work" with a link to How to Ask which was pretty successful but I wouldn't want to have it respond when someone is just trying to greet a person. — 1 hour ago

Shadow 29526 · Answer 9 · 2018-09-13 06:49:07Z

It doesn't help to ask them "what's your question/can i help you?", because there is still some time lost from typing that, and even more from waiting for the other person to type out the question (if they have chosen to stop the pleasantries).

The better way is to assume that the other person(s) will never change and to find a balance between what is comfortable for you and the other person. In this case it's two fold:

Always be the role model and type out your hello+pleasantry+question/information in the first block (I don't see a problem in adding a pleasantry if it's all in that first block)

Don't check your slack. Disable the text popups if you have to stop it from distracting you (but still keep the number notifications to know if there are any). Then respond after finishing off your task are after 15-20 mins from the first occurrence of messaging.

Number (2) will have one of two results: either you will have more comfortable working conditions (indefinitely), or someone will complain about your slow responses, in which case you reply that you don't like getting distracted at work (AVOID DETAILS), however you might respond quickly if you see something that is important to respond to.

I believe this solution will get you to where you want, keeping in mind that you can't change people, but you can make your life more comfortable (without offending anyone).

JakeGould 6,6001739 · Answer 10 · 2018-09-13 11:50:56Z

If someone simply saying Ã¢Â€ÂœHello!Ã¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœGood morning!Ã¢Â€Â to you in chat is so upsetting, that is a symptom of another problem and itÃ¢Â€Â™s not your need to Ã¢Â€ÂœtrainÃ¢Â€Â someone to never say Ã¢Â€ÂœHello!Ã¢Â€Â or some similar pleasantry.

Lots of other answers here, but let me focus on this one thing and expand on an earlier comment I made:

Ã¢Â€ÂœHow can I politely inform her that I need her to get to the point immediately and not waste my time on pleasantries?Ã¢Â€Â

Do you get paid by the hour? By speed of response? Is the speed of your response connected to your salary?

At the end of the day I am reading you saying this, linking to that ridiculously overwrought Ã¢Â€ÂœNo hello.Ã¢Â€Â site and have to think: You utterly cannot be frustrated at a simple, basic and universally expected human pleasantry?

In my mindÃ¢Â€Â”as someone who codes and works in techÃ¢Â€Â”there are too many ways of avoiding human contact out there and too many nonsense excuses for not saying Ã¢Â€ÂœHello!Ã¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœHow are you!Ã¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœHey! You busy?Ã¢Â€Â

I am not a robot or a piece of machinery. If someone just sends me an chat message saying, Ã¢Â€ÂœI need your help.Ã¢Â€Â without a basic intro text, either the sky needs to be falling or that person is Chicken Little (aka: Henny Penny). And in the world of faceless communicationÃ¢Â€Â”like chatÃ¢Â€Â”that will only wear me down more and make me more bitter.

That saidÃ¢Â€Â”and looping back to the beginningÃ¢Â€Â”I sense something else might be an issue and the solution to that is not something anyone here can recommend. Perhaps your organization needs a ticketing system of some sort. Perhaps you need to walk over to talk to someone instead of being in chat because sometimes people in cubicles right next to each other avoid doing that. Perhaps itÃ¢Â€Â™s something else.

But at the end of the day, if I were told I need to adhere to some Ã¢Â€ÂœNo hello.Ã¢Â€Â policy, my response would be to invoke my Ã¢Â€ÂœGoodbye!Ã¢Â€Â policy and walk out the door.

Nice answer. I often wonder if some of these questions on Workplace and IPS are created by artificial intelligences that are trying to understand human behaviour. "Hello, how are you?". "SYNTAX ERROR DOES NOT COMPUTE!" — 1 hour ago
Yes, yes I absolutely can be that frustrated by human pleasantries. When I'm writing code or working hard and someone says "Hi, Can I ask a question?" in the office chat, I'd really rather they just asked the damn question. It's something of an axiom in software development that it takes approximately 15 - 30 minutes to refocus on work once you've been pulled out of it for a conversation, I don't know how important the conversation will be. I have to jump through hoops to find that out. Ultimately if it's not something I can spare the time to answer properly then it's a waste of time. — 1 hour ago
[cont] By asking the question upfront, I can either opt to drop everything and answer it, or say "sorry I'm a bit busy now" and be done before I lose my place in my current task. But going through pleasantries essentially forces the first option and guarantees 15 - 30 minutes of my time is spent regardless of whether the question can be answered right now — 1 hour ago
It's not merely "back to work" but finding your place, picking up all the threads of what you were doing and getting back up to speed. Context-switching is killer on productivity. The point I was driving at is that "hello" doesn't give me any sense of how vital a response is. If they're going to ask something priority enough for me to drop what I'm doing I need them to tell me up-front, not hold my attention hostage. This isn't about "hello" being rude or not, this is about working in a profession where deadlines and project-management rely on me spending my time well. — 13 mins ago
@Ruadhan2300 I deleted my comments. The reality is you are rude and anti-social if you are behaving like this in these comments and with co-workers. Ultimately you work with humans on a team and if that team is not working for you, you need to find a new team. In general, I am happy I am not working with you and people like you. — 6 mins ago

Ruadhan2300 2312 · Answer 11 · 2018-09-13 11:59:13Z

One common option I've seen in companies I've worked in was to have multiple Slack Channels, one for work, one for general chat.

You can then enforce a strict nohello policy on the work channel on the understanding that the general-chat channel may not receive priority response.

This can be explained in the header for the channel as a rule, and therefore not be considered rudeness.

You can enforce it with a slackbot scanning for keywords and short messages as other Answers here have suggested.

Willtech 1012 · Answer 12 · 2018-09-13 11:49:03Z

It is not impolite to simply answer as follows, even a canned response: I appreciate your pleasantries, however, as I am almost forever extraordinarily busy I would appreciate it if in future we could get directly to the point without any of that. You may notice that my status is nohello.com which has some explanatory notes.

Of course, depending on all circumstances, it may be that your co-worker is pleasantly interested to know you.

Sean Houlihane 36717 · Answer 13 · 2018-09-13 11:53:00Z

It's not entirely clear in your question if this greeting is part of the preamble to a question, or a default reaction which blocks questions.

Assuming it is the former, it suggests that your opposite number isn't really adjusted to the asynchronous nature of IM. You can possibly improve this by injecting more afk time within a 'conversation' than you would normally.

As a way of responding to an 'are you there' ping, you can also consider a more neutral response, along the lines of :), ... or ? - these might be too abrupt to throw in 100% but are worth considering as a way of replying without consuming too much effort. You shouldn't feel that replying like this, then going afk is a bad thing.

score 120 · Answer 14 · 2018-09-13 01:02:13Z

Respond politely by asking them what they need from you.

Your co-worker likes to begin conversations with small talk, which is a style of communication that some people prefer. They find it necessary or comfortable to engage in warmup dialogue before stating their intent. These preferences are developed over time and are hard to unlearn. So let's assume that permanently changing your co-worker's communication habits is not a feasible option.

If you respond to her small talk with your own small talk ("How was your weekend?" "It was nice, how was yours?") then you're prolonging the conversation and delaying the point.

Avoid saying "get to the point" or telling the co-worker to stop the pleasantries. That would likely be seen as rude, and could sour your professional relationship with your colleagues.

Instead, here is what you do: Respond politely, and immediately follow up by asking them what they need, because they probably need something from you. If communication involves a messaging service (like Slack) then you may want to combine them into a single message.

For example:

Her: Good morning! How was your weekend?

You: Hi, I had a nice weekend, thanks for asking. How can I help you?

Minimize your own small talk, and prompt your co-worker with a direct question, so that her next response should get to the point.

I am going to use this! Hi, I had a nice weekend, thanks for asking. How can I help you? — 20 hours ago
@AzorAhai "The weekend is only a distant memory, but thanks for asking. How can I help you?" — 13 hours ago
Or respond a bit less politely: "Is this message going to be about work eventually, or are you just wasting my time as well as yours?" — 13 hours ago
@alephzero, the primary point of this thoughtful answer is to respond politely. No one wants to waste anyone's time and the OP's coworker would likely be mortified if they were accused of wasting time for nothing. They're trying to be kind, and there is no faster way to make enemies than to return kindness with a brusque response. — 12 hours ago

Kevin 6741513 · Answer 15 · 2018-09-12 17:21:42Z

It's important to remember that other people can't read your mind. It's perfectly fine to have ways you prefer to do things, but you need to let people know what your preferences are before you expect them to respect your preferences.

Along these lines, ignoring your coworker's pleasantries in the hope that she'll jump into her question for you isn't going to work. By ignoring her, you're not giving her any indication why you're not responding. It could be that you're busy with something else, away from the keyboard, or just being rude. She's not going to guess that it's because she broke an unwritten rule you haven't communicated to her.

(You have put a link to nohello.com in your Slack status, but that's an ineffective way of communicating something you really want people to notice. I know that I never pay attention to Slack statuses myself. The only thing I want to know is whether someone is available or not, and Slack reports that automatically.)

What you need to do is tell your coworker what your expecations are. I suggest going along with her pleasantries the next time she reaches out to you. Then, after she gets to her question and you finish helping her out, you can end the conversation by asking her not to spend so much time saying hello the next time she talks with you. Be very polite and pleasant when you do so - you haven't communicated this to her before, so she hasn't yet done anything wrong.

If she continues to try to say hello before getting into the point, you can be a little bit more direct. Don't be rude, but you can respond to her saying "hello" with, "Hi! Do you have a question? Like I said last time, I appreciate it when we start conversations by getting to the point - I think it saves us both time :)"

In the grand scheme of things, spending 5 minutes going back and forth chatting with a coworker is not the worst thing that will happen to you. It's fine for you to prefer a more direct style of communication and to ask others to communicate with you that way. But at the end of the day, you have to choose your battles. Do stand up for your preferences, but keep in mind that this isn't something worth being confrontational or rude about.

Yeah, I agree that this feels like a silly thing to be upset about. :) But at the same time, conversations with her are exactly like those described on nohello.com, taking upwards of 10-15 minutes to get to the point and repeatedly interrupting me and disrupting my focus. If she just asked up front, I could answer her question immediately and save us both quite a bit of time and frustration. — 19 hours ago
Yep! I think it's reasonable for you to want to cut that time down. That's why I think you should talk to her about it, telling her how you'd appreciate the conversations going in the future, the next time you chat with her. — 19 hours ago
"Hi! Do you have a question? Like I said last time, I appreciate it when we start conversations by getting to the point - I think it saves us both time :)" - For this I would answer "You just wasted much more time with your comment than me with my half-second hello" and deliberately continuing to say hello every time I call. Because I find it rude to order me around this way, no matter how "politely" it is formulated. So it's not always about not reading the OP's mind or recognizing the status. — 9 hours ago
A response to "you wasted more time typing that" could be "but typing this one phrase is less time consuming that doing smalltalk over the next minutes" ;-) I read the question as if it's not only this one hello that upsets her. One shouldn't forget that forcing the OP into this smalltalk every time is ordering around as well. I'd add something like "could we please come to the point right now because I am into some thoughts on my work and get distracted by new messages" to make clear what my problem is. If possible point out that the colleague is wasting time too. — 7 hours ago
@puck : a simple "hi, what can I do for you?" would be stopping the smalltalk and continuing the flow of conversation much more efficiently than acting offended by the other one daring to start with a short greeting. Remember, the other party didn't yet start a smalltalk at all, it was just a simple greeting. Would she start a smalltalk, then it might be more appropriate to rebuff her. — 6 hours ago

Sopuli 25214 · Answer 16 · 2018-09-12 23:12:57Z

I work for a small/medium sized company. When we grew from just being one office, where almost everything could be discussed face to face, into a notch larger one, having offices on multiple time zones and countries, this issue was brought up.

In one company wide event, where everyone was present, we discussed ways of how to improve communications and we agreed on few things:

Go straight to the point when using online collaboration tools, no hellos

You are allowed to ignore chat/email/calls if you are busy

You need to be available on certain times, to prevent you from becoming the bottleneck

You can put a "do not disturb" note on your desk to notify others that they should avoid disturbing you or having a random chat nearby your desk/room

And I think the key point was to have this discussion without pointing any fingers. It was done in a neutral and constructive manner and without naming or shaming.

We didn't enforce any of these things, they were more of a soft guidelines, but they worked quite nicely. Now, after couple of years since we agreed on these rules, they have become a bit forgotten so it might be a good time to bring this topic up again.

WoJ 2,015811 · Answer 17 · 2018-09-13 09:35:20Z

In the companies I work or worked in, the initial "hello" was less of a chit-chat and more of a way to poke someone and check whether they can freely read the IM.

The idea being that if someone does not respond to the initial "hello", it means that it may not be the best moment to send them something which they may not want to see displayed (presenting, someone is watching the screen, etc.)

You may consider this in your "nohello" approach, and take into account that aspect of the "hello" too.

Even this situation would be more effectively handled with "Hi, can I send you something sensitive?" which immediately makes it clear what's going on. When it comes to a presentation, you don't want to see a "Hi" pop up either, so both sentences are equally annoying (and you should really mute chat when presenting). — 1 hour ago
@Erik: from experience, it all depends on the culture. Where I work now a "Hi" is a test on whether the discussion can continue. Presenting is one example, having someone looking at your screen is another one and not everyone want to juggle with switching the IM on and off. — 18 mins ago

Shadow 29526 · Answer 18 · 2018-09-13 02:09:49Z

One way I used to get around this was to set an away message.

In some chat clients, you can use a setting or plugin to automatically reply when a new conversation starts. So if you set this message to something generic like "Hi, how can I help?" you don't have to write it yourself.

This does have the potential to not make much sense if they either jump straight to the question or say something that doesn't quite flow with this response, but if this cooworker is predictable enough then it's an option.

An alternate way I have dealt with it is to reply to their greeting, and immediately close the window.

It'll pop back up again when the person has an actual question, and given that it takes less than a second to do (HiEnterAlt+F4) you haven't really lost any time. They get their greeting, and maybe afterwards you could hint that they could merge the greeting and the question if you get a chance to. In my experience they will ignore you though...

Kittoes0124 1492 · Answer 19 · 2018-09-12 23:13:32Z

up vote
4
down vote

The other answers in here are fantastic but I still wanted to add another option, just reply back with a simple acknowledgement:

Hi.

Yo.

Hey.

Oiy.

What's up?

Your coworker clearly prefers to communicate using a chatty protocol by default but I've found that most humans don't mind switching to less chatty ones when prompted to do so. It definitely helps to sprinkle in some pleasantries, at least every now and then, to appear approachable.

answered 14 hours ago

Kittoes0124

1492

New contributor

1

OPÃ¢Â€Â™s main complaint isnÃ¢Â€Â™t the chattiness per se, itÃ¢Â€Â™s the interruption and pause implied by the greeting preceding the question. They need to context-switch away from what theyÃ¢Â€Â™re currently doing in order to go to the chat, and (in their opinion) waste time waiting for the real question to arrive. Your answer is probably what OP is already doing at the moment, and doesnÃ¢Â€Â™t solve their problem.
â€“Â Konrad Rudolph
4 hours ago

Except that the OP explicitly stated that the strategy they've been using is to just leave the other individual hanging. Being silent clearly won't ever solve the problem because the other individual is likely following a protocol where they don't waste time describing their issue unless they know someone else is at the other end listening. Giving a terse acknowledgment might not immediately solve the problem of being interrupted but will likely prompt his assailant to get to the point.
â€“Â Kittoes0124
14 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

Keith Loughnane 1652 · Answer 20 · 2018-09-13 06:43:15Z

Get a ticket system. You seem to be annoyed that people are using a chat system for chatting and you would like them to use it for sending you tasks. I think its unreasonable for you to expect 1) people to just change their nature like that 2) expect people to use a system that encourages chatting and informal communication in a way it wasn't really intended without a (real) explanation. You can't just dictate how people behave like that and frankly if you go on like this I think it will hurt your career.

What you're really looking for is a ticket system where people can put in tasks, you can prioritize and do them when you see fit with out the chit chat but I would still recommend using slack in scheduled blocks throughout the day to answer peoples questions.

not sure why this got a downvote, it's a perfectly reasonable answer — 3 hours ago
Because a ticketing system isn't an alternative for asking a question over a chat system. — 1 hour ago
@AaronF i don't think OP can just "get" and make someone else use a ticket system. those things cost money, and a good, rational argument for a ticket system definitely isn't "because i don't like small talk" — 50 mins ago

score 4 · Answer 21 · 2018-09-13 09:15:21Z

Use Slack's auto-reply feature

You mention that you are using Slack. I've never used it, but it seems to have a feature called Slackbot which you can configure to automatically ignore the "hello"s while still being polite.

_{Setup and use auto-reply on Slack

To get started, open the group on Slack. Next, click the group name and select Customize Slack. It will open the Customize Your Workspace page. By default, it will open Emoji tab. You need to switch to Slackbot tab.

Here you can setup keyword-based auto-reply. For example, you can send a particular text, when someone says Ã¢Â€ÂœHiÃ¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœHelloÃ¢Â€Â (...)}

_{_{Emphasis mine. Source: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/set-up-and-use-auto-reply-on-slack}}

So just configure an auto-reply for messages containing "Hello", "Hi", "Good morning" etc. and have the Slackbot reply with something simple that hints for them to go straight to the point:

Hello there! How can I help you?

Or, if you want to be more explicit:

Hello there! I recently started following the "nohello" rule for Slack conversations, I hope you find it as useful as I do :) How can I help you?

That way you don't have to waste your time replying to the "hi"s and "howdy"s, and hopefully the first message you see will be the actual question.

Even if this kind of configuration falls short of your needs, there probably exists some kind of plugin that fits the bill.

WouldnÃ¢Â€Â™t this kick in when someone starts the conversation with the message proposed by nohello.com? Hi -- I'm working on [something] and I'm trying to do [etc...] — 4 hours ago
@Melebius As I said, I'm not a Slack user, so I'm not sure how finely grained Slackbot's configuration is... but I wouldn't be surprised if you could tell it to only auto-reply to messages that contain nothing else but the configured words. Even if that kind of configuration wasn't as simple, I think letting Slack take care of this for you (via Slackbot or some other plugin) is an option worth exploring. — 4 hours ago
Slackbot is a server wide bot and cannot be set up for individual use so having it setup for individual users when they say "Hi" probably isn't a good idea.. Having said that, I had Slackbot respond to "doesn't work" with a link to How to Ask which was pretty successful but I wouldn't want to have it respond when someone is just trying to greet a person. — 1 hour ago

Shadow 29526 · Answer 22 · 2018-09-13 06:49:07Z

It doesn't help to ask them "what's your question/can i help you?", because there is still some time lost from typing that, and even more from waiting for the other person to type out the question (if they have chosen to stop the pleasantries).

The better way is to assume that the other person(s) will never change and to find a balance between what is comfortable for you and the other person. In this case it's two fold:

Always be the role model and type out your hello+pleasantry+question/information in the first block (I don't see a problem in adding a pleasantry if it's all in that first block)

Don't check your slack. Disable the text popups if you have to stop it from distracting you (but still keep the number notifications to know if there are any). Then respond after finishing off your task are after 15-20 mins from the first occurrence of messaging.

Number (2) will have one of two results: either you will have more comfortable working conditions (indefinitely), or someone will complain about your slow responses, in which case you reply that you don't like getting distracted at work (AVOID DETAILS), however you might respond quickly if you see something that is important to respond to.

I believe this solution will get you to where you want, keeping in mind that you can't change people, but you can make your life more comfortable (without offending anyone).

JakeGould 6,6001739 · Answer 23 · 2018-09-13 11:50:56Z

If someone simply saying Ã¢Â€ÂœHello!Ã¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœGood morning!Ã¢Â€Â to you in chat is so upsetting, that is a symptom of another problem and itÃ¢Â€Â™s not your need to Ã¢Â€ÂœtrainÃ¢Â€Â someone to never say Ã¢Â€ÂœHello!Ã¢Â€Â or some similar pleasantry.

Lots of other answers here, but let me focus on this one thing and expand on an earlier comment I made:

Ã¢Â€ÂœHow can I politely inform her that I need her to get to the point immediately and not waste my time on pleasantries?Ã¢Â€Â

Do you get paid by the hour? By speed of response? Is the speed of your response connected to your salary?

At the end of the day I am reading you saying this, linking to that ridiculously overwrought Ã¢Â€ÂœNo hello.Ã¢Â€Â site and have to think: You utterly cannot be frustrated at a simple, basic and universally expected human pleasantry?

In my mindÃ¢Â€Â”as someone who codes and works in techÃ¢Â€Â”there are too many ways of avoiding human contact out there and too many nonsense excuses for not saying Ã¢Â€ÂœHello!Ã¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœHow are you!Ã¢Â€Â or Ã¢Â€ÂœHey! You busy?Ã¢Â€Â

I am not a robot or a piece of machinery. If someone just sends me an chat message saying, Ã¢Â€ÂœI need your help.Ã¢Â€Â without a basic intro text, either the sky needs to be falling or that person is Chicken Little (aka: Henny Penny). And in the world of faceless communicationÃ¢Â€Â”like chatÃ¢Â€Â”that will only wear me down more and make me more bitter.

That saidÃ¢Â€Â”and looping back to the beginningÃ¢Â€Â”I sense something else might be an issue and the solution to that is not something anyone here can recommend. Perhaps your organization needs a ticketing system of some sort. Perhaps you need to walk over to talk to someone instead of being in chat because sometimes people in cubicles right next to each other avoid doing that. Perhaps itÃ¢Â€Â™s something else.

But at the end of the day, if I were told I need to adhere to some Ã¢Â€ÂœNo hello.Ã¢Â€Â policy, my response would be to invoke my Ã¢Â€ÂœGoodbye!Ã¢Â€Â policy and walk out the door.

Nice answer. I often wonder if some of these questions on Workplace and IPS are created by artificial intelligences that are trying to understand human behaviour. "Hello, how are you?". "SYNTAX ERROR DOES NOT COMPUTE!" — 1 hour ago
Yes, yes I absolutely can be that frustrated by human pleasantries. When I'm writing code or working hard and someone says "Hi, Can I ask a question?" in the office chat, I'd really rather they just asked the damn question. It's something of an axiom in software development that it takes approximately 15 - 30 minutes to refocus on work once you've been pulled out of it for a conversation, I don't know how important the conversation will be. I have to jump through hoops to find that out. Ultimately if it's not something I can spare the time to answer properly then it's a waste of time. — 1 hour ago
[cont] By asking the question upfront, I can either opt to drop everything and answer it, or say "sorry I'm a bit busy now" and be done before I lose my place in my current task. But going through pleasantries essentially forces the first option and guarantees 15 - 30 minutes of my time is spent regardless of whether the question can be answered right now — 1 hour ago
It's not merely "back to work" but finding your place, picking up all the threads of what you were doing and getting back up to speed. Context-switching is killer on productivity. The point I was driving at is that "hello" doesn't give me any sense of how vital a response is. If they're going to ask something priority enough for me to drop what I'm doing I need them to tell me up-front, not hold my attention hostage. This isn't about "hello" being rude or not, this is about working in a profession where deadlines and project-management rely on me spending my time well. — 13 mins ago
@Ruadhan2300 I deleted my comments. The reality is you are rude and anti-social if you are behaving like this in these comments and with co-workers. Ultimately you work with humans on a team and if that team is not working for you, you need to find a new team. In general, I am happy I am not working with you and people like you. — 6 mins ago

Ruadhan2300 2312 · Answer 24 · 2018-09-13 11:59:13Z

One common option I've seen in companies I've worked in was to have multiple Slack Channels, one for work, one for general chat.

You can then enforce a strict nohello policy on the work channel on the understanding that the general-chat channel may not receive priority response.

This can be explained in the header for the channel as a rule, and therefore not be considered rudeness.

You can enforce it with a slackbot scanning for keywords and short messages as other Answers here have suggested.

Willtech 1012 · Answer 25 · 2018-09-13 11:49:03Z

It is not impolite to simply answer as follows, even a canned response: I appreciate your pleasantries, however, as I am almost forever extraordinarily busy I would appreciate it if in future we could get directly to the point without any of that. You may notice that my status is nohello.com which has some explanatory notes.

Of course, depending on all circumstances, it may be that your co-worker is pleasantly interested to know you.

Sean Houlihane 36717 · Answer 26 · 2018-09-13 11:53:00Z

It's not entirely clear in your question if this greeting is part of the preamble to a question, or a default reaction which blocks questions.

Assuming it is the former, it suggests that your opposite number isn't really adjusted to the asynchronous nature of IM. You can possibly improve this by injecting more afk time within a 'conversation' than you would normally.

As a way of responding to an 'are you there' ping, you can also consider a more neutral response, along the lines of :), ... or ? - these might be too abrupt to throw in 100% but are worth considering as a way of replying without consuming too much effort. You shouldn't feel that replying like this, then going afk is a bad thing.

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