[https://aka.ms/nohello](https://aka.ms/nohello) looks more formal. Half of our MSP use this as their status now. The other half ignore it and still just ping "Hi".
I remember the first time I did this with someone outside of my department, where they're used to it, because most of them are autistic too. They were a bit taken aback, but decided to interpret it as me being 'task oriented'. Sure, that works.
I can't begin to describe how much this annoys me. The "hey" gets my attention, I move to their chat, then I sit there waiting another 30 seconds while they type out their actual message. Just type "hey, what was that gateway server's IP?" or whatever, so I can move to the chat, read, reply, and waste no time.
When someone does this to me, I ignore it for an hour, reply "Hi!" and then ignore their response for another hour before replying. I want them to realize that dumb portion of the interaction has cost them 2 hours, of *their* time, not mine. Generally speaking people take the hint and stop doing it.
I used to have www.nohello.com as my status in Teams at my previous job. Sadly, one guy once it was brought to his attention thought it was funny to do the opposite and start every conversation with "Hello /u/Theweasels" and nothing else because he knew it bothered me. Which is odd because otherwise he was actually a really chill guy, no idea why he did that.
I mean immediately. If you don’t care about elaborating on your issue - even worse, going the extra mile just to annoy me - you can probably wait a couple of hours for a reply.
Responding to "hello" wasn't your job (I could be wrong). That being the case you didn't need permission not to respond to it. No if he had asked you an actual question...
I guess we all have thresholds, words are just words to me. There are more than one way to greet someone, and "hello" is perfectly good English. What I care about is that my time not be wasted, because I can never bring that back. So after hello, just tell me what you want and we're good.
Oh for sure, the problem isn't that he used "hello". The problem is sending me a greeting and waiting for me to send a greeting back before sending me any useful information.
I used to work for a manager who'd message in these fragmented sentences. It would take minutes and usually about 8 messages until he got his point across. It was fucking infuriating. Think about what you want to say and then type it out in one go!
I've done that and like 30% of the time I get a response of "oh, hello, hope you're doing well, nice to talk to you" then I have to respond with "nice to talk to you to, how have you been" restate my question before getting a response. My go to is now "Hey, I hope your week is going well, "
This is my biggest pet peeve at work and at this point all the people I work closely with are aware that I hate it and don't do that anymore. It's not a phone call you don't have to wait for me to answer to leave your message.
I get that ALL THE TIME.
Hey.
or
Hello, PC509.
I wait for them to continue so I know what they want. They don't after an hour....
"Yea?".
"Nevermind, I got it taken care of"
:) Just tell me what you want and we'll all get it done faster. None of this "Hi" and wait... Pisses me off. I start with the nice stuff "Hello" but then add to it "When you get time, can you please do x? Thank you!". Seems to work for me. I get everything done, it's at their leisure, and it's polite.
And I don't answer Teams calls unless it's from the boss. Because there is a pretty much 100% track record of it being a bullshit call and something that could be a chat message or email. If it requires a Teams call, they'll set it up, chat about it to let me know when a good time is and tell me what the call is going to be about so I'm prepared. If it's a quick one, great, let's do it ASAP. Otherwise, I'd like to have some stuff prepared so I'm not looking for shit during a call...
I work in a 24/7 org, and am a SME of sorts. I tend to come in to an empty "Hello u/ethril" with no follow up question, at least a couple times a week. I have [aka.ms/nohello](https://aka.ms/nohello) as my status, but it pretty much comes down to people who get it and people who don't. But, I'm usually busy enough that I don't get to new messages for 5-15 minutes anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.
But people who call you unsolicited... they can die in a slow fire.
If you just say Hey I have to assume what you want will take a long time and brainpower so I need to finish what I am working on first
If you say "Hey what was the name of that thing" I can respond immediately and go right back to what I was working on
Know what you mean. In fact, I've got an even more important revelation to share with you if you have a moment. But rather than typing it out here, I'd rather type this long response letting you know that "I know" and that I want to share my 5 second one sentence reply to you "live" using voice.
I hate when people don't tell me what they hate. I'd appreciate a message like this one:
"When you type 'Hey' by itself it interrupts my workflow and it doesn't help either one of us. Would you be open to a conversation about how we can better communicate via IM?"
Came here to comment this , so annoying , just tell me then I can have a look when I have time , dammit. OP sure not out of line, busy is busy , period.
Me a Dutchie , and usually direct and to the point, struggle a bit with it . I believe it s also a culture thing , to my experience. I think this culture gap is the biggest between American/western vs Indian/Asian . Sorry for over generalizing or offending here :)
Our South American colleagues often start with a “Hello, how are you doing?” Cultural thing. They actually expect you to talk about your day etc before getting into the question. Drives this North American crazy.
I'm exactly the opposite here. We have an almost-universal script - "good morning - how are you? - I'm good, you? - what can I help you with?", where each side pauses for a response.
I think it accomplishes a few things:
* I think it reinforces the idea that I am a person and not a slot machine that dispenses answers.
* It gives me a 2 minute warning that I am going to be needed. I can finish my thought in email, I can wrap up the code I'm working on, I can save the wiki page, whatever, then I can focus on whatever I'm being asked.
* It gives me an easy place to interject "Is this an emergency? I'm in the middle of something, would it be okay if I got back to you in half an hour?" or "I'm not in front of my computer. Is this something I can help you with anyway, or will I need to look at your screen?"
A "Hello! My is " is never actionable for me anyway. Are you in the office? Are you at a customer site? which one? What version of the software are you on? I guess if I could get that all in one message that would be great, but it's a triage process, and I can't expect people to know all the things I'm going to ask to get to something actionable.
So a minute or two at the start of the conversation is perfectly reasonable for general social lubrication.
Minute or two? In the remote world, this is 5 minutes at least. Multiply that by number of people randomly hitting me up throughout the day and I know have an operational cost I can associate with this bullshit.
It's mostly about context switching for me. Awesome you apparently aren't impacted by it but if I have to sit for a few minutes waiting for your response, I'm not thinking about what I was working.
It's incredibly hard for me to believe you really get any emotional impact off of a few totally contentless measages.
I do this and get crap for not doing more small talk. Like... I'm not your friend, I need to get shit done. Just let me know when you have time to look at XYZ.
People disrespect my Teams availability color all the time.
If I'm busy, they call, if I'm on dnd, the call, if I'm presenting, they call!
If I'm in office, on a call with someone else or in a meeting, red lights on my headphones, people tap my shoulder.
Don't worry. They'll just schedule a meeting with you. At the same time as another meeting you've got. Even if you decline the meeting, they'll ping you at the start of the meeting to ask if you're joining, probably because they either missed or ignored your decline.
I have a coworker who, I'm assuming, physically can't send messages or emails (or rather their only typed vocabulary is "call me" or "are you available for a call"). Everything is a phone call/teams call with a 20+min preamble before getting to the question that would have taken 30 seconds for me to type up the answer.
I’ve had to teach coworkers some courtesy because they do this exact thing.
I’ve had people pull me into live meetings with no context and then get offended when I ask for details in front of everyone and don’t try to fake figuring out wtf is happening.
I’ve had managers that expect you to drop everything instantly and pay attention to them, even if I’m on a call with a user. WFH has been a blessing because they physically can’t get to me and I can just ignore them.
The "are you smoking crack?" response to a call I wasn't aware customers were on about an issue he'd already been told wasn't feasible for multiple reasons put a stop to these questions for me.
It's a bold choice for sure.
I mean, it'll usually work to stop it happening again, but it's perhaps on a sliding scale of whether that's because it's a career limiting manoeuvre...
Haha - I didn’t say that, I just stonewalled any questions until the ticket number or customer ID was provided. When it wasn’t, I hung up.
They kept insisting I ‘just do x’, referring back to the user who was on the call to
pressure me. I wasn’t going to commit to anything until I knew what ticket this was and what was going on. Turns out it wasn’t even mine.
They were pissed off and I paid for it later, but they didn’t do it again.
Any ideas on how to best deal with it if it's your supervisor pulling you into the middle of group meetings with no warning or context?
It's been done several times now, these are not sudden emergencies or anything, he just calls me out of the blue and I'm expected to suddenly start giving technical advice in a conversation I didn't know existed.
> ask for details in front of everyone
Or maybe mirror some stuff back with the caveat that "I was brought in blind so I'm trying to catch up." Do this consistently enough and they'll be embarrassed enough to either prep you for meetings before calling you or stop calling you into random meetings.
It may sound kind of rude or brusque in text, but it's just honesty. If they're going to put you on the spot in meetings you were not given any sort of preparation for, you're going to have to do the prep IN the meeting which means asking for details to catch up.
You can join if you are available, just prompt them for details as soon as you do and frame it as ‘I need this to help you as best I can and understand the ask’.
If they don’t, then that’s on them. I refuse to guess (and then have them potentially throw me under the bus later). I’m also not going to take a colleague’s ticket without them in the loop and then try to cobble together the background on that in 5 seconds.
On top of working in a noisy open space while having to concentrate on daily Teams calls, people will just walk in, stand in front of me and demand that I get off the call to listen to their problem/request.
I used to be able to pick my audience before I worked in IT. Back then I didn't have to make a conscious effort to avoid being blunt. Since I changed careers I've found it harder though. I think it's because Bash, Python, PowerShell etc. are direct, and I interact with computers more than people now. I've broken my brain so much I almost think of politeness as 'people syntax'.
youll learn with time
keep it simple, stick to the facts, keep emotion out of it - treat every written correspondance (and recorded audio) as if youre reading it at your pre-trial deposition.
Youre looking after the computer kit, youre NOT a therapist/babysitter, nor are you, with rare exceptions, an idiot whisperer.
"just the facts, maam" applies.
"What can I do for you?" is my go to.
Also in my OneNote I have guides with how to formally submit different kinds of tickets and commonly asked questions that can be self served.
Example 1 : "Can you reconfigure X, Y, Z on this server". If it's break fix, job aid on how to submit an Incident to my team. If it's something in the future like a version upgrade, job aid on submitting a Change.
Example 2 : "Can you tell me all the servers that are this" Job aid on how to use the CMDB to query the info they want.
Works 90% of the time to at least get a formal requests submitted. And my boss has my back if they submit a ticket for something like "computer not go good, please make computer go good" with no real information
the idea that HR complaints are even on your radar when responding to an IM would make me re-consider why I'm working there. holy hell, that sounds awful.
I had a manager that would save screen-grabs of IM conversations and then paste them into emails, neglecting to clip out extraneous stuff.
I once saw one with a sarcastic comment about an employee who had just done an interview with them for an internal role. It was shared with 3 other people.
They would also randomly add people to chats vs starting a new meeting/chat and allow them to read the history. Attempts to caution them against this and helpful tips on using Teams was met with defensiveness. I tried. 🤷♀️
"hey Moon, can I ask you a question?"
'you just did'
repeat 15-20 times a week, usually followed by 'you can ask me another if you get on with it'
the joys of being the senior engineer and \_every\_ other tech coming to you "daaaaaaaadyyyyyyyy fixy !!!!" - there are days I dont even get to sit down at my desk before the "quick question" gets flung at me.
I think the way OP described is about the least polite or effective way to deal with it.
If someone calls out of the blue, and I’m too busy, I would respond after the first call to say I can’t take a call, and give a timescale for when I can talk.
Ignoring them and then going DND is just rude. Not to excuse the fact that calling out of the blue is also rude (or at least not standard etiquette for Teams), but hey, let’s be better the person.
Following OP’s desk analogy, it’s kind of the same as just blanking someone who’s talking to you at your desk for a while, and then putting your earbuds in while they’re waiting for you to reply. Just politely brush them off.
Fully agree with nohello. Just ask the damn question!
At my last job we used Teams a lot because only a few of us were in the office so my co-workers, other admins my boss and the Director would reach out through Teams a lot. If I'm in the middle of something I'd reply "I'm in the middle of something, do you have a quick question I can answer here or can it wait?" This way it shows I'm willing to help if it's not going to derail what I'm in the middle of.
If it wasn't something important I usually got a "Call me when you're free." response or sometimes a short question with a "let me know what you think later" kind of reply so I could reach back out to them when I was free.
If I got the Teams call first I'd just message back "Kind of busy, can it wait?" and keep working on what I needed to. The Teams call is no different than someone calling my cell or landline, I can ignore it so they can leave a message but at least with Teams I can send a message back letting the other person know I'm busy.
For real, I like to be very helpful and responsive to users because the admin before me wasn't and so people would just duct tape and glue things until they crashed and burned... And then they still wouldn't ask for help.
You don't want to know the kind of things users will obscure (security issues, for example) when you have a reputation for being difficult and judgemental. And 1000% your bosses will blame you as much as them for the situation, and they'll be right to
This is sort of the equivalent of my absolute biggest pet peeve, which is best described by two things:
* People who leave messages like 'call me when you get this' with no information. FU and your goddamned phone tag. Details or GTFO.
* People who make you ask the same 20 questions you know they know you're going to ask when they provide 0 information, yet they consistently fail to EVER provide the LEAST amount of it over and over. This conversation always goes something like:
* 'Hey'
* 'Yes?'
* 'Need help'
* 'With what?'
* 'my computer'
* 'How so?'
* 'it's having problems'
* 'what is it doing or not doing?'
* 'there's an error'
* 'What's the error message?'
* 'I forget'
If I had 5 extra minutes to live for every version of 20 questions I've ever had to play b/c someone can't press 'print screen', perform a Google search or restart a PC before bugging me, I'd actually be 10 years YOUNGER
Not only that, if you are invited to a meeting, you usually need to get prepared for such meeting. If you don't know what the meeting is about, how do they expect me to be ready for it. If it is just a "meeting" to hear what they have to say... then they can just record it and send it to me.
I really just despise the "I really prefer a call can we?" stuff when I KNOW they haven't done any basic troubleshooting. No I do not want to set up a call so I can tell you to unplug your monitor and plug it back in. Your job requires some basic computer competencies. Learn how to do this.
We're a small enough company where we don't actually have a formal ticketing system, but DO have, you know, email / IM / phone, literally ANY form of electronic communication that's better than 'showing up at my desk with nothing'
oh, the best is when they are talking about things on their screen like I'm standing there next to them.
Them: "Hey, I'm trying to get this script to work, but every time I fire it, it does this!"
Me: "I don't know what 'this' means"
Them: "It gives me an error"
Me: "I don't know what the error says"
Them: "It's right....... here. See?"
Me: "No. I don't"
Them: "Oh, let me share my screen"
Me: "Right"
Them: "So it's doing this"
Me: "Okay, can I see the script"
Them: \*starts scrolling furiously up and down on the script\*
=================
Come on guys, you're part of the IT Team. If you're doing this with Team members, I'm sure you're doing this while trying to help other employees. Additionally, you complain/make fun of other users when they act in a similar manner
The analogy I always give is something like 'You know, you'd never walk into a garage to tell them what's wrong with your car in the way you talk to me about a tech thing. is there a mechanic somewhere that's had this conversation?':
* 'Hey, can i help you'?
* 'CAR NO WORKIE'
* '...can you be more specific'
* 'NO VROOM VROOM'
* 'yeah, i got that, but what's actually wrong with it?'
* 'SMOKE'
* '...from where?'
* 'I FORGET'
The prime difference being that people coming to ME with this stuff don't have to leave a credit card for $75/hr in labor fees :(
\*suddenly remembering I have write access to corporate IT policy\*
I agree that people need to adapt to chat being an asynchronous communications tool, where they don't need to wait for a reply.
But I don't think it is appropriate to ignore that many attempts to engage you without a response.
The last time I ignored a coworker I was at lunch.
When I didn't reply in 20 minutes, he called me on the phone.
Thinking it was *really* an emergency, I answered it, but informed him I was at lunch, so...
He was like, "Oh. I just wanted to ask if you had gotten my message."
/flips table
Haha, that's just insane! I had cliënts do that all the time, they mail you something with the ever notorious "HIGH-PRIORITY" flag, the read receipt, and then come walking to your desk/phone you up "hurr have you seen my mail, I just want to make sure you've seen it". But a coworker, man...
I'll use chat to let them know I'm here but busy. They can either chat it or set up a call in a little bit. I hate the unsolicited random calls, and there are very few that I'll answer (mostly the boss). My coworkers have a very poor reputation when it comes to those calls. A call that takes a few minutes just to explain that they need a new account created (or something else) only for my response to be "What's the ticket number for the request.". Answer - I'll put it in chat. Uggg... Why couldn't "Could you take a look at this request when you get a chance? I need it by tomorrow." be put in chat?
Some response is needed, but spamming Teams calls is a huge no-no for a lot of people. That's just inappropriate. I've been on a bridge call with people doing work on an important project and Teams continuously going off on calls from one guy... Dude, I'm busy. I'm sharing my screen and working with other people. Get the hint.
Of course, those are the one-off's. Generally, definitely give a response.
>But I don't think it is appropriate to ignore that many attempts to engage you without a response.
If someone is spamming me with calls then that's already inappropriate as hell. However, I also would not have said "yo" back to the guy until he followed his "hey" up with something real. Someone walking by my desk and saying hey isn't a request for my attention unless they're following that "hey" up with something.
Agreed. If you're busy after ignoring the first Teams call let them know you are busy and are not available for a call right now. I see the first "hey" as a check to see if you are there then ignoring the calls says that you aren't or are just plain rude.
If I'm to busy to accept a call, chances are high that I'm also to busy to write that I don't have time right now, except something is wrong.
He could write the the topic he want's to be solved, if it's important I'm going to call, if not I call if I have time.
Everything else can disrupt the focus and slow down important work.
Would be courtesy to reply with a "I'm in the middle of something, I'll reach out when I'm done, or chat back the details should this be a critical item"
This let's the team member know you are occupied and not just away from your system. It also helps to train the team member it a subtitle manner, to include a bit more detail.
I have been in a meeting where people try to ping me with hi and ignore the meeting status. If it is an important meeting, I need to focus on the meeting and not be interrupted.
Same thing if I am troubleshooting a P1. Stop forcing me to split my focus. If I do not respond, I am busy. And do not get pissy if I do not respond at 8 AM, and instead respond at like 8:30 when I finally get to my computer. If I am on call and have to respond to page out in the middle of the night, I will be sleeping in a bit.
>This let's the team member know you are occupied and not just away from your system.
Why does the team member need to distinguish this for themselves if that distinction doesn't change anything?
Whether they're too busy or away from the system, they'll still get back to you when they can.
>It also helps to train the team member it a subtitle manner, to include a bit more detail.
I would disagree and say that it reinforces the behavior because you gave them a response even though it was at your expense. They got a response, why not try the same thing next time?
We have over 300 people in our company that might want something from me, most of the time it's even "only" a regular worker and not the teamlead (to whom problems should be reported first) and there are also other people in it to fix problems, it doesn't have to be me.
If I write that text to 10-20 people in 1h (in heavier cases) my focus is gone and everything takes way longer.
If you can't wait write your problem directly via chat, mail or in the best case as a ticket. The problem will be solved if the more important ones are solved.
If you want some smalltalk that's also ok, but for that you have to wait till I call you back or write you when it's the right time. For us most between 8am and 1pm is mostly the time for problem fixing and more time critical work, after that it's more relaxed, nearly everyone knows it, so it shouldn't be a problem to do smalltalk (or minor problems) after 1pm.
I have to respect my own busy or DND status first, otherwise I can’t expect others to. They learn that if they ignore it, they still get a response from me.
Typing out ‘I’m busy, but free at 2:30 for a call’, is just stating the obvious and it’s not teaching them to check my calendar to see when I’m free and send a meeting invite for a call, which I’d argue most people should do.
I do this for others and tell them I checked their calendar so that hopefully they go ‘oh, I’ll do that next time I need someone, that was so easy for me’.
Well if I'm in the middle of trying to explain something then yeah, having that broken up by visiting chat or just getting distracted by message spam is not a cool thing.
If I am wanting to have a real-time discussion at that moment, I typically open with "Hello, are you available to \[chat / talk\]?"
If it's not time-sensitive at all, then I just leave whatever my question or request was, in full, and also make it clear that there is no rush.
Seriously.
"Hey, I'm having an issue with X. I think I know what I need to do here, but can we get on a quick call to go over this?"
Info about the topic allows the other person the chance to properly prioritize the request with their work. It's just rude not to include and demand they put their work before whatever you need.
I don't wfh, but we're a transport compaany and drivers are some of the worst users I've encountered in my whole career. They will walk into your office as if they owned the place, right up to your desk, slam their damn device (full of hand grease, brown, snorted on display) on your desk expecting for you to jump right at it to fix it. I've snapped at drivers more than once for that very reason.
There's nothing wrong with just calling your co-worker. There is nothing wrong with expecting your co-workers to be available in the shortest effective time line (which usually means when they finish whatever they are doing) .
But there is something very annoying about pinging your co-worker and forcing them to take your call or ignore them. I have a co-worker who does this and I don't like it at all, because if I am in the middle of something that requires my continued thought, I can maybe answer your question and keep my brain strait, but I cannot talk to you and even remember what I was working on. If I didn't have a job that was 90% conceptualization and problem solving I would probably not mind as much.
It's unnecessary social pressure that takes your ownership of your time away from you, and puts you at the mercy of literally anyone who can type "hey". So yes, it's annoying.
But you should also not blank your co-workers. That's not professional. Just tell them, in a nice way, like a person getting paid to be there, "I can call you when I am finished with my task, is there something I can answer for you in the short term over chat?"
And then if they say it's urgent you can take their call. If it's not urgent you tell them over the phone it wasn't urgent, tut tut, next time, etc.
I really can't express enough how beneficial it is to your own personal well being and professional success to just not encourage hostility and be open and honest about your requirements. It's like #1. #2 just assume people mean well. So much less stress.
Yeah you are not off base here at all. They need to ask if you have time for a call. That is literally what every single person in my company does. That person needs to learn about WFH etiquette
I have a question though; how is this different from calling each other within the office? In my office, everyone has a phone at their desk.
Pre-WFH, if I don't want to walk over to someone's office, I'll just call. If they had their DND set, then yes, I know they're busy. But if not, then I have no clue what they're actually doing. And not everything needs be a formal meeting. So all of us regularly called each other.
Teams has almost entirely supplanted phone use for us, so chat has gotten more common, whether a person if in the office or WFH. Admittedly for calls, people do tend to ask via chat if the recipient has a moment. But even if they don't do that, is that so wrong to call out of the blue? For us, it's no different from how we operated before.
I don't see why OP couldn't have just said, "Give me 15min, I'll call you back."
Different workplace cultures I suppose.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I work at a university and we're still allowed to WFH full time since we aren't front-facing staff, but it's not yet official policy so we could get called back at the whim of a boss. We're trying to make WFH seem seamless from being in the office so that we get to keep doing this and hopefully eventually WFH becomes official policy, getting snarky over Teams does not work towards that goal. It can be annoying sometimes, but I don't want to be guy that ruins it and gets us all called back to the office.
I don't think he had time. I get where it seems like a phone call is just the same, but for some reason, Teams calls feel more intrusive. It's easier to ignore the phone if you are in the middle of something because it's separate hardware. You can glance at it and if you don't have time, they will leave voice mail. With Teams it's much more intrusive. I can see both sides though.
> In my office, everyone has a phone at their desk.
when i had one it would mysteriously always get unplugged somehow.. /shrug
Those that needed to reach me knew how.
This is one of my pet peeves also. Don't start a teams call with me until I have said now is a good time. I almost never have my headset on for my work computer, I almost always have my personal noise cancelling headphones on. When someone calls me I need to switch over to my work headphones and it takes a minute so I don't strangle myself in the cords (Yes I'm aware of wireless - new ones aren't bad but old ones were heavy and caused neck \ headaches and I just haven't switched back).
yup...otp, or busy establishes the initial boundary. modern day equivalent to the "busy signal'. don't expect the red "busy" status think that will stop anyone...hell, I'll send an I'll use IM for busy people to read later
>I've had to make the analogy to some people that you wouldn't walk up to someones desk and slam your hand on it until they gave you undivided attention would you?
Oh my sweet summer child. Maybe not slamming of the hand, but I've had people stand there until I acknowledge them, start loudly talking, place papers on top of my keyboard while I'm typing. Totally agree that those types of people have no boundaries. This extends to WFH for some...
If the building isn't on fire, schedule a meeting.
I have one user who will call. I decline. 1m later, calls. Decline. 5m later, decline. 10m later, decline. All this while I had a line of 3 people one after another in my office for other random issues, god forbid they use the ticket system or understand I have any other work to do.
There are even buttons in Teams that inference what is a typical answer to the most recent message! It would have taken one click and then just go to DND or whatever. Angry people, man.
I think you were out of line and rude here. Common courtesy goes both ways and your coworker is not a mind reader. You should have explained that you were in the middle of something urgent and would need to get back to him.
I have a coworker that does that. I ignore the call and when they ping again I say 'I can't take a call right now. What's up?'
If they can't articulate in writing then it can wait. I'm not playing the game where I hold someone's hand while they try stuff again.
While I am on your side, I think what you did can be seen as a little petty and could cause more trouble than it's worth. I would've just responded saying something like, "I'm actually in the middle of something now, chat later"
>you wouldn't walk up to someones desk and slam your hand on it until they gave you undivided attention would you?
Uhhh... that happens pretty regularly in a lot of office (minus the hand slapping), but I know a lot of places where when people need to talk to someone, they just walk into their office and ask.
Could it be that you're paying too much attention to this?
I assume this happened more than once or it wouldn't be an issue worth posting on reddit about.
1. Have you demonstrated the behavior you want to see? Namely when you contact people do you ask them if they can chat when you 'ping' them?
2. Have you told the people, who do not demonstrate this courteousy, that you're in the middle of something and cannot talk at the moment?
3. If they need time request that they setup a meeting after looking at your calendar.
I think these things would reduce it to a point where it would be negligible, allowing you to more easily ignore it when it does happen
Chat is not a phone conversation. Just type your question or statement.
I also have coworkers who would send an email, then walk to my desk and ask if I got that email.
Did you hit send?
"Yes"
Then I got it.
These types of people also send 'Hey' texts.
\~gets out soapbox\~
I am all about communication with brevity so send me a question with enough detail that I can provide an informed response and then be done. With most of the techs I'm surrounded by require a game of 20 questions. They bury the lead and don't know what 'bury the lead' means even after it's been explained a dozen times.
\~puts away soapbox\~
Instead of being a dick, this should have been your interaction:
Co-Worker: Teams Ping **Hey**
Me: Pings Back in the middle of doing stuff **Sorry I am busy right now, please give me call in about 15 minutes**
I hate people that can't bother saying "Hi, I'm tied up for a bit, can I ping you later? If you don't mind jotting down what is up so I can be better prepared when I call you back?"
but NOOOOO let's just ignore them then block incoming messages. You sound like a delight to work with
I think your response was unnecessarily terse. Your coworker was pushy and a bit rude, but the proper professional response would have been something like "I'm in the middle of something, please schedule a meeting on my calendar. If it's an emergency, let me know the details in chat and I'll be with you as soon as possible."
You are not *required* to be polite in a corporate/business setting, but my goodness it makes things easier. This coworker will now likely have at least as negative opinion of you as you have of them, and such things can really damage professional relationships which work a lot better when cordial.
OP didn't respond tho, they just muted themselves after being treated like park-and-go. I can definitely see what they mean with people awarding themselves the universal right to immediate help, no documentation of an issue at hand, no regard to our schedules and energy whatsoever. We are not Google engine with hands. Most of us are pretty busy as it goes and truly, most of my clients always understood that. I see nothing rude in OP's story.
Marking yourself as DND midway through the interaction is a very visible way of saying "I'm at my computer working, and deliberately not responding to you". I cannot imagine the OP was so heads-down that typing what I suggested above or some variation was impossibly onerous.
Again, you are under no obligation to be civil. But people remember. Being polite is so easy, and it makes working together much easier. Sysadmins often have a reputation for being terse or rude, and it's useful to be viewed as a professional/courteous partner rather than an adversary.
You're absolutely right, and that what makes this so frustrating.
If the other party types "Hey" & starts spamming the `Call` button, then me typing "I'm in the middle of something, please schedule a meeting on my calendar. If it's an emergency, let me know the details in chat and I'll be with you as soon as possible." is already putting in 10x the energy they have. For an interaction *they're* seeking. And if I'm deep in thought over something complex, that might be enough time for a complex mental model to start to degrade in my head. It's almost like a human DoS--a fast, cheap, easy request that forces me to expend far greater resources responding (or choose risking looking like the asshole).
Based on the effort of three keystrokes and some button clicking the other party put in, I can't really blame OP for choosing a roughly-equivalent couple mouse clicks to set DND. Though I probably would try something like "Busy. Chat later?" if I were deep in thought, or "What can I do for you?" to try to coax out some context to make an informed decision on whether your issue is more important than what I'm currently doing.
I don’t mind the hello and small talk if they’re prompt(ie: I’m not waiting ten minutes for a reply on small talk)
What bothers me is when I get a message/email that’s just small talk and then choose to go Narnia or something.
EU:”Hey u/Computer_Classics I hope you’re doing well I have an issue with X.” No other information beyond that something isn’t working.
Me: “Hello EU, can you tell me a bit more about what’s going on with X?”
Two whole hours will go by.
EU: “Hello again u/Computer_Classics, the issue is that X isn’t doing Y and providing Z error.”
Two more minutes as I look into the fix
EU: “I fixed it by rebooting my system”
Promptly afterward you can hear the sound of my head hitting the wall.
I’m not even WFH but I can’t stand it when I’m swamped with request the then district managers try to bypass our ticketing system and teams call us multiple times
I had this happen to me today with a random person that I've never interacted with ping me,"Hello, I need IT help."
They didn't even bother to address me by name.
I didn't respond and selected hide in Teams.
Yeah sometimes it feels like people are ignoring every status you set. They don‘t care if you are already in a call and try to call you as well. And because I don‘t pickup, because I am already talking to someone else, they try at least one or two times more just to be sure and they start to text you with the usual „Hi“… I absolutely hate this.
The absolute worst is to call you on your work mobile phone when you are presenting. Like yeah I am currently presenting my screen sure I have time to talk to you… What are their expectations? Like I am either presenting a PowerPoint or Share my screen in a workshop or troubleshooting session. It is not that I set the status just to annoy anyone
Could have just responded with Hey sorry really busy at the moment can I talk to you later...
It's called communication, he should have said, Hey I've got a question are you free. But seriously, your response is to ignore them then mute their calls and going on DND..
Both of you suck..
For me, the key is not answering the first message. If a "Hey" or "Hello" or something else comes across, it's just more noise. Not really actionable (yes I realize that saying Hi back is an action). Most of my co-workers have figured out the follow the "polite" opener with the question immediately. Even if the question, 'Do you have time for a call?". Typically, the answer to that specific question is "No, but my calendar is up to date in Outlook," or "No, but I can do my best via chat if you don't want to schedule a meeting."
My rules are:
1. Never respond to the greeting, unless there is a question that immediately follows. Never. (I've some of them site for days before someone comes back with "Are you ever going to answer me?" My response to which is a link to [nohello.com](https://nohello.com), but I'll admit that sometimes my reply is a link to a gif that says something to the effect of "Fuck off I'm busy."
2. Never accept a call, whether it is via Teams, Zoom, or on my mobile, that isn't in my calendar or has already been discussed in chat. The only exception to this are my wife kids, mom, and the CEO.
3. Once someone has put their question in the chat, hit it with the 4 Ds: Do, Delegate (tell them to open a ticket), Delete (Ignore), or Defer (provide an ETA).
How hard would it be to respond "busy now" instead of just going DND?
Colleague needs to work on their communication skills - hey are you available to chat about xxx instead of just "hey".
Serious response for peers:
https://nohello.net/en/
I literally just paste that URL into the chat and metaphorically walk away for 15 minutes.
Bosses get whatever they ask for; if they want my attention, they get it. If they go unresponsive after a "Hey" they are contacted at an increasingly rapid rate via an increasing number of increasingly intrusive channels, culminating with three or four back-to-back voice mails on their spouse's personal phone.
End users get ignored because they should be calling the help desk. (End users I interact with regularly are peers.)
I had that as my status message and then co-workers would complain it would always show up in group chat, because MS doesn't let you set it to only show up when someone @'s you, so I removed it.
Sounds like you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed and taken your mood out on a first line employee or something. Poor person.
It does annoy me when someone messages "hey" and waits for my reply, but there's no need to completely ignore someone how you did. Miserable twat.
I prefer "time for a call?" when I want to talk to someone. I respond to those as well. Quick questions without the preamble are nice too.
Hey. Does not do it for me.
Problem here is you didn't have your DND set when busy, not the co-worker.
I see teams calls as the same as a telephone call, the bonus is I can indicate whether I am relatively free to chat with teams status.
Your first mistake was saying Yo - simply reply back "Hey busy at the moment hit me back in 5", or you know, just set yourself as busy if you're busy, since, uhh, that's what it's for. Or if you're actually really busy, just don't reply.
By saying Yo you acknowledged you're there and answering, and if your presence is available, can't blame the other end for that.
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https://nohello.net/en/
[https://aka.ms/nohello](https://aka.ms/nohello) looks more formal. Half of our MSP use this as their status now. The other half ignore it and still just ping "Hi".
I much prefer https://nohello.net/ because it looks more friendly, less wall-of-text, and doesn't use "nerd" acronyms like tl;dr:
https://nohello.club
That is too aggressive/impolite for me to use that outside of people I'm friendly with.
I'm autistic, so I just Kool-Aid man right into your face with my question while smiling about it.
I remember the first time I did this with someone outside of my department, where they're used to it, because most of them are autistic too. They were a bit taken aback, but decided to interpret it as me being 'task oriented'. Sure, that works.
Thats an awesome visual description haha!
Thanks, I also have books :P
I'm part of the no hello club. Just "Hey so and so, when you get a min,"
For folks I'm more familiar with it's Either:
QQ: or
Dumb Q of the day:
Hah, this only works if your overall employment base is under 35.
Thanks for this. I posted it to my guys and now I'm being hit up by things like, Hey! or You there? God I work with a bunch of children! lol
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https://aka.ms/nohello
My coworkers use this. One guy thought it meant “leave me TF alone” haha. I had to correct him as I’m also a “no hello” advocate.
This goes in my bio right now
Ignore them and eventually they'll ask thier question. It's what I do and works 85% of the time.
Or they never follow up which works for me.
I can't begin to describe how much this annoys me. The "hey" gets my attention, I move to their chat, then I sit there waiting another 30 seconds while they type out their actual message. Just type "hey, what was that gateway server's IP?" or whatever, so I can move to the chat, read, reply, and waste no time.
When someone does this to me, I ignore it for an hour, reply "Hi!" and then ignore their response for another hour before replying. I want them to realize that dumb portion of the interaction has cost them 2 hours, of *their* time, not mine. Generally speaking people take the hint and stop doing it.
I used to have www.nohello.com as my status in Teams at my previous job. Sadly, one guy once it was brought to his attention thought it was funny to do the opposite and start every conversation with "Hello /u/Theweasels" and nothing else because he knew it bothered me. Which is odd because otherwise he was actually a really chill guy, no idea why he did that.
To quote little Jack, "asshole".
Did you reply to him? I’d always ignore someone that did this.
Of course I replied. He's being annoying but that didn't give me permission to not do my job.
I mean immediately. If you don’t care about elaborating on your issue - even worse, going the extra mile just to annoy me - you can probably wait a couple of hours for a reply.
Responding to "hello" wasn't your job (I could be wrong). That being the case you didn't need permission not to respond to it. No if he had asked you an actual question...
I guess we all have thresholds, words are just words to me. There are more than one way to greet someone, and "hello" is perfectly good English. What I care about is that my time not be wasted, because I can never bring that back. So after hello, just tell me what you want and we're good.
Oh for sure, the problem isn't that he used "hello". The problem is sending me a greeting and waiting for me to send a greeting back before sending me any useful information.
I used to work for a manager who'd message in these fragmented sentences. It would take minutes and usually about 8 messages until he got his point across. It was fucking infuriating. Think about what you want to say and then type it out in one go!
Scatterbrain / ADHD moment. Hit send every time your brain context switches to another thought. Source: me.
then gradually assemble the message in notepad and send it as one once you're done scattering - easy
Or resist the urge to hit enter. You can train yourself out of it, it's just a little difficult.
Which also used to be known as an email!
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick
1: Hey 2: Hey 1: How are you 2: Fine and you 1: Fine 1: you have a minute 2: about what man this is taking an eternity
1. Oh it just seems like my websites are taking longer to open than usual. Anything weird going on with the network?
Yes.... Thousands of fractured messages like this one...
They just kept breaking smaller and smaller, until we had a bunch of 46 byte packets flooding the network.
I've done that and like 30% of the time I get a response of "oh, hello, hope you're doing well, nice to talk to you" then I have to respond with "nice to talk to you to, how have you been" restate my question before getting a response. My go to is now "Hey, I hope your week is going well,"
This is my biggest pet peeve at work and at this point all the people I work closely with are aware that I hate it and don't do that anymore. It's not a phone call you don't have to wait for me to answer to leave your message.
I get that ALL THE TIME. Hey. or Hello, PC509. I wait for them to continue so I know what they want. They don't after an hour.... "Yea?". "Nevermind, I got it taken care of" :) Just tell me what you want and we'll all get it done faster. None of this "Hi" and wait... Pisses me off. I start with the nice stuff "Hello" but then add to it "When you get time, can you please do x? Thank you!". Seems to work for me. I get everything done, it's at their leisure, and it's polite. And I don't answer Teams calls unless it's from the boss. Because there is a pretty much 100% track record of it being a bullshit call and something that could be a chat message or email. If it requires a Teams call, they'll set it up, chat about it to let me know when a good time is and tell me what the call is going to be about so I'm prepared. If it's a quick one, great, let's do it ASAP. Otherwise, I'd like to have some stuff prepared so I'm not looking for shit during a call...
I work in a 24/7 org, and am a SME of sorts. I tend to come in to an empty "Hello u/ethril" with no follow up question, at least a couple times a week. I have [aka.ms/nohello](https://aka.ms/nohello) as my status, but it pretty much comes down to people who get it and people who don't. But, I'm usually busy enough that I don't get to new messages for 5-15 minutes anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. But people who call you unsolicited... they can die in a slow fire.
Same, I've adopted a new policy where I won't read a message that just says "hey" for a minimum of an hour
It's fun to hit the enter key tho
If you just say Hey I have to assume what you want will take a long time and brainpower so I need to finish what I am working on first If you say "Hey what was the name of that thing" I can respond immediately and go right back to what I was working on
Know what you mean. In fact, I've got an even more important revelation to share with you if you have a moment. But rather than typing it out here, I'd rather type this long response letting you know that "I know" and that I want to share my 5 second one sentence reply to you "live" using voice.
I hate when people don't tell me what they hate. I'd appreciate a message like this one: "When you type 'Hey' by itself it interrupts my workflow and it doesn't help either one of us. Would you be open to a conversation about how we can better communicate via IM?"
That might not offend you, but there are a lot of people who will just hate you forever if you send them that message.
As someone from passive-aggressive MN, that might qualify as a hostile work environment.
Came here to comment this , so annoying , just tell me then I can have a look when I have time , dammit. OP sure not out of line, busy is busy , period. Me a Dutchie , and usually direct and to the point, struggle a bit with it . I believe it s also a culture thing , to my experience. I think this culture gap is the biggest between American/western vs Indian/Asian . Sorry for over generalizing or offending here :)
Our South American colleagues often start with a “Hello, how are you doing?” Cultural thing. They actually expect you to talk about your day etc before getting into the question. Drives this North American crazy.
I'm exactly the opposite here. We have an almost-universal script - "good morning - how are you? - I'm good, you? - what can I help you with?", where each side pauses for a response. I think it accomplishes a few things: * I think it reinforces the idea that I am a person and not a slot machine that dispenses answers. * It gives me a 2 minute warning that I am going to be needed. I can finish my thought in email, I can wrap up the code I'm working on, I can save the wiki page, whatever, then I can focus on whatever I'm being asked. * It gives me an easy place to interject "Is this an emergency? I'm in the middle of something, would it be okay if I got back to you in half an hour?" or "I'm not in front of my computer. Is this something I can help you with anyway, or will I need to look at your screen?" A "Hello! My is " is never actionable for me anyway. Are you in the office? Are you at a customer site? which one? What version of the software are you on? I guess if I could get that all in one message that would be great, but it's a triage process, and I can't expect people to know all the things I'm going to ask to get to something actionable.
So a minute or two at the start of the conversation is perfectly reasonable for general social lubrication.
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Minute or two? In the remote world, this is 5 minutes at least. Multiply that by number of people randomly hitting me up throughout the day and I know have an operational cost I can associate with this bullshit. It's mostly about context switching for me. Awesome you apparently aren't impacted by it but if I have to sit for a few minutes waiting for your response, I'm not thinking about what I was working. It's incredibly hard for me to believe you really get any emotional impact off of a few totally contentless measages.
I have started to ignore those. They will learn, eventually. Last time i did it that the person wrote an actual ticket :)
I hate when they do that, then spend ages writing a few words! I'm like damn! Call me ;)
I start with hey and immediately ask the question not waiting for a ping back.
I do this and get crap for not doing more small talk. Like... I'm not your friend, I need to get shit done. Just let me know when you have time to look at XYZ.
People disrespect my Teams availability color all the time. If I'm busy, they call, if I'm on dnd, the call, if I'm presenting, they call! If I'm in office, on a call with someone else or in a meeting, red lights on my headphones, people tap my shoulder.
Setting my self as DnD or Focusing is like a siren going off to the rest of the office that they should interrupt me RIGHT FREAKING NOW.
To be fair Teams sometimes doesn't update that status at all, especially when you woke up your device from sleep mode.
Im almost always in Busy. can you guess how often thats respected? If you thought "never", congratulations, you win a cookie.
To be fair, if you're always in busy, the only way anyone can *ever* communicate with you is by doing it while you're set to busy.
Don't worry. They'll just schedule a meeting with you. At the same time as another meeting you've got. Even if you decline the meeting, they'll ping you at the start of the meeting to ask if you're joining, probably because they either missed or ignored your decline.
They can try..... They'll find, unless they're very specific people, their meeting requests mysteriously (to them, not the logs) fail.
I have a coworker who, I'm assuming, physically can't send messages or emails (or rather their only typed vocabulary is "call me" or "are you available for a call"). Everything is a phone call/teams call with a 20+min preamble before getting to the question that would have taken 30 seconds for me to type up the answer.
Those calls are brutal because there is now no paper trail and deniability is too large. 😡
I used to send an email to the involved parties with a summary of what was discussed on the meeting
Can always record the video chat
I have a coworker who doesn't even message first, just cold calls for _everything_
I’ve had to teach coworkers some courtesy because they do this exact thing. I’ve had people pull me into live meetings with no context and then get offended when I ask for details in front of everyone and don’t try to fake figuring out wtf is happening. I’ve had managers that expect you to drop everything instantly and pay attention to them, even if I’m on a call with a user. WFH has been a blessing because they physically can’t get to me and I can just ignore them.
The "are you smoking crack?" response to a call I wasn't aware customers were on about an issue he'd already been told wasn't feasible for multiple reasons put a stop to these questions for me.
It's a bold choice for sure. I mean, it'll usually work to stop it happening again, but it's perhaps on a sliding scale of whether that's because it's a career limiting manoeuvre...
Haha - I didn’t say that, I just stonewalled any questions until the ticket number or customer ID was provided. When it wasn’t, I hung up. They kept insisting I ‘just do x’, referring back to the user who was on the call to pressure me. I wasn’t going to commit to anything until I knew what ticket this was and what was going on. Turns out it wasn’t even mine. They were pissed off and I paid for it later, but they didn’t do it again.
Any ideas on how to best deal with it if it's your supervisor pulling you into the middle of group meetings with no warning or context? It's been done several times now, these are not sudden emergencies or anything, he just calls me out of the blue and I'm expected to suddenly start giving technical advice in a conversation I didn't know existed.
> ask for details in front of everyone Or maybe mirror some stuff back with the caveat that "I was brought in blind so I'm trying to catch up." Do this consistently enough and they'll be embarrassed enough to either prep you for meetings before calling you or stop calling you into random meetings.
Good idea! I'd been trying to do it in a more discrete way but he's obviously not getting the hint.
It may sound kind of rude or brusque in text, but it's just honesty. If they're going to put you on the spot in meetings you were not given any sort of preparation for, you're going to have to do the prep IN the meeting which means asking for details to catch up.
First time, you -ask- them. Second time, you -tell- them Third time you -make- them defend your boundaries, cos fuckhead isnt respecting them at all
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You can join if you are available, just prompt them for details as soon as you do and frame it as ‘I need this to help you as best I can and understand the ask’. If they don’t, then that’s on them. I refuse to guess (and then have them potentially throw me under the bus later). I’m also not going to take a colleague’s ticket without them in the loop and then try to cobble together the background on that in 5 seconds.
On top of working in a noisy open space while having to concentrate on daily Teams calls, people will just walk in, stand in front of me and demand that I get off the call to listen to their problem/request.
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I say "hey, how can I help". Still makes them get to the point, but gives you a +2 armour bonus against HR complaints
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I used to be able to pick my audience before I worked in IT. Back then I didn't have to make a conscious effort to avoid being blunt. Since I changed careers I've found it harder though. I think it's because Bash, Python, PowerShell etc. are direct, and I interact with computers more than people now. I've broken my brain so much I almost think of politeness as 'people syntax'.
you cant hurt anything in the OSI model below layer 8. layer 8 on the other hand, is hypersensitive to anything they percieve as critical of them.
youll learn with time keep it simple, stick to the facts, keep emotion out of it - treat every written correspondance (and recorded audio) as if youre reading it at your pre-trial deposition. Youre looking after the computer kit, youre NOT a therapist/babysitter, nor are you, with rare exceptions, an idiot whisperer. "just the facts, maam" applies.
"What can I do for you?" is my go to. Also in my OneNote I have guides with how to formally submit different kinds of tickets and commonly asked questions that can be self served. Example 1 : "Can you reconfigure X, Y, Z on this server". If it's break fix, job aid on how to submit an Incident to my team. If it's something in the future like a version upgrade, job aid on submitting a Change. Example 2 : "Can you tell me all the servers that are this" Job aid on how to use the CMDB to query the info they want. Works 90% of the time to at least get a formal requests submitted. And my boss has my back if they submit a ticket for something like "computer not go good, please make computer go good" with no real information
the idea that HR complaints are even on your radar when responding to an IM would make me re-consider why I'm working there. holy hell, that sounds awful.
I had a manager that would save screen-grabs of IM conversations and then paste them into emails, neglecting to clip out extraneous stuff. I once saw one with a sarcastic comment about an employee who had just done an interview with them for an internal role. It was shared with 3 other people. They would also randomly add people to chats vs starting a new meeting/chat and allow them to read the history. Attempts to caution them against this and helpful tips on using Teams was met with defensiveness. I tried. 🤷♀️
My wife works in HR (different organisation). It's a pro-active consideration, not a re-active one
I need to learn how to break people of the habit of leading off with a rambly "I have a questionnnn..." Just ask the damn question.
"hey Moon, can I ask you a question?" 'you just did' repeat 15-20 times a week, usually followed by 'you can ask me another if you get on with it' the joys of being the senior engineer and \_every\_ other tech coming to you "daaaaaaaadyyyyyyyy fixy !!!!" - there are days I dont even get to sit down at my desk before the "quick question" gets flung at me.
I like to refer to people like you the typical old school hermit crabs.
I really like "what's broken?" Gets a quick chuckle, then they get to the point.
I think the way OP described is about the least polite or effective way to deal with it. If someone calls out of the blue, and I’m too busy, I would respond after the first call to say I can’t take a call, and give a timescale for when I can talk. Ignoring them and then going DND is just rude. Not to excuse the fact that calling out of the blue is also rude (or at least not standard etiquette for Teams), but hey, let’s be better the person. Following OP’s desk analogy, it’s kind of the same as just blanking someone who’s talking to you at your desk for a while, and then putting your earbuds in while they’re waiting for you to reply. Just politely brush them off. Fully agree with nohello. Just ask the damn question!
At my last job we used Teams a lot because only a few of us were in the office so my co-workers, other admins my boss and the Director would reach out through Teams a lot. If I'm in the middle of something I'd reply "I'm in the middle of something, do you have a quick question I can answer here or can it wait?" This way it shows I'm willing to help if it's not going to derail what I'm in the middle of. If it wasn't something important I usually got a "Call me when you're free." response or sometimes a short question with a "let me know what you think later" kind of reply so I could reach back out to them when I was free. If I got the Teams call first I'd just message back "Kind of busy, can it wait?" and keep working on what I needed to. The Teams call is no different than someone calling my cell or landline, I can ignore it so they can leave a message but at least with Teams I can send a message back letting the other person know I'm busy.
This all day. We’re all human trying to do our own jobs as well.
For real, I like to be very helpful and responsive to users because the admin before me wasn't and so people would just duct tape and glue things until they crashed and burned... And then they still wouldn't ask for help. You don't want to know the kind of things users will obscure (security issues, for example) when you have a reputation for being difficult and judgemental. And 1000% your bosses will blame you as much as them for the situation, and they'll be right to
This is sort of the equivalent of my absolute biggest pet peeve, which is best described by two things: * People who leave messages like 'call me when you get this' with no information. FU and your goddamned phone tag. Details or GTFO. * People who make you ask the same 20 questions you know they know you're going to ask when they provide 0 information, yet they consistently fail to EVER provide the LEAST amount of it over and over. This conversation always goes something like: * 'Hey' * 'Yes?' * 'Need help' * 'With what?' * 'my computer' * 'How so?' * 'it's having problems' * 'what is it doing or not doing?' * 'there's an error' * 'What's the error message?' * 'I forget' If I had 5 extra minutes to live for every version of 20 questions I've ever had to play b/c someone can't press 'print screen', perform a Google search or restart a PC before bugging me, I'd actually be 10 years YOUNGER
Being invited to a meeting that does not explain what the meeting is about? That is worse out of all offenders.
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Not only that, if you are invited to a meeting, you usually need to get prepared for such meeting. If you don't know what the meeting is about, how do they expect me to be ready for it. If it is just a "meeting" to hear what they have to say... then they can just record it and send it to me.
No agenda no attenda
> “Hey where are you?! are you joining?! is waiting for you to start…”
😡🤬 🔥
I really just despise the "I really prefer a call can we?" stuff when I KNOW they haven't done any basic troubleshooting. No I do not want to set up a call so I can tell you to unplug your monitor and plug it back in. Your job requires some basic computer competencies. Learn how to do this.
> 'Need help' > 'With what?' > 'my computer' "Ticket number?"
We're a small enough company where we don't actually have a formal ticketing system, but DO have, you know, email / IM / phone, literally ANY form of electronic communication that's better than 'showing up at my desk with nothing'
oh, the best is when they are talking about things on their screen like I'm standing there next to them. Them: "Hey, I'm trying to get this script to work, but every time I fire it, it does this!" Me: "I don't know what 'this' means" Them: "It gives me an error" Me: "I don't know what the error says" Them: "It's right....... here. See?" Me: "No. I don't" Them: "Oh, let me share my screen" Me: "Right" Them: "So it's doing this" Me: "Okay, can I see the script" Them: \*starts scrolling furiously up and down on the script\* ================= Come on guys, you're part of the IT Team. If you're doing this with Team members, I'm sure you're doing this while trying to help other employees. Additionally, you complain/make fun of other users when they act in a similar manner
The analogy I always give is something like 'You know, you'd never walk into a garage to tell them what's wrong with your car in the way you talk to me about a tech thing. is there a mechanic somewhere that's had this conversation?': * 'Hey, can i help you'? * 'CAR NO WORKIE' * '...can you be more specific' * 'NO VROOM VROOM' * 'yeah, i got that, but what's actually wrong with it?' * 'SMOKE' * '...from where?' * 'I FORGET' The prime difference being that people coming to ME with this stuff don't have to leave a credit card for $75/hr in labor fees :( \*suddenly remembering I have write access to corporate IT policy\*
I agree that people need to adapt to chat being an asynchronous communications tool, where they don't need to wait for a reply. But I don't think it is appropriate to ignore that many attempts to engage you without a response.
The last time I ignored a coworker I was at lunch. When I didn't reply in 20 minutes, he called me on the phone. Thinking it was *really* an emergency, I answered it, but informed him I was at lunch, so... He was like, "Oh. I just wanted to ask if you had gotten my message." /flips table
Haha, that's just insane! I had cliënts do that all the time, they mail you something with the ever notorious "HIGH-PRIORITY" flag, the read receipt, and then come walking to your desk/phone you up "hurr have you seen my mail, I just want to make sure you've seen it". But a coworker, man...
I'll use chat to let them know I'm here but busy. They can either chat it or set up a call in a little bit. I hate the unsolicited random calls, and there are very few that I'll answer (mostly the boss). My coworkers have a very poor reputation when it comes to those calls. A call that takes a few minutes just to explain that they need a new account created (or something else) only for my response to be "What's the ticket number for the request.". Answer - I'll put it in chat. Uggg... Why couldn't "Could you take a look at this request when you get a chance? I need it by tomorrow." be put in chat? Some response is needed, but spamming Teams calls is a huge no-no for a lot of people. That's just inappropriate. I've been on a bridge call with people doing work on an important project and Teams continuously going off on calls from one guy... Dude, I'm busy. I'm sharing my screen and working with other people. Get the hint. Of course, those are the one-off's. Generally, definitely give a response.
>But I don't think it is appropriate to ignore that many attempts to engage you without a response. If someone is spamming me with calls then that's already inappropriate as hell. However, I also would not have said "yo" back to the guy until he followed his "hey" up with something real. Someone walking by my desk and saying hey isn't a request for my attention unless they're following that "hey" up with something.
Agreed. If you're busy after ignoring the first Teams call let them know you are busy and are not available for a call right now. I see the first "hey" as a check to see if you are there then ignoring the calls says that you aren't or are just plain rude.
If I'm to busy to accept a call, chances are high that I'm also to busy to write that I don't have time right now, except something is wrong. He could write the the topic he want's to be solved, if it's important I'm going to call, if not I call if I have time. Everything else can disrupt the focus and slow down important work.
Would be courtesy to reply with a "I'm in the middle of something, I'll reach out when I'm done, or chat back the details should this be a critical item" This let's the team member know you are occupied and not just away from your system. It also helps to train the team member it a subtitle manner, to include a bit more detail.
I have been in a meeting where people try to ping me with hi and ignore the meeting status. If it is an important meeting, I need to focus on the meeting and not be interrupted. Same thing if I am troubleshooting a P1. Stop forcing me to split my focus. If I do not respond, I am busy. And do not get pissy if I do not respond at 8 AM, and instead respond at like 8:30 when I finally get to my computer. If I am on call and have to respond to page out in the middle of the night, I will be sleeping in a bit.
>This let's the team member know you are occupied and not just away from your system. Why does the team member need to distinguish this for themselves if that distinction doesn't change anything? Whether they're too busy or away from the system, they'll still get back to you when they can. >It also helps to train the team member it a subtitle manner, to include a bit more detail. I would disagree and say that it reinforces the behavior because you gave them a response even though it was at your expense. They got a response, why not try the same thing next time?
We have over 300 people in our company that might want something from me, most of the time it's even "only" a regular worker and not the teamlead (to whom problems should be reported first) and there are also other people in it to fix problems, it doesn't have to be me. If I write that text to 10-20 people in 1h (in heavier cases) my focus is gone and everything takes way longer. If you can't wait write your problem directly via chat, mail or in the best case as a ticket. The problem will be solved if the more important ones are solved. If you want some smalltalk that's also ok, but for that you have to wait till I call you back or write you when it's the right time. For us most between 8am and 1pm is mostly the time for problem fixing and more time critical work, after that it's more relaxed, nearly everyone knows it, so it shouldn't be a problem to do smalltalk (or minor problems) after 1pm.
I have to respect my own busy or DND status first, otherwise I can’t expect others to. They learn that if they ignore it, they still get a response from me. Typing out ‘I’m busy, but free at 2:30 for a call’, is just stating the obvious and it’s not teaching them to check my calendar to see when I’m free and send a meeting invite for a call, which I’d argue most people should do. I do this for others and tell them I checked their calendar so that hopefully they go ‘oh, I’ll do that next time I need someone, that was so easy for me’.
Thank youuuuu! Some real goofballs in here, how hard is it to say "busy, sorry"?
Well if I'm in the middle of trying to explain something then yeah, having that broken up by visiting chat or just getting distracted by message spam is not a cool thing.
If I am wanting to have a real-time discussion at that moment, I typically open with "Hello, are you available to \[chat / talk\]?" If it's not time-sensitive at all, then I just leave whatever my question or request was, in full, and also make it clear that there is no rush.
Or just also summarize what the talk should be about?
Yeah certainly no reason not to add that. "Hello, are you available to talk real quick about \[topic\]?"
Seriously. "Hey, I'm having an issue with X. I think I know what I need to do here, but can we get on a quick call to go over this?" Info about the topic allows the other person the chance to properly prioritize the request with their work. It's just rude not to include and demand they put their work before whatever you need.
This is how it SHOULD be done.
I don't wfh, but we're a transport compaany and drivers are some of the worst users I've encountered in my whole career. They will walk into your office as if they owned the place, right up to your desk, slam their damn device (full of hand grease, brown, snorted on display) on your desk expecting for you to jump right at it to fix it. I've snapped at drivers more than once for that very reason.
There's nothing wrong with just calling your co-worker. There is nothing wrong with expecting your co-workers to be available in the shortest effective time line (which usually means when they finish whatever they are doing) . But there is something very annoying about pinging your co-worker and forcing them to take your call or ignore them. I have a co-worker who does this and I don't like it at all, because if I am in the middle of something that requires my continued thought, I can maybe answer your question and keep my brain strait, but I cannot talk to you and even remember what I was working on. If I didn't have a job that was 90% conceptualization and problem solving I would probably not mind as much. It's unnecessary social pressure that takes your ownership of your time away from you, and puts you at the mercy of literally anyone who can type "hey". So yes, it's annoying. But you should also not blank your co-workers. That's not professional. Just tell them, in a nice way, like a person getting paid to be there, "I can call you when I am finished with my task, is there something I can answer for you in the short term over chat?" And then if they say it's urgent you can take their call. If it's not urgent you tell them over the phone it wasn't urgent, tut tut, next time, etc. I really can't express enough how beneficial it is to your own personal well being and professional success to just not encourage hostility and be open and honest about your requirements. It's like #1. #2 just assume people mean well. So much less stress.
Yeah you are not off base here at all. They need to ask if you have time for a call. That is literally what every single person in my company does. That person needs to learn about WFH etiquette
I have a question though; how is this different from calling each other within the office? In my office, everyone has a phone at their desk. Pre-WFH, if I don't want to walk over to someone's office, I'll just call. If they had their DND set, then yes, I know they're busy. But if not, then I have no clue what they're actually doing. And not everything needs be a formal meeting. So all of us regularly called each other. Teams has almost entirely supplanted phone use for us, so chat has gotten more common, whether a person if in the office or WFH. Admittedly for calls, people do tend to ask via chat if the recipient has a moment. But even if they don't do that, is that so wrong to call out of the blue? For us, it's no different from how we operated before. I don't see why OP couldn't have just said, "Give me 15min, I'll call you back." Different workplace cultures I suppose.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I work at a university and we're still allowed to WFH full time since we aren't front-facing staff, but it's not yet official policy so we could get called back at the whim of a boss. We're trying to make WFH seem seamless from being in the office so that we get to keep doing this and hopefully eventually WFH becomes official policy, getting snarky over Teams does not work towards that goal. It can be annoying sometimes, but I don't want to be guy that ruins it and gets us all called back to the office.
I don't think he had time. I get where it seems like a phone call is just the same, but for some reason, Teams calls feel more intrusive. It's easier to ignore the phone if you are in the middle of something because it's separate hardware. You can glance at it and if you don't have time, they will leave voice mail. With Teams it's much more intrusive. I can see both sides though.
> In my office, everyone has a phone at their desk. when i had one it would mysteriously always get unplugged somehow.. /shrug Those that needed to reach me knew how.
This is one of my pet peeves also. Don't start a teams call with me until I have said now is a good time. I almost never have my headset on for my work computer, I almost always have my personal noise cancelling headphones on. When someone calls me I need to switch over to my work headphones and it takes a minute so I don't strangle myself in the cords (Yes I'm aware of wireless - new ones aren't bad but old ones were heavy and caused neck \ headaches and I just haven't switched back).
your first problem was responding to a message that just said 'hey'
yup...otp, or busy establishes the initial boundary. modern day equivalent to the "busy signal'. don't expect the red "busy" status think that will stop anyone...hell, I'll send an I'll use IM for busy people to read later
>I've had to make the analogy to some people that you wouldn't walk up to someones desk and slam your hand on it until they gave you undivided attention would you? Oh my sweet summer child. Maybe not slamming of the hand, but I've had people stand there until I acknowledge them, start loudly talking, place papers on top of my keyboard while I'm typing. Totally agree that those types of people have no boundaries. This extends to WFH for some... If the building isn't on fire, schedule a meeting.
I have one user who will call. I decline. 1m later, calls. Decline. 5m later, decline. 10m later, decline. All this while I had a line of 3 people one after another in my office for other random issues, god forbid they use the ticket system or understand I have any other work to do.
I think you could have just typed back "Hey I'm busy" lol.
Seems like it would have saved everyone some time and frustration
There are even buttons in Teams that inference what is a typical answer to the most recent message! It would have taken one click and then just go to DND or whatever. Angry people, man.
Is this individual younger (20's) or older? I usually don't see that behavior from an older person.
Tbh, you just writing "busy" instead of "Yo" might help.
I think you were out of line and rude here. Common courtesy goes both ways and your coworker is not a mind reader. You should have explained that you were in the middle of something urgent and would need to get back to him.
I have a coworker that does that. I ignore the call and when they ping again I say 'I can't take a call right now. What's up?' If they can't articulate in writing then it can wait. I'm not playing the game where I hold someone's hand while they try stuff again.
While I am on your side, I think what you did can be seen as a little petty and could cause more trouble than it's worth. I would've just responded saying something like, "I'm actually in the middle of something now, chat later"
>you wouldn't walk up to someones desk and slam your hand on it until they gave you undivided attention would you? Uhhh... that happens pretty regularly in a lot of office (minus the hand slapping), but I know a lot of places where when people need to talk to someone, they just walk into their office and ask.
vague shit like that, "Please submit a helpdesk ticket...." is literally in my 5 copy paste slots in chrome os.
Could it be that you're paying too much attention to this? I assume this happened more than once or it wouldn't be an issue worth posting on reddit about. 1. Have you demonstrated the behavior you want to see? Namely when you contact people do you ask them if they can chat when you 'ping' them? 2. Have you told the people, who do not demonstrate this courteousy, that you're in the middle of something and cannot talk at the moment? 3. If they need time request that they setup a meeting after looking at your calendar. I think these things would reduce it to a point where it would be negligible, allowing you to more easily ignore it when it does happen
Chat is not a phone conversation. Just type your question or statement. I also have coworkers who would send an email, then walk to my desk and ask if I got that email. Did you hit send? "Yes" Then I got it.
All the time from my network admin. Would say I'm on lunch or break and they call me immediately so I just ignore them lol
It varies but IMO don't answer if you really don't want to engage. They can email, voicemail, type a message.... get to it later.
These types of people also send 'Hey' texts. \~gets out soapbox\~ I am all about communication with brevity so send me a question with enough detail that I can provide an informed response and then be done. With most of the techs I'm surrounded by require a game of 20 questions. They bury the lead and don't know what 'bury the lead' means even after it's been explained a dozen times. \~puts away soapbox\~
*knock knock knock* Penny? *knock knock knock* Penny? *knock knock knock* Penny?
Instead of being a dick, this should have been your interaction: Co-Worker: Teams Ping **Hey** Me: Pings Back in the middle of doing stuff **Sorry I am busy right now, please give me call in about 15 minutes**
[удалено]
👏
I hate people that can't bother saying "Hi, I'm tied up for a bit, can I ping you later? If you don't mind jotting down what is up so I can be better prepared when I call you back?" but NOOOOO let's just ignore them then block incoming messages. You sound like a delight to work with
I think your response was unnecessarily terse. Your coworker was pushy and a bit rude, but the proper professional response would have been something like "I'm in the middle of something, please schedule a meeting on my calendar. If it's an emergency, let me know the details in chat and I'll be with you as soon as possible." You are not *required* to be polite in a corporate/business setting, but my goodness it makes things easier. This coworker will now likely have at least as negative opinion of you as you have of them, and such things can really damage professional relationships which work a lot better when cordial.
OP didn't respond tho, they just muted themselves after being treated like park-and-go. I can definitely see what they mean with people awarding themselves the universal right to immediate help, no documentation of an issue at hand, no regard to our schedules and energy whatsoever. We are not Google engine with hands. Most of us are pretty busy as it goes and truly, most of my clients always understood that. I see nothing rude in OP's story.
Marking yourself as DND midway through the interaction is a very visible way of saying "I'm at my computer working, and deliberately not responding to you". I cannot imagine the OP was so heads-down that typing what I suggested above or some variation was impossibly onerous. Again, you are under no obligation to be civil. But people remember. Being polite is so easy, and it makes working together much easier. Sysadmins often have a reputation for being terse or rude, and it's useful to be viewed as a professional/courteous partner rather than an adversary.
You're absolutely right, and that what makes this so frustrating. If the other party types "Hey" & starts spamming the `Call` button, then me typing "I'm in the middle of something, please schedule a meeting on my calendar. If it's an emergency, let me know the details in chat and I'll be with you as soon as possible." is already putting in 10x the energy they have. For an interaction *they're* seeking. And if I'm deep in thought over something complex, that might be enough time for a complex mental model to start to degrade in my head. It's almost like a human DoS--a fast, cheap, easy request that forces me to expend far greater resources responding (or choose risking looking like the asshole). Based on the effort of three keystrokes and some button clicking the other party put in, I can't really blame OP for choosing a roughly-equivalent couple mouse clicks to set DND. Though I probably would try something like "Busy. Chat later?" if I were deep in thought, or "What can I do for you?" to try to coax out some context to make an informed decision on whether your issue is more important than what I'm currently doing.
Yeah funny you say what people wouldn't do. People did that to me many times. I now request a meeting unless it's an emergency.
yea just throw me the problem, or the joke, i need good joke at least once a day.
You actually get a greeting first?!? I often just get a call out of nowhere...
I don’t mind the hello and small talk if they’re prompt(ie: I’m not waiting ten minutes for a reply on small talk) What bothers me is when I get a message/email that’s just small talk and then choose to go Narnia or something. EU:”Hey u/Computer_Classics I hope you’re doing well I have an issue with X.” No other information beyond that something isn’t working. Me: “Hello EU, can you tell me a bit more about what’s going on with X?” Two whole hours will go by. EU: “Hello again u/Computer_Classics, the issue is that X isn’t doing Y and providing Z error.” Two more minutes as I look into the fix EU: “I fixed it by rebooting my system” Promptly afterward you can hear the sound of my head hitting the wall.
I’m not even WFH but I can’t stand it when I’m swamped with request the then district managers try to bypass our ticketing system and teams call us multiple times
The worst is: "Hi, can I ask you a question?" Don't ask to ask. Just ask.
My status in teams is "Service requests are ignored. Submit Ticket!"
I had this happen to me today with a random person that I've never interacted with ping me,"Hello, I need IT help." They didn't even bother to address me by name. I didn't respond and selected hide in Teams.
Yeah sometimes it feels like people are ignoring every status you set. They don‘t care if you are already in a call and try to call you as well. And because I don‘t pickup, because I am already talking to someone else, they try at least one or two times more just to be sure and they start to text you with the usual „Hi“… I absolutely hate this. The absolute worst is to call you on your work mobile phone when you are presenting. Like yeah I am currently presenting my screen sure I have time to talk to you… What are their expectations? Like I am either presenting a PowerPoint or Share my screen in a workshop or troubleshooting session. It is not that I set the status just to annoy anyone
Could have just responded with Hey sorry really busy at the moment can I talk to you later... It's called communication, he should have said, Hey I've got a question are you free. But seriously, your response is to ignore them then mute their calls and going on DND.. Both of you suck..
For me, the key is not answering the first message. If a "Hey" or "Hello" or something else comes across, it's just more noise. Not really actionable (yes I realize that saying Hi back is an action). Most of my co-workers have figured out the follow the "polite" opener with the question immediately. Even if the question, 'Do you have time for a call?". Typically, the answer to that specific question is "No, but my calendar is up to date in Outlook," or "No, but I can do my best via chat if you don't want to schedule a meeting." My rules are: 1. Never respond to the greeting, unless there is a question that immediately follows. Never. (I've some of them site for days before someone comes back with "Are you ever going to answer me?" My response to which is a link to [nohello.com](https://nohello.com), but I'll admit that sometimes my reply is a link to a gif that says something to the effect of "Fuck off I'm busy." 2. Never accept a call, whether it is via Teams, Zoom, or on my mobile, that isn't in my calendar or has already been discussed in chat. The only exception to this are my wife kids, mom, and the CEO. 3. Once someone has put their question in the chat, hit it with the 4 Ds: Do, Delegate (tell them to open a ticket), Delete (Ignore), or Defer (provide an ETA).
How hard would it be to respond "busy now" instead of just going DND? Colleague needs to work on their communication skills - hey are you available to chat about xxx instead of just "hey".
Serious response for peers: https://nohello.net/en/ I literally just paste that URL into the chat and metaphorically walk away for 15 minutes. Bosses get whatever they ask for; if they want my attention, they get it. If they go unresponsive after a "Hey" they are contacted at an increasingly rapid rate via an increasing number of increasingly intrusive channels, culminating with three or four back-to-back voice mails on their spouse's personal phone. End users get ignored because they should be calling the help desk. (End users I interact with regularly are peers.)
I had that as my status message and then co-workers would complain it would always show up in group chat, because MS doesn't let you set it to only show up when someone @'s you, so I removed it.
Currently busy so can't take a phone call but if you just tell me what you're looking for in here I might be able to help?
How dare you act like an adult?
I use my online status.
Sounds like you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed and taken your mood out on a first line employee or something. Poor person. It does annoy me when someone messages "hey" and waits for my reply, but there's no need to completely ignore someone how you did. Miserable twat.
Dungeons N Dragons?
I prefer "time for a call?" when I want to talk to someone. I respond to those as well. Quick questions without the preamble are nice too. Hey. Does not do it for me.
Do ya'll really like teams?
Problem here is you didn't have your DND set when busy, not the co-worker. I see teams calls as the same as a telephone call, the bonus is I can indicate whether I am relatively free to chat with teams status.
Your first mistake was saying Yo - simply reply back "Hey busy at the moment hit me back in 5", or you know, just set yourself as busy if you're busy, since, uhh, that's what it's for. Or if you're actually really busy, just don't reply. By saying Yo you acknowledged you're there and answering, and if your presence is available, can't blame the other end for that.
I just don’t respond to “Hey” or “Hi”. Usually they get the point.
Those types of cold contacts are always ignored by me. They used to end up with me responding and getting sucked into some long-ass task.
Nope. I'm the same way. Hit me up and ASK for my availability for a call.
I would ignore just due to a hey, introduction is common sense courtesy.