Yes Hello

[solatic]

Imagine a world where:

a) Asynchronous communication happens over email. You work with people who know how to search their email, and how to write an email that explains context, spells out their ask, and addresses possible counter arguments. Your colleagues understand that you check email no more than a few times per day,

b) Synchronous communication happens over a telephone, where you can decide to turn your phone off if you are unavailable, and if somebody tries to get ahold of you while you're talking to someone else, they get a busy signal,

c) Institutional knowledge is written into a knowledge base that can be searched and read by people joining you for the first time,

d) If for some reason, none of the above work, then you can put yourself on somebody's calendar to ask for their full attention and focus, providing context in the calendar invite so that they can prepare for the meeting beforehand,

e) If you don't have your email open, turn your phone off, aren't getting push notifications from your knowledge base (because they're self-organized in your email, thanks to a filter rule you wrote), and aren't sitting in a meeting, then you can finally, mercifully, _focus_

Imagine how much calmer you would be.

[noahtallen]

Disclaimer: I work at Automattic.

Your comment does remind me of what we strive to do with communication at Automattic. Since a team can be split all over the world, synchronous communication is never a given. Though email is rarely used, we do use P2. Basically, each team has a blog. You write posts to provide significant context and shape discussion around a certain project or problem. Others comment on those posts in long-form text as needed. This is all searchable by any member of the company, unlike email! And then we also have a knowledge base for documentation. (Basically just a WordPress site where you write pages about different topics.)

So if you need to find context and past conversations about X, you can easily search for that.

We do skip step B, and “synchronous” communication happens in Slack. Even then, it’s still async. I’ll message a teammate today and have no expectation they would respond until their timezone comes around again. If needed, it would be a video call. Plus, Slack messages are also aggregated into the internal search tool.

I think there isn’t much need for a “busy signal” when there’s no cultural expectation for anyone to be immediately available for conversations.

This situation is far superior than other remote setups I’ve seen, but does it make you calmer?

Maybe! I find that the stuff that affects calmness is emotional or psychological. I can’t just log off and be disconnected — my brain still spends cycles thinking about problems. That can’t be solved with better communication systems. It’s just hard to stop thinking about work, since it consumes so much of your day!

[nesarkvechnep]

Just deploy to the cloud and get to fixing bugs in production already!

Jokes aside, I long for such world.

[kissgyorgy]

Oh, hell nooo: https://nohello.net/

You can say hello and be respectful/productive/not selfish at the same time.

[blcknight]

What a colossal waste of everyone’s time. Say hello or not but ask your question in the same messsage.

[sokoloff]

Given the timestamps on the messages, I strongly suspect the site author agrees with you.

[erwincoumans]

Indeed, isn't the website just satire?

>> Hello, I'm working on [something] and I'm trying to do [etc]. Please help.

>> Sure, the answer is [answer]

>> Thank you!

[arcastroe]

As opposed to https://nohello.net Though both sites intend to convey the same message

[adambware]

The time stamps are the key here, not the question of formality.

I really appreciate a “Good morning” if chatting before working hours.

Still, the question can be added in the same message to cut down on the wait time for an answer.

[wmu]

There are many scary things in the world. But the scariest is the line "Hi, I have a quick question". :)

[brink]

"Let's chat at the end of the day" from a manager is far worse.

[Graffur]

Yeah, this is just rude imo. You want an answer to something but you put a lot of pressure on the person you need help from.

[fundamental]

'Hello' as a method of establishing a synchronous chat makes sense, but if you just need an answer to a question when someone reads through chat next, then it's by no means a required formality. My personal stance is when a discussion can be asynchronous, let it stay that way.

[asxd]

Exactly, it can be polite to check if someone is ready to chat synchronously, but doesn't make much sense otherwise.

[wpm]

I picked up sending a "ping" to folks I need a back-and-forth with from one of the people I work with.

[fellowniusmonk]

Agree, saying hello is an anti-pattern in async communication for existing teams.

[dmhmr]

The timestamps, I imagine, are to highlight that waiting for a response before asking is wasting time. The same exchange can be just two lines: The query and response.

you: Hi coworker, I'm working on [something] and I'm trying to do [etc]

coworker: Hi you, Oh, that's [answer]

[codeulike]

I would like to talk about this, is anyone interested in discussing?

[themanmaran]

Hello. Yes.

[area51org]

Looks like this might be making its point just a tad too subtlety.

[hprotagonist]

i have 'don't ask to ask just ask' macroed in my irc client; who the hell thinks this is a good idea?

[tconfrey]

Unrelated but reminded me. Has anyone else noticed that no one on TV or in movies ever says goodbye at the end of a phone call? Everyone just rudely hangs up!

With my family (in Ireland) there are generally about 17 goodbyes ('bye', 'bye bye', 'bye bye bye'...)

[HolyMeekrob]

This is antithetical to everything I know about the relationship between the Irish and goodbyes.

[indigodaddy]

I’m on the No Hello side personally but I enjoy the conversation (so to speak! Haha)

[bklaasen]

Notice the timestamps!

[mkl95]

I guess it is sarcasm. Writing a paragraph after "Hello" and keeping communication asynchronous is one shift + enter press more expensive than wasting your coworker's time and making them anxious.

[asxd]

Baffled (horrified?) me at first, but the timestamps make it pretty clear sarcasm. The only time hello should be used in a slack channel is in the context of "hey, this still a good time for a call?"

[nunez]

#nohello is about "hello" being the only message when you have a direct ask, not about not saying hello to peers on chat, ever. You can be friendly and direct.

[paxys]

Messages that say "hi" or "I have a question" and then wait for a reply are the absolute worst ones to receive at work. Please don't do this.

[manmal]

“Hello, I’ve posted a question on our internal forum, could you please check it out and give your opinion? Here is the link:”

Much better.

[scubbo]

I'm on the fence about that. I prefer a situation where the forum (bug tracker, ticket intake, etc.) is tracked well-enough that no-one _needs_ to ping-for-attention (and, crucially, people asking questions trust that enough that they don't feel the need to ping) - but I recognize that that isn't always practical.

Either way, it's certainly better than the situation presented here!

[hammyhavoc]

What's the point of sharing this on HN?

[sigmonsays]

100% -- why is this on HN?

i feel like there is a joke i dont get (or dont find funny) or I am being trolled. This is a waste of time.. yet i'm still trying to figure it out...