[emblaegh]

My life hack for this kind of situation is to say “hello” back. Works every time.

[pards]

I have several responses depending on how ornery I'm feeling

    1. Respond with, "Hello. How can I help?", or
    2. Wait until 5:30pm then respond, "Hello" and close my laptop for the day

[DrammBA]

Lately I've been going with 3. No response, people that have something important eventually follow up their lonely hello with their actual question/issue, the rest just forget about it I guess so the conversation never starts.

[hombre_fatal]

I don't get what this achieves since the whole reason they sent you "hello" is that they want a TCP handshake before they get on with it. So sending hello back just acks the message and they will proceed which is what they wanted.

The annoyance in TFA is that you have to do the handshake at all.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

Actually, when you put it like that, sending 'hello' back might be the best thing you could do. They sent you a SYN, you send back and ACK, then the real conversation can begin.

I suddenly no longer agree with TFA. This makes way more sense to me in this light.

[easton]

Wave emoji reaction, then I go back to what I was doing until the rest of the question lands. It's quicker!

although these days I sometimes respond "how was your weekend" to continue the pleasantries :D

[jvanderbot]

It opens a synchronous channel, setting social expectations for somewhat realtime responses. Most of the time I treat chat like "small email", so this is abhorrent.

[krisoft]

> It opens a synchronous channel, setting social expectations for somewhat realtime responses.

But do you see how that is your choice? You can just type "hello", or a longer form of the same, and then go back to work. You can then check back in about an hour to see if they managed to describe what they are looking for.

You can always change yourself, while it is so much harder to change others that it is almost futile. The true source of your distress is not them saying hello, but your understanding of that social expectation of realtime responses.

[BobaFloutist]

I hope you meant aberrant!

[dkdbejwi383]

I’ll do the same - when I get around to it, which might be an hour or two after it was sent.

If the person on the other end then decides to draw out the small talk with “how are you” etc, it might take a few days for them to get an answer to their actual question, but that’s on them, it doesn’t bother me. I get to messages when I get to them. If they aren’t of substance I don’t care.

[defraudbah]

it does not, some people don't understand it. I tried every trick and one guy was still sending his hello's because it was the way he communicated. I told him twice, literally, that he cannot just say hello and wait for me to reply, and he apologized and still didn't get it.

the only working option is to ignore such people, you cannot teach people with reasoning, it never works

[quchen]

How are you?

I hope this message finds you well.

I have a question.

-------

It’s simply not a game I want to play. My mind recommends answering »state your business«, but my polite-mind tells me not to.

[mbrd]

If I'm feeling grumpy I don't respond, but if I have some patience left in the tank I'll use, "Hi, what's up?" which usually short-circuits the salutations.

[SamPatt]

Same. It's how I answer the phone too, depending on how well I know the caller. I don't think it's perceived as rude, with a friendly tone of voice.

[fkyoureadthedoc]

My life hack is to ignore it completely and have several unread "hello" Teams messages from Indian dudes I never heard of. If I'm lucky they just never follow up.

[hi_hi]

This backfires on me, almost every time.

I reply in kind with "hello".

There can then be many hours to sometimes days.

Either they then reply AGAIN with "hello" (arghhh), or even worse, there is no reply, and I break asking what they want, and _maybe_ get a reply of "never mind, got it sorted" so I NEVER KNOW.

[quietbritishjim]

That's what they want and expect. Then they'll ask you their question. I don't get your point.

[drcongo]

Mine is to respond immediately with a question that requires a long and technical answer that by the time they've finished writing has completely erased their question from their mind.

[4pkjai]

When people give me a hello back I raise them a “how are you?”

[macintux]

It took me a depressingly long time to figure out that when people (offline) ask me how I am, they don’t expect, or want, an answer.

[IshKebab]

Fine thanks, how are you?