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Comment by marcosdumay

3 years ago

If you want to know if the person can chat right now, you can always say "Oh, hello. Do you have time for a short chat right now?"

Every other time when you don't need to know that, you can still not get all the problems of the empty "hello" message.

14 comments

marcosdumay

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jiggawatts  3 years ago

Try: "Oh, hello. Do you have time for a short chat right now about a database schema change?”

I almost always have time to fight fires — unless busy with a larger conflagration. I may or may not have the time to debate the finer points of table naming conventions however.

Without context I might say yes and then have to take it back once I discover the topic.

  • _carbyau_  3 years ago

    This. There are many conversations I am happy to have, many not.

    Hello without a context is ignored.

    Hello with a context empowers me to make a decision about how my day will go.

BrandoElFollito  3 years ago

I always want to know that because I do not want to send messages when it is not a good time for that. Nor I want to receive any.

A "hello" means it is "IM urgent" so it can wait for the moment I am OK to exchange.

Like I said, this is also cultural - some cultures allow people to interrupt others, some not.

  • sowbug  3 years ago

    August 21, 2022

    Re: your messages in this thread

    Dear BrandoElFollito:

    You're rebuilding TCP over UDP. Chat apps are connectionless (or RESTful, if you will). What makes them productive, especially in the workplace, is the fact that they can work without all the handshaking that accompanies more structured communication like in-person, spoken human conversations.

    Nothing is stopping you from adding back all your binds, listens, SYNs, and ACKs to a protocol that doesn't need them. But it's a conversational code smell if you do.

    Sincerely yours,

    sowbug

    • BrandoElFollito  3 years ago

      Dear sowbug - apparently you live in a place where it is fine to send a message and it does not matter if the recipient is ready to receive it or not. Good for you.

  • watwut  3 years ago

    I don't want to wait there and stare in typing icon while you are typing and retyping and figuring out what you want to send.

    That is why hello is annoying. People are capable to talk immediately, but take forever to finish writing.

    • XorNot  3 years ago

      The solution here would be for Microsoft to add a "hello will be ignored" option to Teams so I can just check that and have it look like Teams is saying back to them " please write more then just hello "

    • BrandoElFollito  3 years ago

      It does not work that way in my place. You write "hello" and if there is no immediate "hello" back, then you leave this aside until there is. There is no staring at anything.

  • lttlrck  3 years ago

    How would you manage that via telephone?

    Sending Hello this way seems like calling somebody and if they answer it's ok to interrupt.

    Being responsive doesn't mean you're idle.

    • BrandoElFollito  3 years ago

      The phone is the last but one "urgency" level. It means that if someone calls me on the phone it is really urgent. I would interrupt a lot of things, including a presentation, if I get a call.

      If this is to say something minor I will block that person, or never pick up their call again.

  • ryan_lane  3 years ago

    I see, however, that you're rudely just communicating here without telling people hello first, and waiting for a reply to know they're available to converse.