Don’t Just say Hello#
I’ve had a few messages at ${WORK} lately which simply start with a: “Hello” followed by nothing. Sometimes there’s an ask of how a thing, typically a weekend, was.
For example:
@0910 - Dave: Hi!
@0912 - Me: hi!
@0920 - Dave: <question>
Thats about 10 minutes used up and twice I’ve had to stop what I’ve been doing to see your ask.
This isn’t a 3-way Handshake sort of thing and typically just eats up some time and can cause pain when in the middle of some complicated investigations or work.
Say ‘hi’ and tell me what you need#
Its always nice to drop some pleasantries first but also include why you’re messaging:
@0910 - Dave: hi, hope youre well and had a good weekend
Can you tell me the size of the package for prod and where it is?
@0912 - Me: not too bad, how was yours?
The package is 10M and its in the package bucket `prod-packages`
That’s Much quicker; The query has been answered and there’s only been one context change. 🎉
References#
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/no-hello-policy-respect-others-time-evgeny-ignatik