Teams messages: Hi

They annoy me intensely and I ignore them until the rest of the message finds its way to me,

Also this! I’m quite new to teams and I’ve done this a couple of times!

This would drive me insane.

However, I’d just cut it off by saying ‘hi, how can I help?’

Rather than waffling about and doing it in return.

In my books in business there is no how are you,no hope you are well. Anything other than Hi, can you please send me such & such with further explanation as to why it's required & of course a thank you is not necessary. All the pleasantries can be saved for social time & not when I'm busy concentrating on my work.

I have to admit I'm occasionally guilty of this when I forget I'm typing a Teams message and not an email and hit 'return' after the opening greeting 😆

Just respond ‘how can I help’

In my old team ‘hi’ meant are you free to chat?
If I responded ‘hi’ back it meant yes, I don’t see the issue with it really….

Please don't!

"Hi Disappearing. Are you free to chat about the Bates project? If not, when would be a good time?" would be so much more efficient.

This made me laugh as a few of my colleagues does this. When I see the Hi message pop up, it just reply No 😊 it is a running joke now.

Wholeheartedly agree with this!

Yanbu, in my experience people tend to message the 'hi' when they want to check you are free before they hit you with the long tedious thing they want from you. I tend ignore the 'hi' until they actually state what they want or i just respond with 'hi, how can I help?' To encourage them to get to the point.

That's a win as far as I'm concerned. It can't be that important if they won't tell you what they want.

I sometimes say "Hi" on a chat message to see if they are there and free to chat.

If not, I will likely send them an email instead

oh those pings! I am retired now but I still get triggered when my phone pings. My last year at work was all Covid stuff and I was working in two teams and my work phone used to ping constantly. Muting them was not realistic as I needed to be in touch with both parts of my job. Horrible time

Someone I work with just writes “call?”

Multiple times a day. Even when my status shows I’m busy or on leave.

drives me fucking insane.

This reminds me of when I used to sit next to a colleague (they weren't the brightest to be fair) and every single bloody email started with:

"Dear Life on Mars
I hope you are well"

I wanted to send one back saying "I have the misfortune to sit next to you for at least a few hours of every working day so you know I am well, all I want is for you to email me over that document I have literally asked you about 5 minutes ago"

He could have simply attached the relevant document with a "please see attached as requested" or "here is the document you need" but no, we were through this whole inane palaver every single time

That's one thing if you're emailing someone for the first time. But with colleagues who you speak to multiple times a day it would be ridiculous to say "hi, hope you're well?" every time you send a Teams message.

I think there's far too much time-wasting and waffle in emails tbh: I hate the idea of having to pretend to care how someone is. But that is at least the convention and it softens things. In a Teams email it's just dead time.

This is a pet peeve of mine!

I worked once on a crazy busy team on a high profile project where we needed to streamline communication to stop everyone getting overwhelmed and we made it a rule that this wasn’t allowed, it was great.

It’s fine to say hi and add some pleasantries but add your question to the same message, the incessant pinging then the waiting while they type their actual message is infuriating!

It’s the hard return quandary, do a soft return everyone!

some people, very few thankfully won’t move on unless you reply to the hi. Probably they think they are being polite, checking you are free or something?

Don’t get me started on this. I absolutely hate it. So insincere and a complete waste of time.

YANBU. Just tell me what you want fgs!

Hi, how are you doing?
Can you send me bla bla bla
All in the same text do for me
I don't wait for the answer of any single item

My biggest peeve is people starting off with “I hope you’re well”. Just why?! If I wasn’t well, I’d be off sick. And even if I was sick and at work, I’m not likely to tell a colleague my health woes. It’s just a pointless filler.

i got the lecture that i should ask how someone is first before just jumping in with my request because its rude, which i get but if you know how or what they will say then whats the point its just word play before business

My neighbour does this on WhatsApp.
find it so annoying
“Hi” presses send
I open phone and watch “Gemma is typing” whilst she sends next sentence. Presses send…

Bet she does it at work too. Irrationally drives me nuts and she’s an otherwise lovely person.

Typing like that once you’re in an active Teams / WhatsApp convo fine. Not with the opener ….put it all one!