Microsoft Teams chats

Maybe you don’t want to help them.

Yeah I hate this too. It’s always people from our Finance team who I’ve never met that do it, they clearly don’t care how I am so just ask the question FFS!

The other thing that annoys me is people ignoring Do Not Disturb status. It happens so often now that I put DND status on and people still message. I raised this in a meeting once (an in person one!) and several people said they never look at people’s statuses, they just send the message and assume people will just reply when convenient. No concept of the fact that just sending the message means I have to stop and read it (because it must be urgent if it’s been sent when I’m on DND, must it?) and then they know I’ve read it so I feel pressured to reply.

Before Teams we had a system (maybe Lync?) which blocked anyone from messaging you when DND was on. That was great.

Within our chat we do genuinely ask how people are so you’d hate to be working with us! 😂

if people want to ask a question i find that they do just that but would include the Hi (name) in the question. Something like: Hi bob, can you send over the….

I have a colleague who does this. It's infuriating. I'm busy, I'm not hanging on for your every few words phrase to pop up. I'd rather they called me as it would be easier and most of these one-way chats end in them asking can they call me. I'm pretty certain this person thinks they are being considerate.

We have a neighbour who does this. She’ll send you a message saying hi are you working from home tomorrow? And you’ll say yes, and then she’ll ask if you walk her dog on your lunch break for free. I now just don’t reply and after about 10 minutes she’ll type out what she wants.

Yes, same. I don’t mind it at all. I usually know what they’re getting in touch about anyway. I’ll reply with a hello when I know I’ve got time for a discussion about what they’re after. Usually when they just send a hello it’s not that urgent - if it was, they’d send the actual request.

For me, if it wasn’t urgent, and needed an actual conversation rather than “please send info x”, I’d say “hello, have you got 5 minutes?”. Sometimes it’s easier to set time aside to talk with someone than send great long messages.

Don't be ridiculous, you're undermining yourself

Nobody mentioned being scared. Just polite. If you're too busy to type "good thanks, how can I help?" then you need to talk to your line manager about your workload.

If being polite stresses you out, then maybe you should ask yourself why that is. Do you think your time is too important to waste on being pleasant? If you are pathologically unable to spend a very brief amount of time on the niceties that smooth our interactions, you should probably make sure your colleagues understand your handicap so they can consciously make allowances

Hello to me is a code for are you available. Seems just courtesy to me.

No no no. 50 of those a day, I might not want to help! Soft return is your friend.

I’ve never experienced this, it sounds a bit strange!

I’ll sometimes say “hi Bob” or a straight “Morning” first as a separate message as a heads up if the detail to follow is private so they have a chance to stop sharing/move windows etc before the main message comes. I don’t expect a response, and they can see I am typing the follow up. I’ve been on too many teams meetings I’ve been in where either emails or teams messages pop up on screen for all to see.

https://nohello.net/en/

just ask the question

It irritates me a little, like OP I include my hello with the question, but thinking about it, some people haven't mastered 'shift enter' to create a new line and it could be they're thinking of it as one message but pressing enter for their new line which is sending the 'hello' as a separate message.

I think this is the best way to do it. Nothing at all wrong with a few pleasantries, but also ask the actual question!

Blimey some of you are so rude. I don’t reply immediately if someone can’t be bothered to say hi, how are you, or hope you are well, or did you have a nice holiday. You wouldn’t walk upto someone’s desk ( old days) and say I want this document. You would say hello initially and hopefully ask how they are. Just basic manners.

Perhaps they were just greeting you and being friendly?

Not rude, just a busy professional who doesn't always have capacity. If you're really that scared (of what?!) then there's nothing stopping you messaging "hello, how was your weekend? Please could you tell me where the TPS reports are held?"

One of my colleagues has a display message saying dont do it.

Something to the effect of "Dont message me a simple greeting, explain in your initial message what you want. I wont respond to "Hi, Hello, Good morning ".

At first I thought how rude! but not any more.

Are you aware that some people feel rude just jumping straight into their request?

Either you are aware but just feel that you can't be bothered with social courtesies (which is at the least quite abrupt and, at the worst, rude)

Or you aren't aware, which sounds like a lack of social awareness.

When you interact with your colleagues you are dealing with humans with all their complexities, not typing input into a computer algorithm. Between you, you need to find a comfortable way of behaving. If you are just 'this is how I am, suck it up', don't be surprised if you lose the benefit that others get from being considerate; like people being prepared to put themselves out to help you when you're in a jam. Consideration is the oil that makes human gears run smoothly

100% agree and it drives me crazy. As an HR manager, I automatically assume the worst and sit waiting to see what latest issue someone is having.

I think your characterisation of this as lacking "social awareness" is unfair.

I’d rather ‘how are you’ than I hope you are well. No you don’t, you don’t know me, just tell me what you want.

I worked with a woman who had a pinned message on her Teams, something like, ‘I’ve adopted the No Hello method, please message me with your request, I will not reply to messages just saying Hello’

It depends who is sending the message. If it’s someone I know well they very likely just saying hi. I don’t work on the same continent as most of my work friends, so it’s the equivalent of running into them at the coffee machine.

If it’s someone I don’t know I will wait for them to ask what they need to ask before responding generally.