I really wish colleagues would observe better digital etiquette

[LadyJaye]

Light-hearted shouty rant.

I've been working remotely for a lot of years now, and I enjoy it. I work in IT at director level, so have been using platforms such as Slack and so on for forever - absolutely no problem there.

However, I'm starting to get really pissed off with colleagues who just don't seem to be able to 'read the room' with regards to digital etiquette - most commonly, those who haven't really worked remotely for long periods of time before. The absolute worst offenders are immediate peers, so it's a bit more difficult to tell them to fuck off.

If I change my status to 'Do Not Disturb', for example, it means just that! I don't do it very often, but if I need to get my head down and crack on, then LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE and I will get back to you when I'm ready.

Also, people who send messages as though they're channelling their inner James Joyce:

'Hi LadyJaye'

'How are you?'

'Hope you had a good weekend.'

'Anyway, just wanted to ask you about...'

JUST STOP, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY, AND THEN SEND ME ONE FUCKING MESSAGE. JUST THE ONE.

And don't get me started on unscheduled Teams/Zoom calls...

One of the many, many reasons that I switched to almost 100% remote work was that I couldn't be doing with people, in an open office environment, stopping off at my desk 'for a chat'. Now it seems that even that last bastion of defence has been stripped away...

Are some people lacking in (the admittedly more complex) boundaries surrounding digital communications, or do they just not think?

First thought is that if you’re senior in IT, then neurodivergence should be on your radar.

Given OP's hatred of social interaction, intolerance of difference and rigid need for routine, I think her own neurodivergence should be on her radar.

OP I'm totally with you. I'm up to my eyebrows with work and stress; I just don't have time to have a back-and-forth about weekends before the requester warms up to asking me their question.

I tend to get it all out the way in one message: Hi, how are you, can you do X. Sorted!

I much prefer when people do it that way - I can check the message and understand if it's something I need to deal with right away or not. Otherwise, with the chitchat option, they feel like they've "got my attention" if that makes sense and that I should drop whatever else I'm working on to answer their q/complete their task straight away even if not remotely urgent.

About a year ago I searched for articles on digital etiquette but couldn’t find anything. We have set some rules as a team but it’s clear that’s people interpret features differently.

I don’t like to interrupt people or be interrupted so I’m a fan of email and always have been. Most people I work with seem to prefer intrusive phone calls, which is a struggle but helps as I don’t have a work phone.

I try not to do single line messages: I tend to do these accidentally or if I’m chatting to someone I know where the conversation is more fast-paced. I have told quite a few people how to do a soft return; a lot of people don’t know about this.

Not sure why OP is getting such flack. Many people are just unprofessional, ignorant and have no thought for others.

My bugbear is not muting on big meetings so we all get to hear what someone is doing right before a meeting starts.

@PradaBallbag

I agree....my particular bugbear is when a colleague can see from my status that I'm in a meeting and they message me. I know I could ignore but....if I do that I'll completely forget to reply ever. If I was in an actual F2F meeting I wouldn't get someone popping their head in the meeting room to ask me a non urgent question so why should it be any different when working remotely?!

I don’t understand this , surely you just reply when you are free. Maybe by the time you are free the messager will be in a meeting themselves. If we all had to wait until both parties are free to send a message things are going to grind to a halt pretty fast. I message at the time appropriate for me and expect a reply at a time appropriate for them.

Messenger for me means instant chat replies. If you can see I'm in a meeting, send me an email and I'll get to it when I have the time. That would be the etiquette if you were in a F2F meeting.

@ChocolateCuddle

I mostly just close their Skype window.

I do have a repeat offender of this that I've lost my patience with. I've previously asked her to send queries to my teams email inbox and one of us will pick it up. Flag it as urgent if necessary.

However, she usually tries to Skype call me. When I don't answer she sends me a message on Skype.

After 10 mins she'll send me a message on Teams.

Then she'll email me and CC the team inbox. It's usually with an issue that has a 30 day turnaround. I've told her this previously.

I then put a reminder in my calendar for 28 days time to reply to her. I don't appreciate queue jumping cheeky bitches. I will deal with all of the other property queued emails first. Feck off Jemma.

Ah yes, the multi channel annoyer. There’s a special place in hell for them.

They ring your mobile. You don’t answer because you’re busy. So they ring you on zoom. You don’t answer because you’re busy. Then they message you on slack. And they ALWAYS say “just a quick one” - as if that makes it ok for you to completely stop what you’re already dealing with and deal with their issue. And even worse, when you do get back to them with answer you’ll find that they have already asked someone else in the team so “don’t worry, x sorted it”!

Drives.me.crazy.

If imagine it depends on the office culture, my company has been actively trying to reduce emails, so it's totally normal to send a message over Slack even if the other person is busy. You just know not to expect an immediate response.

If you are in a rush then you pick up the phone instead.

Just wanted to add that thanks to this thread I've been thinking about how I react to instant messages, and it's made me realise that generally speaking, they're no more urgent than emails. So I've turned off notifications and am checking periodically, as I do emails. If anyone needs me before then, they can ring me - which they won't because these things aren't urgent.

My day has been much more productive as a result. So thank you for pointing out that it is unreasonable to demand instant attention - I hadn't thought of it that way for some reason.

Does “soft return” work on ms teams? If so this is the revelation I’ve been waiting for!

I honestly think most people don't realise this. When I found out (by asking someone else who could do the paragraphs) I've then been asked by loads of other people how to do that. So the one line messages aren't meant to be annoying, it's the way Teams works unless you've been told/shown otherwise.

@SwedishEdith

Does “soft return” work on ms teams? If so this is the revelation I’ve been waiting for!

I honestly think most people don't realise this. When I found out (by asking someone else who could do the paragraphs) I've then been asked by loads of other people how to do that. So the one line messages aren't meant to be annoying, it's the way Teams works unless you've been told/shown otherwise.

Yes, and if you click the A/pencil icon under the chat box you can just press return for new paragraphs, plus edit the font/italic/bold/highlight etc. before you send the message, a revelation!

YANBU

I have had established remote working days that are focused on long term research work which makes much greater progress undisturbed. I can take calls, but the team have been told that I don't read messages, don't have outlook open, and am only available on phone for urgent matters.

Yet I still get:

• non urgent matters in calls (once when we were still permitted to be in office my direct report - a man of a whopping 40k salary called to ask me if they ought to buy more toilet roll as they'd run out...)
• urgent matters in emails or teams messages

And I reserve the right to consider myself very important indeed

But the only solution I've found really works is to give everyone the same offline time. Everyone has one day or half day a week where they go offline but remain contactable by phone. When they see how useful it is to have offline time, they respect mine more.