Hacker News Reader

Comment by philbarr | Hacker News Reader

In a sprint review recently I brought up the issue of, "Hi Phil." This is where someone IMs you with just "Hi Phil" and then you have to sit there and look at the "X is typing", "X is not typing" for 5 minutes.

I don't mind people asking a question, but just put it all on one line, "Hi Phil. This is the question..." That way I can sometimes just fire back a quick answer and it's not as distracting.

It makes sense too - you wouldn't walk up to someone, tap them on the shoulder and then make them wait before asking a question.

View on HN

I still don't understand why people use Slack for work for non-emergencies. For talking about bullshit (cool places to eat near the office) or for emergencies (@zach @sarah prod is down!) it's good, but for product planning it's terrible. Hard to keep up with, hard to reference later, encourages temporary / lazy fixes like quick questions over maintained wikis.

I keep my Slack status set to "nohello.com"[0], and ignore any messages sent to me which do not abide by nohello. It's worked pretty well so far.

[0]http://www.nohello.com/

I'm with you on this one, but I've recently decided that "Hi Phil" boils down to some fundamental personality split rather than a misunderstanding; I don't think either side will soon change. I believe "Hi Phil" people are really just trying to be polite and minimize interruptions (or at least their magnitude), waiting for permission to really bother you, so to speak.

Whether that's true or not, I respond if I'm ready, or I ignore it and go on with my work if I'm in the middle of something, just like I would with a full question. The only difference is I'm not thinking about the question with my spare cycles in the mean time.

If someone is trying to inform me of something urgent with "Hi Drew" I think it's reasonable to say that's their own fault.

No, the real reason for the "Hi Phil" and then a pause is much worse. You might sometime in the future have to contact Phil about some detail on the plan to fire "Joe". By sending "Hi Phil" and a pause you give Phil enough time to respond "I'm busy" before you give away to Joe that he is going to be out the door in a couple days after legal finishes the paperwork. Because "Hi Phil" and then a 5 minute pause is standard when this situation happens Joe doesn't think anything of it and so Phil can secretly transfer that least important bit of knowledge without giving anything away.

A "hello" comment without a question also makes me anxious, BUT I must acknowledge that from their perspective they might be doing exactly what I want, asking if it's okay to talk now, and signaling that they're willing to wait. If a question isn't asked, then you've been given permission to ignore it until ready, right?

And while the greeting without a question causes anxiety -- (you said hello... what do you need??) -- I have to say I'd rather get a lonely "hello" than a "Hey I have this insanely urgent thing, you need to help me RIGHT NOW." And I'd way rather get a lonely "hello" in Slack than have someone walk up to my desk and "hello".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com