Exactly. I just reply back when I'm ready. Forcing them into our cultural habits shows a complete misunderstanding and lack of respect of other people. Even better, I like to get my teams to talk about communication early on in projects, so everyone understands how people want to communicate over messaging, expectations on response times, etc. A 15 minute meeting can resolve so many annoyances.

It definitely is cultural, but I've never viewed it from the perspective of getting straight to business being rude. A bit like in the UK, "weather chat" is a very standard point of conversation at the start of a meeting with people you aren't too familiar with, as a reflexive ice breaker.

For me personally, whilst I understand all the reasoning and logic behind it, it does ultimately come across as fake and unnecessary - everyone knows it's fake and unnecessary, but we ritualistically do it anyway, because the alternative is too jarring "we're here for work, lets do the work, and we're done"