[gavinray]

I have a hard time empathizing with this. I understand the principle, but here's where I come from/my experience:

When many of my coworkers message me on Slack for example, they don't just leave me a message asking for what they want, they say "Hey, how are you", or "How was your weekend", or some other silly thing.

I know they don't care about the answer to my question. Now, instead of being able to asynchronously answer their question, I have to spend my own energy (I'm slightly autistic, so it doesn't come easily to me) coming up with some reply to this, so that they THEN ask what they actually want to know.

  > [03 AM] COWORKER: Hey gavinray, how was your weekend?
  > [10 AM] gavinray: It was decent, what about yours?
  > [11 AM] COWORKER: Good. Hey, about ISSUE-123, do you...

Now they have wasted both of our time and drained me of my lifeforce. Sometimes there are hours of delay between this/we are in different timezones.

Just ask me for what you want, I know you're only talking to me because you want something.

[eventhorizon77]

This can be a cultural thing. In particular, if I understand correctly, in India it is considered rude not to make small talk before jumping into work. (I'm slightly autistic too but it's not completely useless. I ended up taking a trip to India at one point, and such trips are much easier if you've put in the effort to understand the culture, and your coworkers everyday lives.) I would suggest trying not to be so brief. Ask about their family, their commute to work, etc - get to know them a little better.

[vaidhy]

Coming from India, we do not talk like that in our native language. I am guessing it is because we have been repeatedly told that is how americans talk (reinforced by movies and TV shows). Now, I start with just a greeting and jump to the issue.. "Hey P!! Good morning.. I just want to check about issue XXX". It sounds less rude, but does not ask the banal questions.

[eventhorizon77]

So it seems we have found a self-referencing loop of assumptions about each others' culture! Interesting.

[abbeyj]

Spreading https://nohello.net/ around your company may help. I have it set as my status message.

[gavinray]

This rocks, thanks for sharing