[barefootcoder]

Because the query is an interruption. Frustratingly, about 30% of the time (or more!) the person who sent me the hi doesn’t send their actual question even if I respond almost instantly after it’s sent, so I’ve stopped responding to a bare hi.

Moreover, now that I’m interrupted I can’t really go back to what I’m doing because I know that (presumably) a question is coming very soon, so the interruption clock has already started and I have to sit and wait while they painfully slowly type the actual question.

And then there’s the frequent case where I get a bare hi, but cannot get back to it until a few hours later, and then that person is offline — but I don’t know what they needed, so I cannot ask them and cannot send a response. If they’d have just included their question then I could just answer it and we’d all be better off.

I’ve just gotten to where I just refuse to answer a bare hi… if that’s all you’re willing to type, then I guess you didn’t need anything.

[bluefishinit]

If I'm heads down with something, I don't check my Slack/Discord... if I'm not, I have the bandwidth to chat. Sometimes people do just want to say hi.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> Sometimes people do just want to say hi.

This is a very appreciable point (especially from a remote work perspective!) that I don’t think I really encountered before. Thanks for phrasing it this way!

I mentioned it elsewhere in the thread that I already disagree with “sharing” this website but it was from a vague perspective that it’s “rude”. This gives me a stronger point to make about it.

[bluefishinit]

Thank you for your thoughtful responses! A lot of my managerial style has been tuned for remote work and the #1 thing I try to stress is trust and tolerance. It's easy to take things the wrong way when remote or cut people less slack. Remote teams work much better with trust and flexibility at their foundation. Being nit picky is very corrosive and stress inducing, especially in a remote environment.