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  • I used to live South of the Mason/Dixon line (MD, so just barely South), and have many friends, from even farther South.

    I live in New York.

    These cultures have radically different approaches to communication.

    New Yorkers want you to get right to the point. No dilly-dallying. I think that most of the SV Californians I've dealt with, have been similar.

    They be like:

        Hey Chris,

    Do you have a published API for the Widget library that was recommended?
    Southerners, on the other hand, like to "break the ice," with some small personal talk, like:

        Hey Chris,

    I hope this finds you in good spirits, and good health. Down here, we're experiencing a bit of a heat wave, so our air conditioners are running all day.

    I was writing to ask you if you have an API spec. for that library that was recommended to me...
    by ChrisMarshallNY
  • this used to bug me a lot more than it does now, perhaps because it doesn't really happen to me very often anymore. when it does, i just type "hi" back and then move on with my day.
    by john_strinlai
  • I often think people are wanting to know if you're there or busy and are gauging your response time for an answer. According, if I'm busy I ignore hellos 100%, but if I'm not, it type "hi" and immediately close the tab/window and spend zero effort thinking about who they are or what they might want. Their question normally follows. If the pleasantries persist, I repeat this algorithm, but replace with "never better!" (insta-close! And continue previous train of thought)
    by verytrivial
  • Past submissions with hundred of comments in total for you all to enjoy: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nohello.net
    by thinkingemote
  • The easiest solution is to simply not respond to "hello"s. If they have a question, they'll ask.
    by kube-system
  • A read this advice a while ago, and now it hurts me every time someone goes "Hi (name)" and then you just sit there looking at the 3 dots indicating they're writing something.

    Or worse,

    "Hi (name)"

    "How are you, all good?"

    "A question"

    "Do you know anything about (system)?"

    "I have this problem..."

    Just have a bitnof respect for my time and attention and write your damn message already.

    by karmakurtisaani
  • At one company I got so many messages like that … I just chose not to respond if they didn’t have an actual message.

    One of the managers who was not a fan of mine (or anyone) tried to get me in trouble for not responding to his team (they had a habit of handing off tickets they didn’t like the look of to other teams).

    I gathered up all the plain “hello” messages and sent it as my response. There were hundreds of them in a single month. My response was that I was working my own tickets and can’t stop to address “hello” messages with no context hundreds of times a month. If they have a critical situation, then they need to say so to get me to break away from my critical situation….

    by duxup
  • Funny! Not sure if it's a cultural thing, but I experienced this phenomenon with Indian and Portuguese guys, and while I'm sure they're just trying to be polite, it's annoying as hell. Just ask the damn question!
    by whythismatters

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