Re:No Hello: A New Wave
by NikolaNovak on Saturday December 10, 2022 @08:58AM
(#33932654)
I fully understand your predicament. If you type all of the problem to a person, and they don't respond, you don't know when to switch it to another.
I must confess though that by default I am very slow to respond to message that starts with hello. I just don't know if they have a 5s question or 2hr problem. So I don't respond until I can commit the upper bound of time. This will result sometimes in slow responses to quick questions - but over years I started to feel the asker should take some responsibility for their own success. A dangling Hello is just insufficient offer.
Perhaps a good compromise is "hey, can you help me troubleshoot this webserver log?" (30min ask) or "hey do you know who's on shift today" (5s ask) or "hey I need to create a new ops manual for payroll processing, when can we Get together" (4hr ask) . It's polite, not assumptive, still inquires on whether they can help in needed timeframe without committing them, but it provides receiver something to help them reply on their own terms.
I must confess though that by default I am very slow to respond to message that starts with hello. I just don't know if they have a 5s question or 2hr problem. So I don't respond until I can commit the upper bound of time. This will result sometimes in slow responses to quick questions - but over years I started to feel the asker should take some responsibility for their own success. A dangling Hello is just insufficient offer.
Perhaps a good compromise is "hey, can you help me troubleshoot this webserver log?" (30min ask) or "hey do you know who's on shift today" (5s ask) or "hey I need to create a new ops manual for payroll processing, when can we Get together" (4hr ask) . It's polite, not assumptive, still inquires on whether they can help in needed timeframe without committing them, but it provides receiver something to help them reply on their own terms.