Folks that ping “hi” and disappear

I can’t be be the only one, but I am surrounded by multiple people that just do not believe in async communication. They first send a “hi”, wait for me to acknowledge and then only proceed to tell me what they want. Even if it is something ridiculous like “What is the URL to access this portal?”.

I generally am very quick with messages and from the last few months, this “hi” business is ticking me off. I decided to do some social experiment and delayed my responses to hi.

If someone just sends me a “hi”, I schedule a “hi” to 3 hours from then. Result? People would rather sit on blockers than tell me what they want.

I then tried a decreasing backoff. If you texted me a “hi” once, I’d respond in 3 hours. Repeat it a second time, I’d respond in 4 hours. 5 hours the third time, 6 hours the fourth and so on.

Results? People would still rather I acknowledge their “hi” than tell me what they want.

Some anecdotes of how “efficient” communication is:

1. A guy wanted access to a portal that I managed. He pinged me a “hi” every morning for 7 straight days before actually asking me what he wants.
2. Another person wanted to understand git commands that can be used to solve merge conflicts. But not before pinging “hi” for 4 days, then just pulling me into a call with their manager and their manager pinging me a “hi” when I declined the call.
3. Another person wanted an update on a ticket I closed 2 years ago. All he wanted was a change request number, which he could find using control + F on the Jira portal. He chose to send “hi”s to multiple team mates of mine when I didn’t respond.

Ultimately, I started telling people to not just ping and disappear and that they can reach out to me. But I guess old habits die hard and I still receive multiple “hi”s.

Merko unkin”hi” lag gayi.

Also, before you scream at me for ranting about such a piddi problem. https://nohello.net/en/ is the thing.