Have you ever been deep in the zone, finally making quality progress on an ambitious project that had paralyzed you for weeks, when the loud, abrupt, triple-ping alert of a new Slack message jolted you out of your state? of concentration, to then read a simple message from:
And nothing else.
You might be a victim of so-called “hey hanging”, in which a colleague sends you a brief greeting in an instant message but doesn’t actually tell you what they want – which naturally leads you into a anxiety spiral of speculation about whether you’ve done something horribly wrong or whether you’re about to walk away from a task in another project.
Or maybe you’re the one who sent a “hi hi” or a “hello” or a “hello” and then forgot to follow up.
The practice of “hey hanging,” as it’s called in the Wall Street Journal, is one small way that colleagues can find themselves out of sync with each other, especially in the age of remote work, which studies have shown has had a negative impact on communication. At work.
Workers who engage in “hey hanging” may not see the harm in it, or they may intend to send a quick follow-up but become distracted or drawn into another task themselves. Regardless of why they do it, some people beg them to stop.
There is even a website dedicated to condemning this practice: nohello.net.
“Please don’t just say hello in chat,” the website says. “Imagine calling someone on the phone, going Good morning! then put them on hold…”
“Just ask!” ” reads the website, accompanied by a whiny emoji.
The Journal spoke with colleagues who had different views on the subject. A brand strategist in Chicago told the outlet that when her colleague “hey, hang her” via text, she simply doesn’t respond until they follow up with the actual question.
But the “hey-hanged” A colleague told the Journal that she thought starting with a simple greeting was just a polite gesture.
“It’s pretty rude to jump into someone’s texts and spew whatever I want,” she said. “But now I realize it’s something people don’t necessarily like.”
Ultimately, if a colleague “hangs out” on you regularly and you find it disruptive, it’s best to let them know openly and honestly that you would prefer more information during the first contact, Constance Hadley, professor of management and d organizations in Boston. University, told the Journal.
Partly because I could understand my editor “hey hanging” on me, I hesitated for a moment before telling him this story via Slack.
But she responded very quickly.
“ugh, I do this for people all the time,” she wrote. “and I feel bad.”
businessinsider
