Amazing how many people (especially from HR) don't get this. The other day I got a calendar invite from a random HR person who I've talked to before that said nothing but "Sync". It made extremely distressed until I messaged that person asking for more information and it turned out to be something completely innocent. Just write it in the damn invite then instead of giving me a heart attack!
I once worked under a middle manager who had the policy that any meeting invite with no agenda should be automatically rejected. Sadly they were never able to extend this outside of their department.
It may be innocent, but also don't forget that many people don't waste any occasion to make others feel the weight of whatever little ounce of power they have.
While I whole heartedly agree with that you should tell people how to get better, I think if there is one skill a manager should have it is to emphatically communicate.
If a manager doesn't understand the communicative basic that there is always multiple messages:
- the message they intended to send
- the message they actually sent
- the message as it was read by the receiving person
Any decent communicator will always think about how the message/language will be read by the receiver(s). That means if they are a decent communicator this should not happen unless they have a very bad day or something.
Because they don't care and will not change anything. Tried it -- no less than 15 times in my long career. Same result every time.
Management by default attracts people who think they cracked it all (lol). It's an ego trip for many and they are usually impossible to truly reason with.
This is true for many things -- emails, forum/community posts -- always have a context, especially with the Subject. When one sends out something, it is for the recipient and not for the senders' convenience. I'm still learning but I love setting enough context for the recipient to either take action or form a decision, starting from the Subject which is the core of the whole content.
I once read about the idea of BLUF[1] - “Bottom Line Up Front”, popularized by the military - because lives may be dependent on how fast a message gets its context to the recipient. I love that idea and love practicing it. These are applicable, not just with emails, bit also with short text messages.
I got a very spooky email from HR a few years back:
"Hi, this is X from HR. We want to talk to you about an incident that occurred a few months ago. Can we meet on Thursday 3 PM?"
"Okay what incident are you referring to"
"I'll let you know on Thursday"
I then messaged my boss he told me the incident was something dodgey someone had said to me.
It is so simple to not do this. Either they could schedule a generic meeting among the lines of "I have some questions" or they could just tell you what incident this was going to be about.
Reminds me of being called out of the classroom for a meeting with the head teacher when I was 12. I panicked immediately, because "go to the head teacher" was usually just to be told off.* Then my teacher specified "it's for GOOD news" and it changed completely.
* in itself very wrong, the idea that authority is there just to punish you and head teachers should be something you're afraid of.
Our director of cybersecurity did something similar. I asked my manager, what’s going on, he had no idea. Completely unintentional, she wanted to speak about a RFP response, but it was completely out of context and I didn’t know she was reviewing it.
Out of etiquette, everyone should think about context when sending a message. Probably more so in roles of authority and those that own “terminate-able offence” compliance.
Also, people should check their paranoia. I’ve been working jobs for 30 years and never has the bad news or underhanded crap started with a message like this. Not that I don’t sometimes think this is the first time.
"I quit." "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say."
If certain things are already in the air then just this choice of words is probably enough. I mean, in this (real) example there's no real paranoia, not the "hey.. you're fired", but still.
This person needs to consider mindfulness meditation.
It almost seems like they are assuming some catastrophe is around every corner.
If your boss says "hey got a moment to chat" you have a choice in how you react to the information. Assume they want to just chat and engage, or freak out and think the world is ending. Both options are possible, one has a nicer outcome. It's important to remember and remind yourself that you have control about how you feel about things.
I know I do work. I can justify my time, If my boss pulls me aside and redirects my work. That's totally fine, I work for them.
But generally, meetings invites and messages should contain lots of info and context. Chatting with your boss shouldn't be scary, if it is, maybe consider a new boss.
I must admit freaking out one morning, having stumbled into work hungover and tired, when my team lead grabbed me on my way in and said "Can we have a word?" and pulled me into a meeting room where the product owner and two levels of management were sitting.
Thankfully they were wanting to ask if I'd like to spend a month training in California!
Or a little bit of reading about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, there is a good book called "CBT for dummies" or something like that. Mindfulness as a tool will train you to observe what happens inside your head and then apply CBT techniques.
Because it's easier to fix yourself than fixing everyone else.
It would be nice if everyone added context to messages. Unfortunately, a lot of people just don't do that, and it's going to be very hard to convince them to change their behavior.
It's probably easier to work on your anxiety instead.
I'm speaking as someone who also suffers from this type of anxiety occasionally. I find that it helps to tell myself that I'm just being unnecessarily anxious, and that makes it easier to deal with.
The fact that it's possible to personally work around generic problem is nice but it doesn't mean that it's the optimal point to solve the problem. That's why it's also important to ask other to avoid to uselessly make other people life more stressful than it should be.
Every body can wear an armoured suit but it's more efficient to not give guns to everybody.
While I think meditation is interesting and important for a number of reasons, I wouldn't try to solve every problem with "try meditating". It's unfair.
It's a sad state of affairs when people are so anxious that a simple inquiry can cause them distress.
I don't know if it's character, upbringing or just the modern work environment but it really ought not to cause anyone any concern if someone just wants to check if you're available.
As a manager, I've sometimes used the technique of adding something like: "It's nothing serious" to the message. Best way of course is giving context but hey, everyone is human.
As a receiver of that message I'd say it doesn't help much. The stress comes from the information-less poke.
Ideally you go straight to the point: “hi jack, I need to check in on XXX so we can update the quarterly goals, can you send me Y / can we speak?”. Nothing is gained by checking immediate availability with a greeting message.
The downside is that if every significant bit of communication is straight to the point and in public ... how should sensitive personal infomation be handled ?
It's either:
- out there in public, OR
- clearly sensitive as it's the only bit of communication the other party is masking.
Depending on your environment workers may or may not want open signals about sensitive events being telegraphed.
_Any_ message without context leaves me anxious. I can't tell you why, but getting a blind invite from the HoE with various C-suites on it always gets me spooked. I hate it, but after 17 years, I get on with it. Usually a quick message to someone to ask for some context as to what the meet is about is enough to calm me.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
No, you get downvoted when you posit that anxious people are autistic under the guise of curiosity/speculative question. Also, not everyone reacts nicely when someone implies they might be on the spectrum. You live and learn.
The lack of info in the inquiry causes the distress, as there is often a reason that the info is being withheld. Otherwise there is usually more information in the request.
"Can we talk?" has only ever come from my managers when someone is leaving. With my family, it is usually because someone has died. Otherwise, there is usually another sentence about what is going to be discussed.
'Hi, are you available to discuss <x>'? is vastly better in every way because it:
- allows someone to gather their thoughts and prepare for the actual answer, without committing someone to answering what is non-critical (critical would be, 'Call. Now.')
- doesn't generate any fear among anxious employees that they're about to hear something discplinary or even worse, something more dramatic like a termination.
- just on a personal level isn't annoying. YMMV with that but I really dislike it when people waste time by asking to ask questions and so on.
It could be related to previous bad experiences. When I was a teenager, I received bad news via phone call a few times (friend got cancer, other friend was in car accident, etc). It conditioned me to become anxious every time my phone rang.
Of course, I didn't tell people to stop calling me. The problem was my anxiety, not people calling unexpectedly.
I'm confident enough in my work to not swear, "Hey, can we talk," type messages — but, in a previous role as a technical lead, I had a manager that would occasionally leave one of those large rectangular Post-It notes in the middle of my monitors with, "COME SEE ME ASAP - $BOSS," in sharpie for all to see. Trouble was, not once was it ever anything pressing, imminent, or even in-person worthy.
I'd be lying if it didn't get me unnecessarily anxious that a coworker died on the way in or literally anything worthy of speedwalking before logging in had occurred. His reasoning? He doesn't like the impersonality of leaving digital messages.
Or it's quite simply about mental health - which doesn't have to come with feelings that it's down to poor character or failures in upbringing.
It's entirely reasonable that my brain is just different to yours.
> It's a sad state affairs when people are so anxious that a simple inquiry can cause them distress.
Yes. I would assume that the person posting this would much rather not get distressed about this kind of thing.
I wouldn't say it causes me distress per se, but a blank "Can you talk" can by default launch my brain down a tree of "why, what if it's X or Y, it's this time and they so...". Being able to do this kind of thing makes me good at my job and worse at some social things, and work I've done to focus on "THIS LINE OF ENQUIRY IS NOT IMPORTANT TO PURSUE, BRAIN" make me better at both. It's still a conscious thing that I think other people don't have to deal with.
I don't see it as a character flaw, a failure of upbringing or controlled by my work (since it's not tied to work). It's just who I am and maybe that is a sad thing to you, I'd rather not have the downsides but I'm not sure I'd trade away a full part of how I think just for a bit of peace.
I have a very similar type of mental burden to what you are describing. What I have discovered is that ultimately connecting it to a sense of identity, especially in a combative context vs. normies, is a losing battle that only increases anxiety. This is still the case even if it nominally seems like a logical choice to avoid unwarranted self-esteem issues in the face of culturally enforced social norms.
At the end of the day, when it's something as trivial as a Teams ping, the onus is on us to confront the anxiety and to work on our reactions. I sympathize with the author and see myself in him but it's not a part of me that would be good to enable.
Perhaps a clearer example would be someone who is afraid of swimming. It's a good idea for them to fight back against people who needlessly mock them for it. They shouldn't feel lesser for their struggles. But if they find themselves in a body of water, the Universe will not care one iota about the life history and mental world that prevented them from learning.
If I were working with you I would adjust my style. What I object to is the implication that everyone must dial down to the level of the most anxious among us.
You don’t seem to realize how productive it is for I and my colleagues to ping each other for short real-time communications. Most people can handle this. I respect that you don’t want to, but don’t make general rules that are only about the comfort of a tiny few.
It has nothing to do with anxiety for me, personally, and everything to do with simple courtesy. When my colleagues message me things like this, this is the conversation we have:
Colleague: "Hey, do you have a minute to get on a call?"
Me: "Maybe. What is it about?"
Colleague: "I was looking at X and had a question."
Me: "I can meet with ..."
Why not cut the chase here and start with "I was looking at X and had a question, do you have a minute?"
I almost never do have a minute without notice but I'm happy to find a few minutes to give people. I don't like having to play this 21-questions game with people to find out what they need, though. It really irks me.
I can expand on this more later but neither myself nor the OP have put it as some general rule. I don't see any implication that it should be done everywhere to everyone.
I benefit from quick realtime comms too, and understand people are different (that's the main thrust of my comment). I don't know if others realise just how unproductive it can be for some of these styles of messages though.
People usually link those out-of-the-blue messages with being fired or asked to work extra for free. The rest is your own projection and a "kids these days!" rant.
The thing is, this is easy to say without context. But often there is all kinds of surrounding context that may or may not give cause for anxiety. E.g. a "can we talk?" right after a major project you led failed is far more likely to cause anxiety than the very same "can we talk?" right after a major success. But a lot of the time you as a manager will not even be aware of the context. E.g. all kinds of rumours might be circulating that you've not heard of, and given a staff member cause to be worried, or said staff member might think you're unhappy about something you've not even thought about.
If you don't give context, chances are they'll fill in their own.
> If you don't give context, chances are they'll fill in their own.
100% this.
Not just in the workplace, but in all human interaction. If people don't know what's happening, they'll fill in the blanks on their own -- and usually they'll fill them in with a worst-case scenario.
It can end badly even if they fill in the best case scenario. E.g. consider that hypothetical "can we talk?" after a massively successful project, and someone walking into the office having spent however long fantasising about spending a bonus that only existed in their head because the communication left room for it.
>If you don't give context, chances are they'll fill in their own.
The lack of context is a general problem for communication. If you don't give sufficient context, you might cause anxiety, like in this case, but this is not the only problem. If you lack context your message will often not be understood.
E.g. I was asked if I remember Nick. I didn't know who Nick was, there are many Nicks in the world. I might be bad with names in any case. Then I inquired about some context, I was told it's Anna's friend. I don't know who Anna is either, also a very common name. After a bit of back and forth I find out it's a guy I talked to at a wedding last month. There were hundreds of new names for me. Names I would probably not remember. But if you start with "do you remember Nick, the guy at the wedding we talked to about X", I might stand a chance.
It's a sad state affairs when people are so anxious that a simple inquiry can cause them distress.
Everything we see around us teaches us that people want to be kind and break bad news in a gentle way. The consequence of that is that when someone seems to be hiding something from us we, quite rationally, think they have bad news - we screwed up, we're getting fired, we're getting a ton of work dumped on us, etc - because they're trying to break it to us without upsetting us. We don't assume it's something good because we're conditioned not to go around thinking we're amazing and do good work all the time. We learn thinking that way is egotistical and self-centred. Our brains think "If it's something innocuous why wouldn't they just say?! It must be something bad."
The anxiety we feel is a learned response to situations we encounter (or see, because we learn this from TV, movies, etc as much as real life.)
>The anxiety we feel is a learned response to situations we encounter (or see, because we learn this from TV, movies, etc as much as real life.)
That seems a bit subjective. I don't know about you, but > 99% of the time someone at work asks me "Got a sec?", "You busy?", it's because they need me for something that isn't urgent. I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has asked "Can you talk?" and then chewed me out or given me bad news about my job.
The anxiety I don't feel is a learned response to the situations I've encountered.
It doesn’t matter: it’s very easy to change the communication to be more explicit, and even if 90% of the people would not be distressed, helping the other 10% comes at almost no cost.
What is your point of reference in history? When did people ever have to deal with a sole or multiple "hey can we talk" followed by an unspecified amount of time and supposedly handled it more gracefully? At the top of my head that is not how communication ever worked at a large scale and, certainly, hearing those words from a spouse or being asked into the bosses office without knowing why, has always been pretty anxiety inducing for a lot of people.
If you haven't been conditioned to, say, flinch on a ring of a landline phone, congrats, your life's been gentle on you so far. Other people have other experience.
It's not a 'simple inquiry' though, because the context matters: it's an ambigious message from someone above you in the employment chain, that often has to make calls on employment of the people under them. Same reason why people bring up HR setting up zero-detail 'sync' meetings out of the blue. Getting an ambigious "Hey, can we talk?" from a coworker provokes vastly different feelings than one from someone who would make calls on my employment status. I like my employment status. I use it to buy food to put in my mouth.
Given that this is an issue for some people (the reasons don't really matter) simply amending the message to 'Hey, are you available to talk *about X* ?' shouldn't be a big deal.
It's not so much anxiety-inducing for me, personally, to get an ambiguous "can you talk?" message, but it is infuriating to be distracted by a content-free message like that in a chat. It's essentially a waste of my attention because the other person is being inconsiderate and lazy to not even bother adding a few words. I always just automatically reply "About what?" at this point. If the other person can't even be bothered to articulate a few words to say what it's about then they deserve nothing more than an automatic reply.
If someone is concerned, isn't it better to understand why they are concerned, and not have the first prejudicial guess be that it's only their own poor character/upbringing.
> I don't know if it's character, upbringing or just the modern work environment
It's the last one. Every time I've been laid off, it started with can-we-talk/got-a-minute vagueness. Anyone who's been through that is going to think it's spooky af because its the sound of being 10 minutes from getting frog marched out the door.
Well, you can just add a simple message to be more specific about what you are talking about and it would not cause someone fear that they screwed up something.
I think it actually adds some of the human part back in. "Hey, got a sec?" in person comes with quite a bit more context--body language, tone of voice--and a pretty quick transition into the content.
To me, the rhythm of an informative first message feels more natural than responding to someone's ping and waiting 2 minutes for the follow-up.
The post is missing that the effect of the described behaviour is very context dependant. For example, I am not afraid of my main client at all. If I get a message from him like "Can we talk" it is just that. He wants to talk about something that is not so important or too complicated to describe it in the message. And if I get repeated phone calls it means that he is either on his mobile travelling and is trying to reach me when he has a signal or that he has a limited time-frame to reach me for whatever reason. In other words: Our communication is not scary by default, and if something scary was imminent, he would surely announce it.
Of course it is. The fact that they would write an article about it and don't have the self awareness to recognize they have a problem - but worse - the number of people on HN that seem to think there is a material problem in behaviour of the manager is a bit shocking.
It's ridiculous. It's not even a 1 out of 10 in terms of inappropriateness, it's fully a 0. It's 100% within the preoperative of anyone frankly to say "hey, can we chat for 10 at lunch?"
Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it.
My grandparents were born on farms without electricity or plumbing (common for the area), no public healthcare, retirement, social assistance, unemployment, radio, refrigeration, TV, barely any cars. etc.. They were kind and generous people but also resilient and self assured. They literally wouldn't understand the author's concern. It would have to be spelled out to them. They would be empathetic (it's in their character) but wouldn't think anything other than the author has some kind of issue.
Complaining about "Can we chat?" as some kind of 'unreasonable thing' is getting absurd.
People above are commenting 'what kind of stressful world we must live in' - I think the complete opposite: we have reached a threshold of material abundance and prosperity such that the most vague, imperceptible form of nuance in communication is now worthy of demarcation. Only extremely privileged and wealthy people could afford to go on about someone asking them 'if they have time to chat'.
>> Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it.
This line of thinking seems really...bad. I mean, essentially what you're saying is:
"I disagree on this matter which is unambiguously a personal opinion, and anyone with a differing opinion is wrong, and anyone who is sympathetic to their opinion has something wrong with them, too."
I'm genuinely curious, what makes you take this position?
The line of thinking that you assume anyone's grievances are immediately legitimate is ... 'bad'.
People whine and cry about any number of things, we have to be conscientious about what constitutes a reasonable grievance.
There is such a thing as objectivity.
I've worked in 4 countries over 25 years and never would have I have seen someone make a legitimate concern over 'being asked to chat later'.
Can I empathize with someone who feels that way? Sure, it's not outrageous, but that person would have to have the self awareness to recognize that it's their issue, and that they likely ought not to bother other people about their problems. I'm sure any decent manager would 'not do it' if asked, at the same time, it's definitely 'an ask'.
This is not an issue of undue pressure or harassment on the part of a manger, not even close.
Adults in the workplace have a minimum responsibility regarding their disposition include emotional maturity, among other things.
This one is not even nuanced. There's no 'workplace problem' here whatsoever.
You come off as being defensive about this in several of your comments here. There is nothing wrong with admitting that a random “can we chat” can lead to a spike of anxiety in people.
Many of us work in environments where 15-20% of employees are let go every year. Even for those who do not, the modern world, despite all our material abundance, can be cruel in subtle but destructive ways.
Society recognizing that humans have emotion and learning about mental health is.. well really healthy!
They'd hate where I work. Rather than message to ask to call, we just call.
The whole point of calling is to reduce the pain of having to type out a load of stuff that's easier to say and comes with the extra nuances of verbal communication. I can't imagine they'd prefer the repeated flashings of your manager is typing... over minutes.
Just sending "hello" is annoying though, I'll give them that.
That depends on frequency and can be both good and bad thing.
Text don't convey emotion well, emojis don't really help with that, direct calls are much better.
But then focus wind-up and wind-down matters too, so receiving random calls throughout the day might be a recipe for no work done whatsoever. In the end if there are serious agreements made it should be done in writing though.
That's why people like email. Unless it's on fire, please just email. Not every email has to be a treatise, short and sweet, maybe a few bullets to keep your mind focused rather than rambletypeing. I hate getting random calls and IMs it breaks my flow and focus. I actually turn off IM or put away at most places and silence it. I have unplugged the phone before as well if it gets aggregious
IMO, direct call (especially if those are common in your workplace) is much better than a vague "can we talk?" before a call. Doesn't give the mind a chance to wander and fill in the context.
I guess it's a bit similar to https://www.nohello.com
The initial message triggers you to worry about an uncertain topic, it's much better to know from the initial message what the conversation will be about
This sounds like advice specific for WFH, but it also applies to people working at the office.
The other person may be talking to someone else, in an unscheduled meeting, having a coffee, or simply have notifications off to be able to focus. I used to have them off for most of the day, and just check for messages at a half hour interval, otherwise it’s a total productivity killer. In a real emergency people will reach for a phone call.
As someone that has worked both remote and onsite customer service and tech it's kind of a wild difference. If I didn't flag myself unavailable or "sign off" even to take a short WC break it would start notifying supervisors of "not working", probably even worse these days with eye tracking and webcam monitoring of availability for the "not tech" crowd.
I'm not sure if "spooky" is the right word (why would you assume you're in trouble?), but it sure helps to have context, and if it's just to prepare by opening the right documents to quickly look up stuff. That's why if find the last paragraph the most useful advice here. Please don't break my concentration by writing just "Hello" and having my actively wait for you to type your concern. And please don't wait for me to write "Hello" too before you even start.
Yes, 100% agree with last paragraph. And the waiting for me to type Hello back pattern is so annoying.
This really should be basic work etiquette. Type your whole question in one go. If you want to you can include pleasantries at the beginning but never if there is going to be a more than 2 second interval between them and your actual question.
Should probably be part of first day orientation for new hires.
It gets bad when people with odd anxieties project them onto everyone around them.
There's an entire social (edit:changed that word from 'political' which I didn't mean to say) orientation around this.
See the hilarious 2019 Socialist Convention where they talk about people clapping as 'harm' or wearing perfume as 'aggressive' or taking a particular tone as 'oppressive', etc.
"Hey, can we chat!" is now "Triggering" etc.. ?
We're really going to be dragged aside by HR now because "Hey, can we chat?"
Yeah ... no.
I think it's up to the author to seek help.
I don't deny they have an issue, but I'm wary that it's mostly theirs to contend with.
I think this is reasonable, honestly. It's disrespectful of my time to do this on an async medium preventing me from preparing materials, finding source, or whatever else I need before a meeting instead of having to do it there.
Talk about projecting… this has nothing to do with politics, especially USA politics.
I’ve have had this exact conversation with colleagues from extremely varied backgrounds. Some people mind it less, some more, but most are annoyed by it at some level. It’s like calling and saying “can I ask you a question?”, followed by thirty seconds of silence.
This is a bad pattern of communication introduced by modern chat with presence features (and amplified by remote work), not something that is part of natural conversation.
Maybe it's you that are possibly projecting here, by assuming that because I referenced a political convention, that I'm making it political.
(EDIT: Yes, I did write 'political'. It's totally my fault. I didn't mean to write that word. I meant to use a different term, 'political' came out and I didn't edit it. My bad. I meant to infer a 'social posture')
That ultra empathetic posture, to the point of literally debilitating the conference itself - is just something that happened at that conference, which happened to be a Socialist Convention. It doesn't have anything to do with socialism. Even if it does, by the way, seem to be a part of elements of communication of 'that side' - it likely just has more to do with personality types, because it's obviously not political.
If you want to see the video yourself it's here [1].
And by the way - this video is just a snapshot, there's much more hilarity floating out there.
And finally I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do with 'remote culture' or 'remote work' ... I know my manager would often walk by my cube and say the same thing. Perhaps more frequent, but not really an element of culture.
It's also perfectly reasonable.
I wish I knew how to describe the variation of anxiety that this might arise, or what to do about it (meditation? CBT?) , but I don't suggest it's anyone's problem but the person who is made anxious.
I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk.
I really don't think the author's point is even remotely related to what you're pointing at. The words 'scary' and 'anxiety' are, in my opinion, to be taken very lightly in this blog post. These are normal human emotions, not necessarily diseases. It is about effective communication at work, and if you ask around this is not even a particularly contentious issue, everybody seems to agree to a certain extent.
> I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do... with remote working
Yes, it also applies to the office, but you do realize this is specifically about instant messaging, not drive-by conversations?
> I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk.
The scenario in question might play out dozens of times a day at a larger company, you don't need those "opportunities to talk" if you have work to be done. Not doing this is a matter of courtesy. You might just have been lucky to not have it inflicted to you at that level.
It doesn't matter whether it's in person, or in messaging.
It's perfectly acceptable for a manager, and not remotely 'lacking in manner or courtesy' for a manager to say 'Can we chat later at 1?'.
I've been working for 25 years in 4 countries, I don't know a person who would think otherwise.
The individual here is perfectly within their rights to 'feel anxiety' in any given situation, bu they lack the emotional maturity to recognize their special condition.
It is not a normal human emotion to have anxiety because your manager asks to chat, which should be frankly a very common occurrence.
I completely and fundamentally disagree with your 'if you ask around people will agree with this'.
If you ask the question as 'do you find it problematic or anxiety inducing or lacking in courtesy when your manager asks to chat later without context' - then you've 'led' the answer and might likely create some kind of intellectualized rhetorical response.
But - if you actually observe people in any workplace, collect myriads of messages, and then ask them after the fact to identify when their managers were 'not courteous' without highlighting this specific issue, it will not pop up unsolicited.
It's total bullshit rhetorical nonsense.
If your manager says 'Hey can we chat after lunch?' - you say 'sure' (unless you can't) and then that's that. It's utterly normal.
The examples you give of “Can you chat at 1”, “can we chat after lunch” are entirely different from the “spooky” messages the post is about. It’s clear that we are coming from entirely different perspectives, not worth going any further.
If you need to fire someone, it's appropriate to use a somber tone to prepare the other party.
I was recently let go as basically agenda point 3 out of 4 during my normal weekly one-on-one with my manager and was completely blindsided (the position was made redundant entirely, so there was no preceding performance review or the like).
Be direct and effective in your first message. And if you and an engineer have communication issues (you don't understand their tickets comments, their mails are too abstract and/or not factual enough), do not hesitate to do a bi weekly 1 on 1 until those communication issues are less glaring.
It helped my working conditions tremendously. I'm still really anxious when my manager contact me, but him being direct made me feel way more comfortable than the previous one.
Regardless of my position I have always sent my full request in a message to anyone that I wouldn't consider a friend (as in someone more significant to a co-worker).
And generally speaking if it's among friends it's something super casual like "yo" or "sup" generally because I have no specific subject, I just want to chat generally.
This is not just because I don't like freaking people out but also because I respect their time. I don't want them to get the first interrupt and then wait for 60s while I type out the actual request I have of them.
While some may not agree with how this is formulated, I think the point is a part of a bigger concept - don't be unpredictable. Don't make things unpredictable.
Work is a necessity. We're not all neurotypical, relaxed, outgoing persons - some of us may even suffer from mental issues - and we still have to work. Predictability - i.e. removing all the mystery from communication - helps a lot.
"Hey, can you talk for a second?" - is unpredictable. I have no way of knowing whether you want to talk to me about weather or shoot me with a gun. "Hey, can you talk for a second about X? [+additional info if needed]" - is predictable and gives me a clear idea about what you want to talk about.
Of course, communication takes effort, and it is unreasonable to demand everyone to follow these guidelines all the time. But that doesn't mean they're bad guidelines.
> don't be unpredictable. Don't make things unpredictable.
Yes, this. I've found that being (functionally) boring and predictable has gone over very well with my team and managers. I reserve my chaotic nature for when my work laptop is closed.
As for the inevitable "one line greeting awaiting acknowledgement before proceeding" messages, I just respond in kind, and wait for them to get to their actual question while I continue whatever I was doing. No skin off my back, and it plays nice with coworkers.
> No. I won’t do that. It inhibits natural communication.
Quite the opposite, it inhibits effective communication.
Giving someone a one sentence summary of why you need to talk enables them to be prepared for the discussion you want to have. This lets you get to the point faster, and reduces miscommunication.
I don't get why this is such a burden for you to be clear in your communication.
Your manager, or HR, is not just "someone". They are well above you in the power hierarchy. That's where the fear comes from.
People, when dealing with someone from a power position, need to be extra careful with their words and attitude - well, only if they want to be fair and don't want to toy with the other's emotions. I don't know if it's relatable to you, but it's similar to how much force you can use, when playing with animals. You need to be more careful with a smaller dog, than a larger dog. Cats are even more delicate, yet, not as delicate as a hamster. And you have to be extra careful, with the tip of your finger, to properly pet a mouse.
Similarly, saying "That's not good. I needed that for yesterday" is not the same for every person. If it's coming from your coworker, then it's maybe an oh shit moment, or something that you say sorry for, and amend it, and that's that. Much less so when it comes from your immediate superior. Even worse if it's an important client. And maybe even worse if you're a junior on trial period.
Would you accept the answer "no" with no additional context or replies without feeling put off? Chat is asynchronous. Just ask your question. This isn't a phone call or a desk-side visit. The act of initiating a chat already contains the idea that you are asking the other person for an interaction. If they have time to chat, they will chat. If you need a response right away, then chat isn't the place to do it.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 223 ms ] thread(I worked with managers who would never use agendas. Leaves them more room to filibuster when it becomes clear they don't understand what's going on.)
Why not politely talk to your manager and let them know that this behaviour is not appropriate / productive?
If a manager doesn't understand the communicative basic that there is always multiple messages:
- the message they intended to send
- the message they actually sent
- the message as it was read by the receiving person
Any decent communicator will always think about how the message/language will be read by the receiver(s). That means if they are a decent communicator this should not happen unless they have a very bad day or something.
Also, someone with antisocial anxieties like this probably would have difficulty with that kind of confrontation.
Management by default attracts people who think they cracked it all (lol). It's an ego trip for many and they are usually impossible to truly reason with.
Managers that do this are micro-managers and won't listen to the advice.
My written conversations with my manager are asynchronous, even when via Slack. I know he will answer when he can and I will answer when I can.
So if it's urgent it goes in the team chat, where we can take a collective decision without having a less technical manager be the bottleneck.
I once read about the idea of BLUF[1] - “Bottom Line Up Front”, popularized by the military - because lives may be dependent on how fast a message gets its context to the recipient. I love that idea and love practicing it. These are applicable, not just with emails, bit also with short text messages.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)
I then messaged my boss he told me the incident was something dodgey someone had said to me.
At a minimum they should say "this is not something you've done wrong".
* in itself very wrong, the idea that authority is there just to punish you and head teachers should be something you're afraid of.
Out of etiquette, everyone should think about context when sending a message. Probably more so in roles of authority and those that own “terminate-able offence” compliance.
Also, people should check their paranoia. I’ve been working jobs for 30 years and never has the bad news or underhanded crap started with a message like this. Not that I don’t sometimes think this is the first time.
"I quit." "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say."
If certain things are already in the air then just this choice of words is probably enough. I mean, in this (real) example there's no real paranoia, not the "hey.. you're fired", but still.
It almost seems like they are assuming some catastrophe is around every corner.
If your boss says "hey got a moment to chat" you have a choice in how you react to the information. Assume they want to just chat and engage, or freak out and think the world is ending. Both options are possible, one has a nicer outcome. It's important to remember and remind yourself that you have control about how you feel about things.
I know I do work. I can justify my time, If my boss pulls me aside and redirects my work. That's totally fine, I work for them.
But generally, meetings invites and messages should contain lots of info and context. Chatting with your boss shouldn't be scary, if it is, maybe consider a new boss.
Thankfully they were wanting to ask if I'd like to spend a month training in California!
why does everything have to be a fault within me?
It would be nice if everyone added context to messages. Unfortunately, a lot of people just don't do that, and it's going to be very hard to convince them to change their behavior.
It's probably easier to work on your anxiety instead.
I'm speaking as someone who also suffers from this type of anxiety occasionally. I find that it helps to tell myself that I'm just being unnecessarily anxious, and that makes it easier to deal with.
Every body can wear an armoured suit but it's more efficient to not give guns to everybody.
I'm not excusing the behavior, it's just one solution is a lot easier to achieve.
you work for them, you adapt to them
I don't know if it's character, upbringing or just the modern work environment but it really ought not to cause anyone any concern if someone just wants to check if you're available.
This will also help prime many people, and thereby improve the conversation, so it is probably worth doing even if the person won’t be made anxious.
Ideally you go straight to the point: “hi jack, I need to check in on XXX so we can update the quarterly goals, can you send me Y / can we speak?”. Nothing is gained by checking immediate availability with a greeting message.
https://nohello.net/en/
It's either:
- out there in public, OR
- clearly sensitive as it's the only bit of communication the other party is masking.
Depending on your environment workers may or may not want open signals about sensitive events being telegraphed.
I'm rather curious as to whether those anxious about a simple inquiry register on the autism spectrum...... This is a tech news site after all.
EDIT: Down votes for asking a speculative question? This place is turning into another Reddit.
Also: Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
"Can we talk?" has only ever come from my managers when someone is leaving. With my family, it is usually because someone has died. Otherwise, there is usually another sentence about what is going to be discussed.
- allows someone to gather their thoughts and prepare for the actual answer, without committing someone to answering what is non-critical (critical would be, 'Call. Now.')
- doesn't generate any fear among anxious employees that they're about to hear something discplinary or even worse, something more dramatic like a termination.
- just on a personal level isn't annoying. YMMV with that but I really dislike it when people waste time by asking to ask questions and so on.
Of course, I didn't tell people to stop calling me. The problem was my anxiety, not people calling unexpectedly.
I'd be lying if it didn't get me unnecessarily anxious that a coworker died on the way in or literally anything worthy of speedwalking before logging in had occurred. His reasoning? He doesn't like the impersonality of leaving digital messages.
It's entirely reasonable that my brain is just different to yours.
> It's a sad state affairs when people are so anxious that a simple inquiry can cause them distress.
Yes. I would assume that the person posting this would much rather not get distressed about this kind of thing.
I wouldn't say it causes me distress per se, but a blank "Can you talk" can by default launch my brain down a tree of "why, what if it's X or Y, it's this time and they so...". Being able to do this kind of thing makes me good at my job and worse at some social things, and work I've done to focus on "THIS LINE OF ENQUIRY IS NOT IMPORTANT TO PURSUE, BRAIN" make me better at both. It's still a conscious thing that I think other people don't have to deal with.
I don't see it as a character flaw, a failure of upbringing or controlled by my work (since it's not tied to work). It's just who I am and maybe that is a sad thing to you, I'd rather not have the downsides but I'm not sure I'd trade away a full part of how I think just for a bit of peace.
At the end of the day, when it's something as trivial as a Teams ping, the onus is on us to confront the anxiety and to work on our reactions. I sympathize with the author and see myself in him but it's not a part of me that would be good to enable.
Perhaps a clearer example would be someone who is afraid of swimming. It's a good idea for them to fight back against people who needlessly mock them for it. They shouldn't feel lesser for their struggles. But if they find themselves in a body of water, the Universe will not care one iota about the life history and mental world that prevented them from learning.
You don’t seem to realize how productive it is for I and my colleagues to ping each other for short real-time communications. Most people can handle this. I respect that you don’t want to, but don’t make general rules that are only about the comfort of a tiny few.
Colleague: "Hey, do you have a minute to get on a call?"
Me: "Maybe. What is it about?"
Colleague: "I was looking at X and had a question."
Me: "I can meet with ..."
Why not cut the chase here and start with "I was looking at X and had a question, do you have a minute?"
I almost never do have a minute without notice but I'm happy to find a few minutes to give people. I don't like having to play this 21-questions game with people to find out what they need, though. It really irks me.
Some people you can say you have a question and it'll occupy their mind not knowing what it is.
Some people can happily just wait until the actual question comes through, but once it does that's the thing they're thinking of.
"Do you have a minute" and "Do you have a minute, I've an issue with X" have problems, but for different people.
I benefit from quick realtime comms too, and understand people are different (that's the main thrust of my comment). I don't know if others realise just how unproductive it can be for some of these styles of messages though.
If you don't give context, chances are they'll fill in their own.
100% this.
Not just in the workplace, but in all human interaction. If people don't know what's happening, they'll fill in the blanks on their own -- and usually they'll fill them in with a worst-case scenario.
The lack of context is a general problem for communication. If you don't give sufficient context, you might cause anxiety, like in this case, but this is not the only problem. If you lack context your message will often not be understood.
E.g. I was asked if I remember Nick. I didn't know who Nick was, there are many Nicks in the world. I might be bad with names in any case. Then I inquired about some context, I was told it's Anna's friend. I don't know who Anna is either, also a very common name. After a bit of back and forth I find out it's a guy I talked to at a wedding last month. There were hundreds of new names for me. Names I would probably not remember. But if you start with "do you remember Nick, the guy at the wedding we talked to about X", I might stand a chance.
Everything we see around us teaches us that people want to be kind and break bad news in a gentle way. The consequence of that is that when someone seems to be hiding something from us we, quite rationally, think they have bad news - we screwed up, we're getting fired, we're getting a ton of work dumped on us, etc - because they're trying to break it to us without upsetting us. We don't assume it's something good because we're conditioned not to go around thinking we're amazing and do good work all the time. We learn thinking that way is egotistical and self-centred. Our brains think "If it's something innocuous why wouldn't they just say?! It must be something bad."
The anxiety we feel is a learned response to situations we encounter (or see, because we learn this from TV, movies, etc as much as real life.)
That seems a bit subjective. I don't know about you, but > 99% of the time someone at work asks me "Got a sec?", "You busy?", it's because they need me for something that isn't urgent. I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has asked "Can you talk?" and then chewed me out or given me bad news about my job.
The anxiety I don't feel is a learned response to the situations I've encountered.
It's better framed as distress if you want to get the manager off your back though :)
Given that this is an issue for some people (the reasons don't really matter) simply amending the message to 'Hey, are you available to talk *about X* ?' shouldn't be a big deal.
It's not so much anxiety-inducing for me, personally, to get an ambiguous "can you talk?" message, but it is infuriating to be distracted by a content-free message like that in a chat. It's essentially a waste of my attention because the other person is being inconsiderate and lazy to not even bother adding a few words. I always just automatically reply "About what?" at this point. If the other person can't even be bothered to articulate a few words to say what it's about then they deserve nothing more than an automatic reply.
It's the last one. Every time I've been laid off, it started with can-we-talk/got-a-minute vagueness. Anyone who's been through that is going to think it's spooky af because its the sound of being 10 minutes from getting frog marched out the door.
To me, the rhythm of an informative first message feels more natural than responding to someone's ping and waiting 2 minutes for the follow-up.
It's ridiculous. It's not even a 1 out of 10 in terms of inappropriateness, it's fully a 0. It's 100% within the preoperative of anyone frankly to say "hey, can we chat for 10 at lunch?"
Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it.
My grandparents were born on farms without electricity or plumbing (common for the area), no public healthcare, retirement, social assistance, unemployment, radio, refrigeration, TV, barely any cars. etc.. They were kind and generous people but also resilient and self assured. They literally wouldn't understand the author's concern. It would have to be spelled out to them. They would be empathetic (it's in their character) but wouldn't think anything other than the author has some kind of issue.
Complaining about "Can we chat?" as some kind of 'unreasonable thing' is getting absurd.
People above are commenting 'what kind of stressful world we must live in' - I think the complete opposite: we have reached a threshold of material abundance and prosperity such that the most vague, imperceptible form of nuance in communication is now worthy of demarcation. Only extremely privileged and wealthy people could afford to go on about someone asking them 'if they have time to chat'.
This line of thinking seems really...bad. I mean, essentially what you're saying is:
"I disagree on this matter which is unambiguously a personal opinion, and anyone with a differing opinion is wrong, and anyone who is sympathetic to their opinion has something wrong with them, too."
I'm genuinely curious, what makes you take this position?
People whine and cry about any number of things, we have to be conscientious about what constitutes a reasonable grievance.
There is such a thing as objectivity.
I've worked in 4 countries over 25 years and never would have I have seen someone make a legitimate concern over 'being asked to chat later'.
Can I empathize with someone who feels that way? Sure, it's not outrageous, but that person would have to have the self awareness to recognize that it's their issue, and that they likely ought not to bother other people about their problems. I'm sure any decent manager would 'not do it' if asked, at the same time, it's definitely 'an ask'.
This is not an issue of undue pressure or harassment on the part of a manger, not even close.
Adults in the workplace have a minimum responsibility regarding their disposition include emotional maturity, among other things.
This one is not even nuanced. There's no 'workplace problem' here whatsoever.
Many of us work in environments where 15-20% of employees are let go every year. Even for those who do not, the modern world, despite all our material abundance, can be cruel in subtle but destructive ways.
Society recognizing that humans have emotion and learning about mental health is.. well really healthy!
The whole point of calling is to reduce the pain of having to type out a load of stuff that's easier to say and comes with the extra nuances of verbal communication. I can't imagine they'd prefer the repeated flashings of your manager is typing... over minutes.
Just sending "hello" is annoying though, I'll give them that.
But then focus wind-up and wind-down matters too, so receiving random calls throughout the day might be a recipe for no work done whatsoever. In the end if there are serious agreements made it should be done in writing though.
This sounds like advice specific for WFH, but it also applies to people working at the office.
The other person may be talking to someone else, in an unscheduled meeting, having a coffee, or simply have notifications off to be able to focus. I used to have them off for most of the day, and just check for messages at a half hour interval, otherwise it’s a total productivity killer. In a real emergency people will reach for a phone call.
This really should be basic work etiquette. Type your whole question in one go. If you want to you can include pleasantries at the beginning but never if there is going to be a more than 2 second interval between them and your actual question.
Should probably be part of first day orientation for new hires.
There's an entire social (edit:changed that word from 'political' which I didn't mean to say) orientation around this.
See the hilarious 2019 Socialist Convention where they talk about people clapping as 'harm' or wearing perfume as 'aggressive' or taking a particular tone as 'oppressive', etc.
"Hey, can we chat!" is now "Triggering" etc.. ?
We're really going to be dragged aside by HR now because "Hey, can we chat?"
Yeah ... no.
I think it's up to the author to seek help.
I don't deny they have an issue, but I'm wary that it's mostly theirs to contend with.
I’ve have had this exact conversation with colleagues from extremely varied backgrounds. Some people mind it less, some more, but most are annoyed by it at some level. It’s like calling and saying “can I ask you a question?”, followed by thirty seconds of silence.
This is a bad pattern of communication introduced by modern chat with presence features (and amplified by remote work), not something that is part of natural conversation.
Maybe it's you that are possibly projecting here, by assuming that because I referenced a political convention, that I'm making it political.
(EDIT: Yes, I did write 'political'. It's totally my fault. I didn't mean to write that word. I meant to use a different term, 'political' came out and I didn't edit it. My bad. I meant to infer a 'social posture')
That ultra empathetic posture, to the point of literally debilitating the conference itself - is just something that happened at that conference, which happened to be a Socialist Convention. It doesn't have anything to do with socialism. Even if it does, by the way, seem to be a part of elements of communication of 'that side' - it likely just has more to do with personality types, because it's obviously not political.
If you want to see the video yourself it's here [1].
And by the way - this video is just a snapshot, there's much more hilarity floating out there.
And finally I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do with 'remote culture' or 'remote work' ... I know my manager would often walk by my cube and say the same thing. Perhaps more frequent, but not really an element of culture.
It's also perfectly reasonable.
I wish I knew how to describe the variation of anxiety that this might arise, or what to do about it (meditation? CBT?) , but I don't suggest it's anyone's problem but the person who is made anxious.
I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRxu3XrsHg
> I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do... with remote working
Yes, it also applies to the office, but you do realize this is specifically about instant messaging, not drive-by conversations?
> I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk.
The scenario in question might play out dozens of times a day at a larger company, you don't need those "opportunities to talk" if you have work to be done. Not doing this is a matter of courtesy. You might just have been lucky to not have it inflicted to you at that level.
See https://nohello.net
It's perfectly acceptable for a manager, and not remotely 'lacking in manner or courtesy' for a manager to say 'Can we chat later at 1?'.
I've been working for 25 years in 4 countries, I don't know a person who would think otherwise.
The individual here is perfectly within their rights to 'feel anxiety' in any given situation, bu they lack the emotional maturity to recognize their special condition.
It is not a normal human emotion to have anxiety because your manager asks to chat, which should be frankly a very common occurrence.
I completely and fundamentally disagree with your 'if you ask around people will agree with this'.
If you ask the question as 'do you find it problematic or anxiety inducing or lacking in courtesy when your manager asks to chat later without context' - then you've 'led' the answer and might likely create some kind of intellectualized rhetorical response.
But - if you actually observe people in any workplace, collect myriads of messages, and then ask them after the fact to identify when their managers were 'not courteous' without highlighting this specific issue, it will not pop up unsolicited.
It's total bullshit rhetorical nonsense.
If your manager says 'Hey can we chat after lunch?' - you say 'sure' (unless you can't) and then that's that. It's utterly normal.
Any other tips?
If you need to fire someone, it's appropriate to use a somber tone to prepare the other party.
I was recently let go as basically agenda point 3 out of 4 during my normal weekly one-on-one with my manager and was completely blindsided (the position was made redundant entirely, so there was no preceding performance review or the like).
It helped my working conditions tremendously. I'm still really anxious when my manager contact me, but him being direct made me feel way more comfortable than the previous one.
And generally speaking if it's among friends it's something super casual like "yo" or "sup" generally because I have no specific subject, I just want to chat generally.
This is not just because I don't like freaking people out but also because I respect their time. I don't want them to get the first interrupt and then wait for 60s while I type out the actual request I have of them.
Work is a necessity. We're not all neurotypical, relaxed, outgoing persons - some of us may even suffer from mental issues - and we still have to work. Predictability - i.e. removing all the mystery from communication - helps a lot.
"Hey, can you talk for a second?" - is unpredictable. I have no way of knowing whether you want to talk to me about weather or shoot me with a gun. "Hey, can you talk for a second about X? [+additional info if needed]" - is predictable and gives me a clear idea about what you want to talk about.
Of course, communication takes effort, and it is unreasonable to demand everyone to follow these guidelines all the time. But that doesn't mean they're bad guidelines.
Yes, this. I've found that being (functionally) boring and predictable has gone over very well with my team and managers. I reserve my chaotic nature for when my work laptop is closed.
As for the inevitable "one line greeting awaiting acknowledgement before proceeding" messages, I just respond in kind, and wait for them to get to their actual question while I continue whatever I was doing. No skin off my back, and it plays nice with coworkers.
Learn to deal with ordinary adult life, please.
There is no such thing. Perhaps you meant "the kind of communication I'm used to"?
> Learn to deal with ordinary adult life, please.
Don't be condescending, please.
Quite the opposite, it inhibits effective communication.
Giving someone a one sentence summary of why you need to talk enables them to be prepared for the discussion you want to have. This lets you get to the point faster, and reduces miscommunication.
I don't get why this is such a burden for you to be clear in your communication.
Surprised at all the comments agreeing with this article.
People, when dealing with someone from a power position, need to be extra careful with their words and attitude - well, only if they want to be fair and don't want to toy with the other's emotions. I don't know if it's relatable to you, but it's similar to how much force you can use, when playing with animals. You need to be more careful with a smaller dog, than a larger dog. Cats are even more delicate, yet, not as delicate as a hamster. And you have to be extra careful, with the tip of your finger, to properly pet a mouse.
Similarly, saying "That's not good. I needed that for yesterday" is not the same for every person. If it's coming from your coworker, then it's maybe an oh shit moment, or something that you say sorry for, and amend it, and that's that. Much less so when it comes from your immediate superior. Even worse if it's an important client. And maybe even worse if you're a junior on trial period.