old boss told potential new boss my salary, people who just say “hi” in messages, and more

by Alison Green on April 1, 2025

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. How to get someone to say what they want on Teams chat, not just say “hi”

I’m looking for a polite script to nip a problem in the bud. I started a new job today, and a colleague with whom I’ll be working closely just messaged me saying, “Hi.”

To find out this was all she said, I had to put in a long password to open the app, just to find nothing actionable. She still hasn’t sent me the information I need about where to meet tomorrow, so I guess she’s holding off until I reply “hi.” I really don’t want to encourage this kind of empty message leading to back and forths before getting to the point. I write friendly warm messages, but always with the request or information the other person needs in it, assuming they will respond when they can.

I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot and am looking for ways to respond that will stop this style of messaging which I literally don’t have time for!

Your first week on the job is not the time to fight that battle.

This behavior is annoying and inefficient; you’re not wrong! But you’re brand new and people don’t know anything about you and are trying to be friendly. It would be a very bad idea to make this a priority so early on, when you haven’t built relationships with people yet.

If it’s still happening a couple of months from now, by all means tell your coworker that it’s easier for you to respond quickly if she includes what she needs in the first message (if your understanding of the culture by that point indicates that would be fine to do; sample wording here), but not during week one.

2. Old boss told potential new boss my previous salary

This happened years ago, but I still wonder if there’s anything else I could’ve done.

Earlier in my career (religious nonprofit), I worked in the same organization as my husband (we did not report to one another; our first boss was cool with this). A new CEO (Good Old Boy #1) was hired when the old one retired, and he was NOT cool with this — he wanted one of us gone immediately, and made it clear that I (younger, female, earlier in my career) was the one.

I quickly found a new job in the same city, an excellent if slightly lateral move into a related religious nonprofit, headed by Good Old Boy #2.

Well, somehow GOB1 found out that I had been offered the job by GOB2, and he reached out and told GOB2 my salary! I found this out because, when entering the negotiation phase post-offer, GOB2 offered me that exact number because “GOB1 told me this is how much you make now, and as a smaller org, we can’t improve much on that” (not true).

WTF?!? As a highly desirable candidate for Job #2, I had serious leverage before GOB1 overshared. I’m certain that I lost as much as $50k over the next few years as a result. Anything else I could’ve done?

WTF indeed. Your boss was wildly out of line in sharing that info on your behalf.

All you really could have done at that point was to say something like, “I’m searching in part because I’m underpaid for the market and I’m looking for a range of $X in order to make a move.” But as with any negotiation, it would ultimately come down to who was more willing to walk away (or who each person believed was more willing to walk away).

3. Did I mess up by sending my new house listing to my team?

I have a question about what’s appropriate for managers to share with their direct reports, I think I’m overthinking it. After living in a small condo for 10 years, my partner and I just sold it and bought a new house (yay!). I am a manager of a seven-person team and we regularly share life updates with each other and celebrate personal wins (wedding gifts are purchased, virtual baby showers thrown, and all gifts flow downwards) so I didn’t think twice when I shared that I was planning to buy a new house, and my team expressed nothing but excitement.

Here’s where I potentially misstepped. I live in a smaller but popular metro city where median house prices are ~$500,000 – it’s expensive to live here! We purchased our new house for ~$100,000 more than the median. My team asked to see the listing and I happily shared it with them. But afterwards, I wondered if I shouldn’t have. I don’t make an insane amount of money more than those who report to me, and many of them also own homes, but was it too much to share that I bought what I perceive as a very expensive house? I’m honestly not sure how I could have got around it since my team directly asked to see the new place, but I wish I could have hidden the price somehow!

Well, if you could go back in time, I’d say to just send a couple of photos without the listing itself.

But what’s done is done and there’s no point in stressing about it. People probably will be interested in what you paid (which is always the case with real estate!) but they’re also presumably aware of housing prices in your area and won’t be taken aback/bothered unless your housing budget is significantly higher than theirs thanks to your partner and you’ve previously seemed out of touch to them in other ways. (Hopefully you haven’t been quizzing them on your horses and your vineyard!)

4. I put myself on a PIP — could that help me get a new job?

Last year was rough. Had a confluence of physical and mental health issues, a substance use problem, and stressful life issues all slam together. All combined, it affected my job performance to the point where I very nearly (and understandably) was fired. Up until that point, I had been one of my agency’s top performers.

When I saw the writing on the wall, I asked my supervisor to put me on a PIP.

And this PIP was honestly a lifesaver. Within a couple of months, I was back on track. The confidence I regained in my work and the trust I began to win back also gave me a lot of momentum to finally get help for all the personal issues I was dealing with: I got sober, I started seeing a therapist and a rockstar psychiatrist. I’m miles better than I was last year. And that’s translated into my performance; I’m even better at what I do.

I’m considering applying for a new job because I’m at a point in my career where I’d like to move up.

I’m wondering a couple things: is having ever been on a PIP a red flag to an employer (if they ever do learn I was for some reason)? And could I actually use experiences of turning things around on a PIP to my advantage in emphasizing my value? In other words, I won’t ignore a problem before it’s too late, I’ll do whatever I can to fix it, etc.

It’s definitely true that it reflects well on you that you recognized there was a problem and figured out what you needed to get back on track (and then did that), but it’s not something you should use in job interviews. There’s too much risk that interviewers will be concerned since they won’t want things to get to that point while you’re working for them, and they might wonder why you needed the external threat of consequences to fix things rather than doing it on your own. That’s not necessarily reasonable, but there are so many ways it could land, some of them not good, that it’s not a risk worth taking.

(Also, they’d be likely to ask about specifically what you changed to fix things, and sobriety and therapy aren’t things you want to be talking about during an interview, important as they have been to you!)

5. Being told you have to go from 40 hours/week to 56 hours/week

My sister has been working for a company for about a year. The job she was hired for is 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday. Today, her management team told her whole department that they would now be working 56 hours a week, Monday through Saturday. Is there anything she and her team can do about this?

They can push back as a group and say they’re unavailable and this isn’t what they signed on for. Ultimately, if the company won’t budge, it won’t budge, and so your sister and her coworkers will have to decide if they still want their jobs under those terms — but having multiple employees object and say “this won’t work for us and it’s not going to be possible” will carry a lot more weight and power than just one or two people saying it.

There’s also unionizing.

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{ 544 comments }

{ 544 comments… read them below }

  1. Zona the Great*

    Enough people in my world are not active on Teams chat that I start new convos with people with, “Hey Sayeed, are you a Teams user?” A non response gives me my answer. Maybe these are a similar method to see if you’re a Teams chatter. But either way, the follow up is on her in normal situations.

    1. KateM*

      That’s a good point, considering that OP is new to the place and had to open an app and enter a long password to even see the greeting – obviously OP is not really an user of that app and other channels would be better to use.

      1. Juniper*

        I don’t think it’s fair to assume she’s not really a user of that app based on one day. It’s standard to have to enter in your new MS password on an app you’ve never used before, and in a brand-new job these things take a while to get up and running and configured correctly.

        1. Gollumgollum*

          It’s better to say “are you free” instead of “hi” purely because then you can pretend you are on Are You Being Served.

          (“I’m freeeeeeee~”)

          2. annsy*

            I have an image of Mr Humphries saying “I’m free” saved on my work computer just so I can use it for this!

          4. Hannah Lee*

            Adding to your British TV series reference …

            How about auto-replying “I delete any message that begins ‘Hi'” ala BBC Sherlock

            1. M. M.*

              Considering the mark that the last season left on the world, you probably don’t want to be reminding people of BBC’s Sherlock, honestly.

        2. Tiger Snake*

          Actually –

          Did OP’s coworker actually NEED something?

          Rereading it again after looking at these comments. It was her first day. She’d never used the Teams app, so she was annoyed at having to log in to see someone had said “Hi.”

          But we’re not actually told this other person needed or wanted anything. This is someone she will work closely with, but there’s not much OP could actually offer when she’s brand new first day. If I had a new starter, I’d probably say Hi on teams, because I just meant “Hello”. Now they have a chat available to grab me on Teams if they need me from then over. Now they know they can reach me this way. But mostly; I am in fact just being friendly, and low pressure in a way physical interaction isn’t.

          We aren’t actually given a reason to think that’s not the case here. Is OP actually just looking for a reason to complain that doesn’t exist, because she’s overwhelmed and an old pet peeve of hers is therefore a comfortable thing for her brain to hang itself up on while it tries to overclock?

          1. Kal*

            OP said “She still hasn’t sent me the information I need about where to meet tomorrow”, so it sounds like the coworker doesn’t need anything from OP, OP needs info from that coworker.

            Though that just makes an even stronger case that this is not the time to be playing chicken in an attempt to force the coworker to send the information without OP having to respond.

            I personally would suggest that OP should respond to this first “hi” as if it is a friendly welcome and get the info they need.

            It does sounds like OP is somewhat anxious to address this before it becomes an entrenched behaviour, but this isn’t really a “nip it in the bud” situation since if this isn’t a one-off then the coworker presumably has been doing this at this workplace for a while now. But the upside is that that means there’s no rush, so OP can take the time to get settled and get to know their coworkers and the office culture more before deciding whether its worth it to bring it up or not.

      2. Vimto*

        I mean, they might not have previously been a teams user – but clearly it’s used in their new company.
        We use slack at my job, constantly. If I messaged someone and they came back to me with “I’m not really a slack user so please contact me via a different channel” I would know they were about to be a terrible fit for the role.

        Would I ever message anyone “hi” and nothing else? No. Is it simply one of the many idiosyncracies one must put up with in a modern workplace? unfortunately, yes. Regardless of how long a password you have to enter.

        “long password” I mean come on.

        1. Don’t know what to call myself*

          Yeah, in the first week at a new job, I’m expecting to enter a lot of passwords while I’m setting up my new work accounts. It’s annoying, but it’s par for the course. I find it surprising that entering a password to use a work software program during the first week of a new job was so upsetting to OP, it’s just a thing you do when you’re setting up your new work computer.

        2. YetAnotherAnalyst*

          My company uses both Teams and Slack. Typically, a person will be active on one (depending on which team they’re on) and check the other infrequently – my response time for Slack messages is near instantaneous, but Teams messages may go unread until my next Teams meeting (up to about a day and a half, if you messaged on my “focus” day). So here, it’s not terribly uncommon for the first message from someone to on another team to be essentially a check that this is the correct choice for reaching that person.

          1. Landry*

            Same here. My department is exclusively on Teams. The others are constantly on Slack. I only have access to our general company Slack channel. I don’t even open it most of the time. On the other hand, I’m on Teams constantly. I do think it would benefit a new employee to ask around about their department’s preferred communication so they’re not missing anything important or having messages gone unread.

            That said, I wouldn’t be bothered by the ‘hi.’ That’s a pretty common way in my department for someone to get a colleague’s attention on Teams before launching into their questions of the day. It’s bizarre to me that LW is so up in arms about it.

            1. inksmith*

              I don’t get as bothered by it as LW seems to, but I do find it annoying when I have to go back and forth with a bunch of delayed hi – how are you – good and you – yeah good thanks – how was your weekend before someone asks me what they want. I’m happy to chat on the phone or in person or at the start of a meeting, but in IM, I’m much more of a “Hi, can you tell me…” person when I start the conversation.

              Though I used to do that with one of my colleagues, and he wouldn’t answer the question until we’d done all the fluff, like he was trying to train me to be more like him/what he thought of as polite. That was really annoying.

        4. Another Kristin*

          It depends on how big your organization is and how disciplined it is over devices, apps, access, etc. Some people just refuse to use company-provided and secured cloud storage and chat services and insist on using their preferred thing. It’s annoying and potentially very problematic – say, if you work in an industry that’s subject to FOIA requests, it looks like you’re hiding data or communications – but it’s definitely a thing.

          I definitely run across people who for whatever reason just…don’t use Teams. I still don’t do the “Hi…” thing on Teams because it’s annoying, I write “Hi [name], [information about me and my role if relevant], [question/request]?” If they don’t answer, I just copy and paste that into an email. Seems to work.

        5. Lexi*

          Our password must be at least 12 letters, include multiple capital letters not as the first letter, multiple numbers, and at least one symbol not at the front or end, and cannot include any words used in the past 18 password changes. So our passwords are technically strong, but everyone needs to write them down which kind of ruins the security..

          3. Katie Impact*

            The “cannot include any words used in the last 18 password changes” thing is worrying; if they can check against individual words rather than just checking that the whole password isn’t identical to any of them, that implies they’re storing your last 18 passwords unencrypted somewhere, which they absolutely should not be doing.

      3. knitted feet*

        I mean, if that’s the app that people in the office use as standard, you absolutely can’t come in as a new starter and ask people to contact you on different channels. We’re all on Google chat now and we all use Gmail too so it’s right there, but we used to be on Slack and…yeah, you’d have to log in separately, but you couldn’t possibly just go ‘Oh, I’m not really on Slack’. You are now, new employee!

    2. allathian*

      Not being a Teams user wouldn’t fly in my org, it’s our main semi-synchronous channel. Never being available on Teams would mean that you wouldn’t make it through your probationary period here. When we first started using IM (Lync/Skype for Business) we had some people who were very rarely, if ever, available for chats. With mandatory WFH the theoretical option not to use Teams disappeared, and the holdouts either adapted to the new reality or retired.

      Thankfully we also have automatic DND on screen sharing, so the risk of embarrassing popups is minimal (the Teams default in my org is to not show popups when on DND even if you get a notification of new messages in the icon).

      1. CityMouse*

        I’m supposed to keep my availability up on Teams at my workplace.l, particularly when I’m mentoring newer employees. If using Teams is a workplace norm at this new place, LW needs to adjust.

      2. amoeba*

        Yeah, if somebody is grey/offline on Teams, I assume they’re out of office – it’s absolutely required that you’re generally reachable there! Doesn’t mean you have to reply instantaneously, but complaining that you had to open the app would be super out of touch.

    3. Adam*

      That’s so weird to me. The whole point of having something like Teams is so there’s a standard way that you know you can contact people, especially when you don’t work with them regularly. The idea that some people might just not use Teams and that’s okay defeats a whole lot of the point.

      1. Zona the Great*

        It is odd. From what I gather, they became a Microsoft org a few years before I got there and couldn’t make the full change with the existing workforce. Newbies seem to be forcing the change.

      2. CTT*

        Anecdotally, the whole point of Teams in my office is not to have a standard way of contacting people. It was presented to us an option for communication along with phone, email, and in-person, but not a standard.

      3. GreenApplePie*

        Where I’m at the official policy is using Teams and email only for work-related messages. But in practice the execs hate using Teams so we have to call/text them on their personal numbers.

    4. Allonge*

      Under the circumstances that is a fine start – I find the circumstances weird but you are spelling out your first question, so the recipient can easily say ‘yes’ and as you say, if there is no response, that is a response in itself.

    5. ecnaseener*

      Sure, but why don’t you *also* include the reason for your message? “Hey Sayeed, are you a teams user? We’re meeting tomorrow on the 2nd floor.” And then if they don’t respond you can still email them or whatever your backup is.

      1. HQB*

        I don’t know how Teams works with respect to messages showing up when screen-sharing during meetings, but on Slack I always send a ‘greeting’ message to certain collaborators so I can check whether they are free and not sharing their screens. This is because we send messages back and forth that need to stay within our project teams, so I need to confirm that it’s okay to talk about things *before* launching into them. This is something that hundreds of us at my organization do.

        It’s also nice just to confirm availability; plenty of people find the introduction of a new topic distracting when they are focusing on something, but don’t have the same mental response to a greeting. So, for many people, it’s a courtesy to do this.

        1. 1-800-BrownCow*

          We use Teams exclusively at my job, we aren’t allowed to set-up and use other options, like Slack. Which I’ve actually never used.

          But yes, you can set Teams to not show pop-ups during meetings. But we can turn on/off that feature and not everyone has it turned on (default is off and some people don’t bother changing it), so we do see messages come up during meetings. I too will send a simple greeting to some people before launching into details, just in case.

        2. amoeba*

          Yeah, I was thinking about that! That would definitely be a valid reason for somebody to not write the message directly. Although if the person was offline when they wrote, I guess it wouldn’t be applicable, but maybe they are just used to that because they tend to send a lot of confidential things?

        3. Librarian of Things*

          I find a greeting with no purpose to be the distraction. I can’t tell from “hi” if whatever they’re reaching out about is more or less of a priority than what I’m currently doing. “Hi, can you help with the llamas who just showed up unexpectedly?” is different from “hi, I’d like to schedule a meeting for next week to talk about llamas.” Surely you can give a bare hint about priority without revealing sensitive team info? “Hi, I could use your input as soon as you’re free” vs. “hi, can we schedule a call sometime”? No secrets revealed, but gives me enough to know if I need to respond right now or can let it wait a little while.

        4. RainyDay*

          If you use Teams to share your screen, you can share your window or just an application. I always share just the application to make sure I don’t accidentally show anything else! At my org, Teams defaults to “Do Not Disturb” while you’re sharing, so messages don’t appear on your screen either.

          The culture at my org is definitely to just start chatting, partially because we’re a global team in multiple time zones, so sending a greeting first generally slows things down. Different strokes and all that.

    6. Annony*

      I also think that responding “Hi” is not something that anyone literally does not have time for. It takes less than a second. Signing in is something that would have to occur anyway whether the desired information is in the first or second message so that time doesn’t count. Testing to see if this method of communication will work saves time for the message sender and also allows them to avoid being obnoxious by sending the same information multiple ways if the recipient does not log into the app or does so too late.

      1. Anonym*

        Yeah, OP, you might think of this as investing in relationships with your new co-workers. Do things their way, get to know them, let them get to know you, then once things are established you can start to adjust.

        This person just handed you an opportunity to connect, perhaps clumsily, but good relationships will only strengthen your work.

      2. Jackalope*

        Yeah, if I have someone send me that sort of Teams message I’ll respond back with, “What’s up?”, or something along those lines, so they know I’m available to talk.

        1. amoeba*

          Yeah, I either do that or, if I’m feeling a tiny bit passive-aggressive I just write “Hi” back, haha.

      3. Turquoisecow*

        Yeah I have never understood this complaint. I understand it was annoying for the OP to have to log in to see it but they were going to have to log in at some point to communicate with coworkers unless it’s literally only this one person using it, which I doubt. But after this they’ll just be logged in all the time.

      4. Caffeine Monkey*

        To me, somebody messaging, “Hi,” is the equivalent of them tapping me on the shoulder and standing there waiting. Whereas, “Hi, could you send me the teapot report for Llamas International?” is the equivalent of them leaving a note on my desk and walking away.

        The former demands more attention than the latter. I may be able to send the teapot report over without massively breaking my concentration on my current task. Somebody standing there waiting, needing some form of social interaction, means my concentration is shattered.

        1. nope*

          To me, somone saying Hi is the equivelent of someone letting me know they need me for something (not urgent) and to get back to them when I have time. Saying Hi, could you send me the teapot report for Llamas International is the equivalent of them telling me to drop everything and get them that report ASAP. We all see these things differently is my point.

      5. Annie*

        I always reply “Hi, what can I help you with?” if it’s someone that I don’t normally just talk socially with. Otherwise I might say, “Hi, what’s up?” to sort of prompt a response.

        If I’m sending something, I’ll just jump into it.
        “Hi, Annony! How are things going?”
        “I wanted to ask if you had a chance to go over that document I sent you the other day. I needed to know if you had any comments before I submit for final approval.”

        So I’m not just throwing out a “Hi” with no question attached to it.

      6. Pi314*

        Well, it’s not the typing out “hi” and hitting send that no one has time for. It’s the inevitable delays that come from the initiator waiting for a response, then the responder waiting for another message.

        If there’s truly uncertainty as to whether someone will receive the message, then I think it’s a little more forgiveable. But frankly everywhere I’ve worked where messaging programs like Teams have been in, use, it’s never been optional to pay attention to the messages you’re getting.

      7. TM*

        I disagree, to be honest – no-one is suggesting writing an entire essay in their initial message. Usually you start with just the “headline” of what you’re in contact about. “Hi, Wakeen, could I ask you a few questions about the llama-grooming procedure?”
        Maybe some initial introductory/welcoming words if you haven’t spoken or communicated previously, but the actual request should follow immediately after.
        In this instance, responding to the dangling “hi”, sending a flat “hi” back is a bit pointless. Saying something like, “Hi, Mary Sue, how can I help you?” hopefully gets things moving in a productive direction.
        For colleagues I’ve dealt with plenty of times, and who should know better, I have no compunction about leaving their “hi” dangling. They usually get the hint. (Not something to do the first few weeks of the job, though!)
        Not sure what the problem was with the password – maybe this was on a mobile device and the first time Teams was launched on it. There are generally some extra security hoops to jump through to get a new device securely “registered” to the user, even a company-supplied one. Some things simply have to be done by the person who will be using it. In theory (depending on their policies), futher sign-ins will probably be more convenient with a just fingerprint scan or similar.

    7. HR Exec Popping In*

      The LW needs to understand the culture at their new org. This is not a thing to make an issue out of. I would recommend keeping the Teams app open. Likely the person sending message saw that LW wasn’t “active” (i.e., green) and sent the “hi” message to see if that was accurate (as you can look offline when you are not). This might be the preferred way your new org communicates. And if so, while the “hi” message might be annoying, you not being active on Teams might be annoying to them.

    8. Observer*

      I start new convos with people with, “Hey Sayeed, are you a Teams user?”

      That’s not going to fly in an organization that actually uses Teams as a primary communications tool.

    9. Recently Promoted Cog*

      Yeah – or maybe the team is used to leaving Teams open and doing quick pings as needed, and tht was a confirming “are you on?”
      My direct team usually starts the day with a “Morning” in the group Teams chat to let folks know that you’re online and pingable. “Hi” would be a bit brusque but maybe as a confirmatory “are you there” for a first day on the job it makes sense.
      Your first day is not the day to “train” your new coworkers on your opinions on Teams etiquette. Your first day is the day to open up that damn chat box and type “Hi!” back, and follow it with “How do you generally use Teams in this workgroup? In the past, I’ve (used X program, or done Y with chat), but let me know what the team norms are for daily communication!”
      It is VERY difficult to change the established norms of an existing team regarding communication channels and styles, and if you show up on the first day and act like a diva about Teams vs. Slack or refuse to keep Teams open, its not a good look.

    10. Melou*

      UGH. Just say the message and if they don’t respond, you have the same answer but didn’t waste a users time. If they dont answer, copy or snip the message and email it to them with the line, “I didn’t see a response or that your status was active, so sending here in case you don’t use Teams”. It’s a polite hint to use Teams and offers them options to reply.

    11. Tiger Snake*

      And even if you are a Teams user, that doesn’t mean you’re free to get a question right now.
      You put a question out there; its read but the person doesn’t have time to answer just yet? Now it’s taking up space in their brain until they do have time.

      A simple “Hey, how are you” puts you on the radar in a way that’s much easier to not think about until you actually do have a minute. They still know you’re there, they still know you need something but that it should be pretty quick but also isn’t urgent; but there’s nothing for their brain to get stuck into and distract them with like actually asking the work question does.

  2. MassMatt*

    #5 That is awful, they are expecting 40% more hours and six day workweeks for the same pay? Try pushing back as a group, and look for something better!

    1. AcademiaNut*

      I’m wondering if that would be a significant enough change in the job for the employees to be eligible for unemployment insurance if they quit?

      The only other thing I can think of is if they aren’t offering overtime, pay close attention to whether the employer is incorrectly classifying them as exempt. If they’re non-exempt, the extra 16 hours a week would be a 60% increase in gross pay.

      1. Mellie*

        Wait, 16 hours? The actual number of the increase went right by me when I first read the letter. Are they working 16 hours on Saturday? Or longer hours during the week and also working on Saturday?!

        1. Flor*

          My guess would be working longer hours during the week and on Saturday, but that doesn’t quite make sense because 56 isn’t divisible by 6 – it makes for 6 days of 9 hours and 20 minutes, which seems oddly specific. Maybe they can work anywhere from 8 to 10 hours a day as long as they’re working 56 hours over 6 days a week?

          1. RagingADHD*

            56 hours would be 8*7 days a week.

            So they’re actually expecting them to work as if they have zero days off, but if they want a day off they can compress it into 6 days.

      2. A Simple Narwhal*

        I wonder that too. The significant increase in hours with zero change in compensation equates to a significant pay cut so possibly it would count as constructive dismissal.

      3. Ann O'Nemity*

        In my experience with my state’s unemployment board, changing the job requirements from 40 to 56 hours would definitely be considered constructive dismissal, and therefore employees that quit would be eligible for full unemployment benefits.

    2. WoodswomanWrites*

      My first thought is that the company is using this ploy to get everyone to quit so they can hire a new team, probably for less pay. I don’t see this making sense in any other context.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        nah, they are counting on getting more done with fewer people. they know not everyone will quit, not in this economy. So they can get those who stay to work more hours for the same pay, which helps the bottom line.

        Its stupid, short sighted and tells one a lot about the company. Get out.

        1. Really anon for this*

          Exactly this. My sis works in the HQ for a major retailer who repeatedly overworks exempt workers during monthly “crunch” times, seriously underpays them for the market, has been in a hiring “freeze” since COVID, and is now holding the possibility of a RIF over their heads thanks to having implemented a real ERP system that works (rather than cobbled-together five-years-past-end-of-life software and spreadsheets). I’ve repeatedly told her they should unionize. Oh, and they’ve just been told to come back to the office five days a week–and there aren’t enough seats if the entire office did this btw. Their team’s management wonders why their most talented workers are quitting.

          Get thee the H out if you can–this will not change.

        2. CeeDoo*

          They’re doing so many shortsighted things. We are in a service/consumer economy. When they fire us or decrease our pay so we can’t afford to consume, they’re decreasing their customer base. What will they do when they have no more customers?

          1. Elsewise*

            Probably find a way to blame trans people or immigrants or something. No self-awareness on these types.

      2. Starbuck*

        Or they have something like a shift work or other 24-hour coverage-dependent workplace and they’re doing this because they’re too lazy to hire new people or can’t get the budget approved for it.

    3. DJ Abbott*

      Yes, that’s not going to fly. I think most employees would go out and find a better job.
      Maybe they are deliberately trying to make employees leave, but I think it’s just as likely they’re simply stupid.

      1. Georgia*

        My last boss was of the stupid/vengeful type. We were already working a bare minimum 50 hours per week with regular working hours and on call could make it 70+. We pushed back on scheduling regular client appointments during on call time and asked to de-prioritize non-client emergencies because our actual loyal clients were missing or having very late appointments. His reaction was to try to force us to work double on call PLUS every other Saturday (meaning we would only have maybe one full day off per week and be available 24-7 for 5-6 days). We were already making under $20/hour as licensed professionals with doctorates. Half of us quit in a few months and he was shocked and angry.

      2. Bast*

        I wouldn’t be so sure. When I worked retail and food service, I saw management play with hours to induce people to quit so they wouldn’t have to fire them, although in those cases it was typically the opposite– they’d cut your hours until you were basically forced to quit, or with serving in particular they would give you the absolute worst shift(s) so you wouldn’t make any money and be forced to quit. I can see a business in another industry try to force people out by making them work ridiculous hours, although I’m surprised that it would be the entire team/company instead of just a few people they specifically wanted out.

      3. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out.*

        Why not both? Unless there has been a 40% increase in the work to be done, they might be expecting 1/3rd of their employees to quit, and the remaining employees to work unpaid overtime to make up the difference.

    4. A Simple Narwhal*

      My first (sarcastic) thought was surely everyone’s getting at least a 40% raise to account for the new hours, right?? Probably more than that because a six day work week is vastly outside standard business hours.

      Surely they wouldn’t expect a significant change in work without a matching change in compensation, surely! Otherwise that would mean they’re a horrible, short-sighted, garbage place to work that every employee should exit as soon as possible, and suuuurely they aren’t one of those places. Surely.

      1. Dido*

        obviously a company that would spontaneously increase everyone’s hours from 40 to 56 a week isn’t a good place to work for even if they increase salaries accordingly

    5. iglwif*

      My first instinct is to say “that sounds wildly illegal” but enough wild things turn out to be completely legal — especially in the US — that I expect that instinct is wrong. (Obviously if it were that clear-cut, Alison would’ve said so.)

      It’s shocking, though, that an employer would think they can add 2 full days’ worth of work time for no additional pay and their employees will just … be okay with that??

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Right? It’s a normal 9-5, M-F, and then suddenly you expect everyone to give up their weekend to work??? Yeah, that’s a no from me. I’m trying to imagine my workplace doing this and the answer is: absolutely not. Now, I work for a university alumni department, and it is requested but absolutely not expected for people to work the weekend of reunion, but since I work in IT and have no personal ties to the university otherwise, I politely decline this request. Other than that, no…none of us are working weekends.

        (To be fair, I’m sure some of the higher ups, the ones asking alums for money, do work nights and weekends, but I’m also sure they knew going in that they would be doing this and that they also probably get comp time for this.)

        1. iglwif*

          Yeah, I’ve had several jobs where for some specific event, it was all hands on deck and we’d all be working more hours than usual for a few days. And that’s fine if you understand that going in and if it’s once or twice a year.

          I have certainly worked at places where the folks high up the food chain appeared to work all hours of the day and night. I did not follow their example, because frankly, I have never been paid enough for that. The only time I behaved that way myself, it did not end well (and even then I was absolutely not being paid enough to do it, and I regret doing it).

          1. J. F.*

            And last time we had one of those Specific Event things where we all worked 50 hours in a single week my boss told me to just unofficially comp myself a day that month! You know, like normal, good managers.

      2. amoeba*

        It certainly would be illegal in a lot of places, but seems like the US isn’t one of them, unfortunately…

      3. Parenthesis Guy*

        Why would it be illegal?

        I don’t know if they think that their employees would be ok with that, but I bet they’re happy as long as their employees don’t quit.

        1. DJ Abbott*

          They will quit though. Not right away, but as soon as they find better jobs.
          Assuming they want to stay in business, their best hope is to hire a staff of workaholics after the current ones leave.

        2. iglwif*

          Well, in a lot of places it would be illegal, because those places have laws that say how many hours you can be expected to work per week before they have to pay you overtime, and because before beginning work you would sign a contract that says, among other things, how many hours you will regularly work in exchange for the salary the employer is agreeing to pay you.

          I have a contract like that. I sometimes do work extra hours because there’s a thing that needs to be finished up before i log off or because I got in a flow state on a project and just kept going, but if I were suddenly told I had to put in an extra SIXTEEN HOURS EACH WEEK, I would be reporting that to the Ministry of Labour forthwith.

      4. Starbuck*

        Not sure where everyone is getting no extra pay here – it’s possible yeah, but the letter doesn’t say that. I’ve known factory shift workers who had schedules like this mandated overtime (paid) because the floor was understaffed and new hiring was taking too long or just not happening for various reasons.

        But I also wouldn’t be shocked if they’re exploiting salaried people too and trying to get this for free.

    6. Productivity Pigeon*

      It’s absolutely bonkers to me that this is legal!

      One of the things I don’t get about the American job market is the lack of employment contracts.
      Things that state how many hours you work and for what pay.

      I realize you use offer letters etc but it’s just strange to me that you need to sign contracts for everything else but not for your job?

      1. DJ Abbott*

        The ruling class here has always tried to exploit workers as much as possible. People fought and died for the 5-day work week and 8-hour day because originally, employers required long days, every day, until workers wore out and died. You can read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair to get a good description of it. Also, look up the history of the Haymarket protests.
        The lack of contracts is a continuation of this. They still want freedom to exploit as much as they can get away with. The ruling class is still fighting unions to this day.

      2. iglwif*

        I find it bonkers also, but frankly no more bonkers than many other US labour things. The US has, to put it mildly, a very long history of very poor worker protections.

      1. iglwif*

        That’s certainly possible, but in that case you’d think the LW would mention it as a mitigating factor?

        Also, does it make more financial sense to pay every existing employee for 16 hours at time and a half every week than to hire a few additional staff? (I’m not saying some employers wouldn’t do that anyway, there’s a lid for every pot etc., but it just doesn’t make sense to me.)

    8. DJ*

      That’s what I was thinking. Longer and more days. I’d seek advice from the relevant dept if it exists. Otherwise agree with Alison’s advice re pushing back as a group. Start off with canvassing how other workers are feeling/issues and meet as a group.

    9. I Have RBF*

      Yeah, if I was on salary at, say, $80K for 40 hour weeks, and now I got the same $80K for 56 hour weeks, it would be a pay cut. I’d be working more hours for the same money. I have left jobs over this kind of shit.

  3. JR17*

    OP #3, don’t torture yourself. If your coworkers are interested enough in real estate to ask to see the listing, and you had only sent pictures, they probably would have just looked it up on Redfin or Zillow. It’s public info, don’t lead with the price of course but no need to go to any length to hide info that’s readily available.

    For OP #5, if she quits over this, might she still be eligible for unemployment, given the substantial change in working conditions?

    1. Cabbagepants*

      agree: #3, they asked for the listing! people know that prices are in listings. unless you’ve been doing other egregiously tone-deaf things around salary, it’s fine. and if you have been then that’s the real issue, not the listing!

      1. Rogue Slime Mold*

        Yes, if OP had announced her new home purchase by sending the listing, unprompted, that would be too much. But she shared the news, people asked, and they can find the information online if they want to.

        Other people buying real estate can have a vicarious “Oh, I wonder if I would have liked the same things? What’s the kitchen like?” that are answered with professional photographs and a floor plan.

        1. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out*

          It’s not wildly outrageous for a senior level employee such as a manger to buy 20% more house than the median.

          1. Meep*

            I have a boss who purposefully went out and bought a million dollar house so he could brag about it.

            1. Coverage Associate*

              The county to the north of here is building affordable housing, townhomes and multi family, at a cost of $1 million per unit for land, renovations, and original construction. $600,000 per unit is a good cost for other local governments to buy and renovate motels into permanent affordable housing and transitional housing.

              This is real high COLA

      2. amoeba*

        Ha, yes, I was excpecting something much worse! (I’m not in the US, housing is quite a bit different here – most people rent and you really have to save up for a house. It’s typically a once in a lifetime thing to buy one, *if* you do it at all. It’s also one of the most expensive countries in the world. Prices are accordingly high…)

        1. Hannah Lee*

          I was expecting that boss had set the listing … for the condo they needed to sell in order to move to the new house. Which could have raise a whole different set of issues.

      3. Not In Charge*

        Seconded – a $500,000 house in my area of New Jersey IS a condo. Or maybe a tiny fixer upper. Or it’s in Paterson.

        The thing about buying a house is, they are so expensive that they don’t work the same way as buying a purse or a car or whatever. No one will think that you just had $600,000 in the bank and bought it cash. Everyone knows how mortgages and down payments work. Houses are expensive – that’s just houses.

        1. I Have RBF*

          You might find a one bedroom fixer-upper cottage in the “bad” side of town for $600K in Silicon Valley. More likely an uninhabitable teardown wreck.

          The average Santa Clara County, CA home value is $1,711,112…
          – Zillow

      4. Maria R.*

        For real.
        The median house price in my area is $1.25 million.

        But “expensive” is relative. I’ve no doubt that’s a high cost city in that general area. I’m in a lower-cost city in my general area.

      5. Gumby*

        Right? My immediate thought was “What is wrong with it? Does it have black mold? Foundation problems?” In my area small, run down, fixer upper houses sell for over $1 million. I know of at least 2 complete tear downs that went for over $2 million. For $600k you might, if you are exceedingly lucky and have great timing, be able to get a 600 sq. ft. condo in an older building. Depending on the bidding war. It might be a studio or it could even be a 1 bdrm. HOA will be a mere $600 – $900/month. You will, of course, not have an in-unit washer or dryer so enjoy hauling your laundry downstairs and across the complex at 10 pm.

    3. PokemonGoToThePolls*

      This exactly. Even without listing pictures, with enough information the really curious can probably figure it out and look it up anyway (a coworker with lots of spare time did this for a previous boss’s house)

      1. JR17*

        If you just know the general area, it’s easy to find on Redfin by searching new home sales in the map view. Unless tons of homes have sold in the area, you can find it in about 30 second.

      2. someone*

        A curious coworker with almost no spare time can just do a reverse image search and find the listing in about 5 seconds.

      3. JustaTech*

        I had a coworker who did this all the time. When I moved she managed to find my listing (even though I didn’t share the exact address, because I didn’t want to share the price of the house). She also managed to find both the previous and current homes of our then-COO, which perfectly explained the interior design of our building renovation.

    4. Great Frogs of Literature*

      Yeah, when my boss was house hunting eight or ten years ago, we got him to share all the listings for the places he was seriously looking at. While prices were less horrifying at that point, they were still pretty bad, even as far in the suburbs as he was looking. There was no way I could’ve afforded anything in that range at that time, but he was more senior and more established in his career than I was.

      Doing your OWN house-hunting is grueling, but vicariously following along with other peoples’ house hunting can be lots of fun, as long as you’re sufficiently removed from the whole thing that you don’t go through all the rounds of disappointment with them. It’s the real estate version of window-shopping at stores you can’t afford.

      1. Annika Hansen*

        My friend earns double what my husband and I make. I had so much fun house hunting with her. I actually found the house she ended up buying. It didn’t show up in her search because she wanted a minimum of 2,000 sq ft. The house was 1,995 sq ft, but it was so perfect in every other way.

        I would expect my boss to have a much better house than I do. It really wouldn’t bother me. I also know that some people have family money or a high-earning spouse.

    5. Turquoisecow*

      Yeah people definitely would have found the house and the price they bought it for if they really wanted to. Only way to keep the price secret would be to not mention that you’d bought a house at all.

    6. kristinyc*

      When I was buying my house in 2020, my boss was curious and asked to see pics. I sent her the Zillow listing (this was in between offer accepted and closing). Our company had also just announced mass layoffs coming soon (enough that the WARN act was required). So I point blank asked her – if you have ANY reason to believe I shouldn’t buy this house, knowing my husband is unable to work right now because his industry is paused during covid, please tell me the house is ugly or in a bad neighborhood or something.

      Luckily it was fine, and I didn’t get laid off and got the house. A coworker of mine on another team was also buying a house around the same time, and she unfortunately got laid off the day after she closed.

    7. Atalanta0jess*

      Yes, house-buyer, I think you’re fine! I live in an areas where houses that would have cost 300K 7 yeras ago are now 500+, and it sure feels banana pants. I’d have the same feeling I think, of OMG I’m buying a half million dollar house and I shouldn’t flaunt it!!! But frankly, EVERYONE who is buying a house is buying at least a half million dollar house in these areas. It’s at once a shocking price, and the ONLY price that is possible, so I don’t think folks feel like it’s excessively luxurious or whatever. You’re all good.

      1. JustaTech*

        Yes! If you’re all in the same general area, people are aware of how much houses cost. The only time coworkers have expressed disbelief coupled with “you must be rich” is when we’re in completely different areas and I explain that their lovely 4 bedroom 3 car garage house on a half acre lot would cost the better part of $2 million where I live (easily, probably more like $3 million).

    8. Meep*

      Yeah. I had a former coworker want to know how much I bought mine for. I told him since it was public and he was looking. A few of my coworkers and I also shared listings when we were/are looking.

    9. wilted spinach*

      Agree – sending the listing if requested is fine. I love looking at house listing, especially if someone I know bought them. It’s fun to think, oh I like this, and I can see why you like this, but I’m not of that. And it’s fun to celebrate for people.

      What you shouldn’t do, however, is tell someone who makes 1/3 of your salary in a very high cost of living salary that you made sure to buy a house you could afford even on a lower salary.

    10. Mitzii*

      I agree. I live in a state where property ownership is easily researched and I’m such a Nosy Nelly, I’m always looking up records. Just curious! No judgement! And just because people can see the listing price doesn’t mean they know what your house payment is.

    11. umami*

      Unless they know the address, they wouldn’t be able to look it up. I would never have thought to share the actual listing of my house with coworkers because they don’t need my address (let alone how much I paid)! Pictures are more than enough.

    12. Emily Byrd Starr*

      Technically, if you know a person’s street address, there’s nothing preventing you from going to Zillow and seeing when it was last sold, how much it was sold for, etc.

  4. Seashell*

    I don’t understand why LW1 wouldn’t just respond if this person has info they need. Seems a rather odd hill to die on. Maybe the other person didn’t want to overwhelm you with info before ever meeting or greeting you.

    Regarding #3, unless you established a corporation for your real estate purchases and no one knows your address, people who are determined to do so can probably figure how much you spent on your house with about 120 seconds’ worth of Googling. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, since the cat is out of the bag anyway.

    1. WS*

      +1, my partner is estranged from her parents and didn’t want them knowing about our house purchase but they found out quickly anyway and the price was public.

      1. Ally McBeal*

        Off-topic, but did you consider purchasing the house through an LLC so her name wouldn’t be directly associated with the purchase? I’m estranged from one of my parents, who isn’t likely to stalk me like that, but I’ve heard about the LLC thing and wondered if it’s a solution for normal people with normal budgets or if that’s just a rich-person move.

        1. Coverage Associate*

          Or a trust? Lots of people put their primary residences into trusts after purchase, but there’s no reason you couldn’t set up a trust and then purchase.

          The mortgage is usually recorded and public here, though, and the bank is not going to loan the money to a trust. And maybe the trustee has to go on title, and it’s usually just the owner as trustee.

          Anyway, I know title can be held by a trust, and a trust can be named however.

          1. Kay*

            Depending on the state, you may have to disclose beneficiaries/trustees of the trust on the purchase of real estate. So before going through the expense and hassle of creating LLCs (typically also public information as to the manager/members), make sure you know the disclosure laws of where the entity is domiciled and where the property is located.

        2. Kay*

          For the most part an LLC isn’t as anonymous as people think it is. Most states have pretty easily searchable websites for entities and their manager/members. So while it can be pretty cheap to set up an LLC, you still have to associate an address, manager/member, and responsible party for it. You can reduce visibility by hiring an authorized agent for service (the address part), but unless you have someone you trust in charge of the LLC you just created, or want to spend far too much money to have it created somewhere that makes it easier to hide this information, it isn’t quite so easy to hide your information nor is it as inexpensive as just a simple LLC. Depends on if it is worth it to make someone go to two websites vs one to find you.

          I also am not so sure how easy it is going to be to find beneficial owners information with the new disclosure laws for entities that went into effect last year. Supposedly it was just for government purposes but who knows.

      2. Meep*

        I may have snooped to see how much my aunt bought her house for and what sort of down payment she put down for county public records. But she hasn’t been able to consistently hold down a job in 15+ years, used her 401K money for this deposit (no idea why since she had a condo sale and bought and sold an RV), and will be expecting me take care of her in her old age. (She has no kids.) I needed to know how much of that $300,000 loan I was actually responsible for. The condo sale was $500,000 BTW and it was bought outright for her by my grandparents. Still no idea what she did with that money, but probably something stupid.

    2. MK*

      Whether they could find the information isn’t the issue. OP worries it might have been inappropriate to basically announce she is paying a large sum of money on a house, I assume because there has been a lot of talk about executives being out of touch with reality and rubbing their wealth in their struggling employees’ faces. Sure, they could have found out easily, but also people in general know higher-ups care probably a lot wealthier than them and possibly live luxuriously.

      From my point of view the price matters less than what the house is; if you bought an average house, but had to pay a lot becuaee of location and inflation, you won’t come across as out of touch; if you bought a mansion fit for a film star, people will be jarred, even if you got a bargain.

      1. A*

        In my experience, people have varying definitions of “average house” and “mansion fit for a film star.”

        It’s like the old joke: A McMansion is a house somebody can’t afford.

        I don’t think the LW was wrong to send the listing after asked about it, especially if they have a culture of sharing life updates. I also think real estate is a touchy, subjective, topic just in general.

        1. JB (not in Houston)*

          Is that an old joke? I’ve never heard it, and it doesn’t really make sense because “McMansion” doesn’t just mean “big house.” But i do agree with you people have different ideas of what “average house” means, and the OP wasn’t wrong to send the listing after being asked.

          1. A*

            I’ve heard the joke since the Lehman crash. It is much better delivered in person because tone carries it. Of course explaining jokes always takes some of it away but I’ll attempt it anyway.

            People who use “McMansion” as a description are nearly always sneering or snidely remarking on somebody else’s home. You are correct that it isn’t just a big home. It’s also a home that offends the speakers taste and aesthetic.

            In a word, people who use the word “McMansion” are salty. That is the point of the joke. Whenever people describe homes as “McMansion” I don’t have any opinion of the home but I think the speaker has a chip on their shoulder.

            1. Librarian of Things*

              A McMansion isn’t necessarily visually offensive. It just means that it’s an oversized house surrounded by other equally mass-produced oversized houses. Whole neighborhoods of “estate homes” with what could be perfectly attractive immense buildings, squished into the sameness of a suburban street.

              McMansions try to reproduce the image of wealth of a country mansion. Such a mansion would reflect the aesthetic ideals of its owner (for good or ill), set off by itself, on a significant piece of real estate. The exact same house on a third-acre lot, cheek-by-jowl with two dozen exactly like it, is a McMansion.

              1. Starbuck*

                Yeah pretending that someone using the term is always sneering and bitter and not making an actual architectural critique is pretty misinformed!

                1. A*

                  This thread is proving my point, actually. People who hate “McMansions” are very defensive about it.

                  They tend to use phrases like “actual architectural critique”

            2. I Have RBF*

              That’s ridiculous. I live in Silicon Valley, one of the places polluted by lots of McMansions.

              Architectural critique isn’t “salty”, and I think you are far too judgemental, or trolling, here. McMansions are ugly, cheaply overbuilt, and have little architectural value. I’ve looked at a lot of them, and I would hate to have to heat, cool, or clean one. I own my home, I don’t have “a chip on (my) shoulder” or anything dumb like that. I think they are f’ing ugly, overbuilt, cheaply designed, arrogant trash. If you gave me one I would sell it to a flipper and buy a real house.

        2. I Have RBF*

          Sorry, but here “McMansion” has a different meaning: an oversized house on a small lot built cheaply with poor design. Usually after tearing down a perfectly good, but “small” classic house to erect a tacky, overbuilt house with only minimal required distance from the lot lines.

      2. Teacher Lady*

        I agree, but would add that the audience also matters. To give an example, I am a teacher and am paid well, but paraprofessionals in my district are not paid well. I wouldn’t think twice about sharing the listing for a house I’d bought or was thinking of buying with another teacher (someone who either earns a similar amount, or has the potential to earn a similar amount, ex. if they are newer to the profession and not as high on the salary scale as I am), especially since anyone who would ask is probably actually interested in understanding the current real estate market in our area, but it would feel a bit gauche to share it with a paraprofessional who earns 1/4 what I do.

    3. Dr. Rebecca*

      Yeah, I’d’ve just responded to “hi” with “hey, do you have that info for me?” No need to turn it into a legal case. And maybe consider staying signed in to the app, if the long password is proving arduous to handle every time.

      1. Observer*

        And maybe consider staying signed in to the app, if the long password is proving arduous to handle every time.

        Yeah. That was my first thought. Why are you logging in only for each separate message. Log in and stay logged in, similarly to what people do with a phone.

    4. TGIF*

      On number 1, when people do this to me, just say “hi” in teams and nothing else it drives me up the wall. I never do that to people, I say Hi, then the issue or subject I came to talk to them about. Instead of small talk back and forth just get to the point of what you need!!! And don’t heart react to everything I say when I don’t even know you, that irritates me too.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Drives me up the wall too, because I start thinking about all the myriad of things that people might be messaging me about. Funny thing, we had a new team member start a few weeks ago and in our intro one-on-one she asked me how I like to communicate, and among other things I did say that it actually stresses me out when people just write “Hi” on Teams and nothing else. She said she likes to just write “Hi” messages to be polite. I was like, oh, I’m fine with you saying “Hi” first, but if you could just tell me what you’re messaging about right from the get-go I’d really appreciate it. It’s become something of a joke between us now, too, which is more fun than me getting annoyed at “Hi” messages.

    5. Wilbur*

      The comment “I don’t have time for” is a bit confusing to me, because the only thing you have to do is respond “hi”. This kind of thing bugs me but you don’t have to stop what you’re doing and respond immediately. If you’re busy (with projects or onboarding, etc.) it’s understandable that you’re not immediately available. If you’re not busy then the mediocre communication doesn’t matter.

      1. TechWorker*

        Well it kind of does, because if your question is something I can answer in 10s I will happily do that to unblock you even if I am busy. If your question is a multi message multi paragraph ‘should have been an email’ then the fact I’ve replied to the ‘hi’ means I am then under more pressure to respond to the paragraph.

        1. Not In Charge*

          Then just say “Sorry, I can’t get to that right now. Send me an email and I’ll reply when I can”.

          I fully support everyone’s right to be annoyed at whatever they please – I myself have many unreasonable pet peeves that I will never let go of! But this is something that can be addressed with words.

          1. Lemons*

            Sure this can be addressed with words, but imagine you have to do this every single time you interact with someone, multiple times per day. People who do this do it consistently, it’s not an inconvenient one-off.

    6. Lemons*

      #1 Because people who do this will do it EVERY SINGLE TIME and it’s an incredible waste of time and effort. I worked with one person who did this, and I would test how long she’d wait for me to reply ‘hi’ back before saying what she wanted. Reader: The limit did not exist.

      Text-based messaging is essentially async. I think you should communicate they way you would over email. Just say “Hi! Here is what I want when you get a chance.” It is perfectly polite; behaving like texting is a phone call is extremely obnoxious over time.

      I do agree LW is too new and should wait to say anything, but if it’s happening in a few months they can just tell the Hi-er that they’d appreciate if they didn’t wait for a response and just got to what they want.

    7. Coverage Associate*

      Re #1, I kind of get managing yet another login when you’re new and the passwords aren’t habit, but OP 1 probably needs to practice the password (to remember it and make it less annoying) if this is a usual means of communication for that office.

  5. Andy*

    Where I know I can get away with it, I make it a point to ignore “hi” people on Teams until they get to the point. They tend to be messaging because *they* need something from me, so they get there eventually, and I can work in peace in the meantime. Just don’t mark it as seen and you have plausible deniability (unless your job is Teams-heavy, be sure it won’t negatively impact your rep, etc, etc)

    1. Sloanicota*

      I’m never a “hey” person, but I assume it’s about checking if someone is there / available / uses Teams or whatever, so I’m surprised ignoring them really works.

      1. LifebeforeCorona*

        I’m a “hey” person with my BF because it’s a quick check-in. If they can respond fine, if not I know they’re busy.

        1. Everyone deserves some love and attention*

          I don’t do this even to my partner and they generally don’t do it to me.
          If we have a question/request/thought/complaint/brag/meme/whatever, we just send it.
          If we need to Talk, we say “hey are you busy, can I call you” or something but that’s not a daily occurrence.
          Pretty much the only time we send a “hi” is if one of us just wants some love and attention.

          1. Everyone deserves some love and attention*

            p.s. this is not a judgement on LifebeforeCorona or anyone else who does “hey” with their partner. I’m just saying that nohello’ing works even in some SO relationships, including my own.

      2. Miette*

        This is why it’s important to understand the office/team culture before OP chooses this hill as the one to die on.

        One person’s “Hi (I’m too weirdly anxious with office norms to get to the point so I’ll prod you incessantly)” is another’s “Hi (Are you there/able to be interrupted at this moment?).”

    2. AngryOctopus*

      I have had several IT people here message “Hello” or “Hello AngryOctopus” and then nothing. I tend to ignore those–and they’ll go on for days like that! I know that they want to close whatever ticket they’re working on, but until they message “Hello AngryOctopus, are you all set with the resolution to ticket #?”, they can wait. Because there is zero reason for them to not greet me AND tell me what they want in one sentence. And they should be, so if the “open longer than normal” ticket comes back to their boss, their boss should be telling them “message and tell them what you want right away”.

      1. huh*

        So you know that this is how they behave and you continue to just let that happen? At this point, you’re more of the problem than the IT people are.

      3. MissNomer*

        But if you know they want to close the ticket, why not just respond “Hi [IT], thanks for checking in, that ticket issue is all set” or whatever is appropriate? It feels sort of…churlish? to ignore them just because they aren’t communicating the way you want them to even though you know what they want.

        1. Anonymoose*

          Yea, this feels odd. For every person who likes someone to get to the point there is someone else who likes a “hi” so they can state they are available/not available. Just say Hi back and wait for the question. Or, if you know the question, just respond!

    3. cloudy*

      I’m embarrassed to report that for years I didn’t realize that people who sent “hi” messages were actually looking for a response. I would sit there waiting quietly because I thought it meant they were typing up the information and would send it a few minutes later. Most people would do that when they didn’t get a response, but the ones who just said hi and didn’t say anything else really confused me. I thought maybe they got interrupted mid-sentence!

      1. jess*

        Well that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation too- I was thinking that since this letter writer mentioned she is waiting for info from the person who messaged “hi”, maybe that person was about to send the info and got interrupted.

        I think either way, during your first week on the job, you shouldn’t make a big deal about this. If it becomes a repeated issue over time, you could start by ASKING why the person is just saying “hi” and ASK them to tell you what they need. I would NOT start by trying to “nip this in the bud” or anything like that.

    4. Grogu's Mom*

      For many years, ignoring “hi” was my favorite way to deal with this too. Probably because “hi” irks my soul in the exact same way as when my husband walks into the room and stares at me, waiting for me to begin the conversation when he is the one that has something to say. Anyway, I can’t ignore it at work anymore because at my current job, one of my bosses as well as another co-worker who often needs me urgently both do the “hi” thing, even when it doesn’t get them a response, and later I find out they took some big circuitous path to accomplish what needed done rather than just type out what they needed. So, I had to find a way to respond that didn’t irk my soul quite as much as typing out, “Hi, what’s up?” or variations thereof. I tried a lot of different things until I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT! I respond with a wave emoji. It shows that the “hi” was seen and I’m waiting for them to say what they want, but it doesn’t piss me off like typing something does, for some reason. I think because it’s similar to what I’d do if they showed up in person. So my advice is figure out your own way to respond that doesn’t piss you off, because it’s not worth the mental energy.

      1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

        Love the wave: a passive-aggressive response that’s actually justified.

      2. Norm Peterson*

        In my org, it tends to be native Spanish speakers (but not exclusively!) who just start with hi and wait on Teams. (This was also the case at a different job via slack). As we have been using Teams more robustly, most of the people who did this (both native Spanish and English speakers) do seem to have started leading with hi and then adding their actual question within a few minutes. I think it’s culturally a little rude in Spanish to just launch into demanding something? At least that’s what one of them said when it came up…

        1. xylocopa*

          That’s my sense too, now that I’m working with several Spanish-speakers. Just “hi” drives me a little crazy too but there’s certainly cultural variability. To me “hi” feels vaguely like the other person is expecting me to do the conversational “work”–like, okay, you poked at me, and now you need me to ask you what you want to talk about?? But I can see how culturally it can likewise seem as rude and abrupt to just start right in on work demands without taking a minute to be polite.

        2. Lana Kane*

          I’m a native Spanish speaker. It’s not necessarily a language thing, but there are definitely some Spanish speaking cultures where it’s considered rude to just launch in on what you want. And it can vary within cultures as well. It might be less of a thing with younger people who are more used to internet culture.

        3. MissMuffett*

          My colleagues in India – especially the ones I don’t work with regularly (like support folks as opposed to my analyst on my team) are also chronic “hi”-ers and it also drives me nuts. And sometimes they want to small talk and i just don’t have time for that. I just grind my teeth internally and respond with, “what can i help you with” so they get on with it!

          1. Jamoche*

            The working hours between the engineering and offshored QA departments did not overlap at all. We used chat for simple questions, but QA wouldn’t just come out and ask: they’d send “Hi” at 7PM my time, I’d see it the next morning and ask if they had a question, I’d get the question a day after that, and they’d finally get their answer a day later than if they’d just started with it. Telling them to just start with the question did not work.

    5. Sneaky Squirrel*

      I have colleagues who will message me “hi” and then disappear regardless of how quickly I responded back to them, leaving me waiting for them to come back to decide to tell me whatever it is they wanted to tell me in the first place (usually it’s just an ask for information). So now I ignore my colleagues who just say “hi” and wait until they send what they want.

    6. mango chiffon*

      This always confuses me because people don’t do the same thing with email (just sending “hi”) and both are asynchronous methods of communication. What makes messaging different for folks? I just don’t know

      1. Don’t know what to call myself*

        I think what muddies the waters for some people is that messaging apps are both synchronous and asynchronous. You can use them either way. I usually start with the assumption that it’s asynchronous until the person replies and we can have a synchronous back and forth, but some people think of it as only synchronous so you have to wait for a response before sending another message.

        1. Stipes*

          This is the thing. Some people have developed a sense of IMs (and texts!) being something halfway between a phone call and an email, but some people treat them the exact same as one or the other.

        2. Troubadour*

          Yes – I tend to think of Teams etc as more like a synchronous conversation. If I can type up the whole request complete in itself then I’ll send it by email – I use Teams when it needs some back and forth. Personally I try to give an indication of topic in my greeting message, and on impatient days will be a bit irritated by the content-less “hi” from others, but I do also understand its function as a “hi, are you there/is this a good time”.

          1. I Have RBF*

            I have finally managed to train one of my persistent “Hi” people to message “Hi. Are you available?” Then I can answer “yes” or “no”, etc.

        3. Pi314*

          Totally. At my company, people seem to treat Teams very similarly to texting, in that if you send a message there is a possibility the recipient will read and respond right away, and you’ll proceed to have a real-time, back and forth conversation; there’s also a chance they won’t respond for hours or maybe even a day or two. If I really needed to communicate with someone right away or wanted to enable a quick back and forth conversation, I’d either call them (via Teams, we don’t have any actual phones) if I saw their indicator was green, or send a message saying something like “hey, let me know when you have a moment to discuss X.” Just saying “hi” with no context doesn’t seem like it would be helpful in facilitating a conversation, if that is goal.

    7. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      After you’ve been there a while, sure. Not in the first week on the job. It’s not much of an opener to get acquainted with a new colleague, for sure, and also not a hill to die on.

    8. Strive to Excel*

      This is an interesting look at workplace norms!

      I had a prior workplace where people would send a “Hi” message so that their chat with you would activate and then follow up soon afterwards with what they actually wanted.

    9. Hell in a Handbasket*

      I mean, your first week on the job, with a co-worker that you need something from, does not seem to be the right time to implement this strategy. I think ignoring the new co-worker would be justifiably perceived pretty rude in this case!

  6. Ann*

    LW1, maybe it’s cultural because people who do this at my company are simply checking if you are free. I tend to respond, “Hi how can I help?” and people get to the point. Then I can set expectations on when I can get to it. In this case since you are awaiting an answer, how about something like, “Hi and where are we meeting tomorrow please?”

    1. Hi there!*

      I’m learning there’s a whole group of people I’ve apparently been enraging just because I wanted to see if they were free to talk!

      1. Airy*

        Sincerely: please ask them directly if they are free to talk. It’s a short sentence and it removes the potential for misunderstanding and irritation.

      2. Airy*

        Sincerely: please ask them if they are free to talk. Right up front. It’s a short sentence and it gets you both closer to where you want to go. If it feels blunt somehow to ask a question immediately after a greeting, stick a friendly little emoji in between.

        1. the turtle moves*

          Seconding this. I have a couple of coworkers who message me just “hi” or “good morning” with no follow-up, and it drives me crazy. If I am busy, you’ve just interrupted what I was doing to give me no useful information and put the onus on me to get to what you wanted from me. If you get straight to the point I can have a quick look at it and decide how to prioritise it without the back and forth.

          1. I Have RBF*

            If I send “Good morning” to my group channel, it means that I am online and starting my day. It does not require a response. If I actually require a response from someone, I will @ them and say something like “Hi @$Name. Do you have a few minutes to talk about XYZ?” I never expect a response from a naked “Hi” or “Good morning”.

      3. Please tell me what you want*

        I wouldn’t say that I would be enraged, but would irritate me and I am unlikely to respond.
        If someone wants to know whether I am free talk I would hope that they would at least say “Hi. Are you free to talk?”, and preferably tell me what it is about.
        I may be busy but would make time for something important

        1. AngryOctopus*

          Yes! My colleague sometimes needs to ask me something (or wants to have coffee). So she’ll message “Hi, are you free to chat?” and I can either say “yes, what’s up?” or “not at the moment, maybe at [time]?”. So much better than me breaking focus just for a “hi” which could be social.

        2. MissMuffett*

          Or, Hi – quick question about the TPS report, do you have a minute to chat? That takes an extra 4 seconds to type but gives your recipient a ton of info to determine level of importance, urgency, etc. without them having to feel like they’re dragging it out of you.

      4. Roland*

        Sorry but yeah it’s quite annoying. Why not just say “hi, do you have a minute to talk?” Or even better “hi, do you have a minute to talk about X?”

        Then I know how important it is to reply asap or in a few minutes because I know the genral topic. I think a lot of people are like me in that I am never really “free”. There’s always something to do, it’s a matter of where it makes sense to slot each request in.

        1. Observer*

          Sorry but yeah it’s quite annoying. Why not just say “hi, do you have a minute to talk?” Or even better “hi, do you have a minute to talk about X?”

          That’s a valid question. But getting enraged is just over the top. People have quirks. They use different short hand. They do things differently that “I” (any other person) would. And sometimes those things are annoying.

          But getting “enraged” by such things is, at best, a non-functional response.

        2. Managing to get by*

          if someone asks you if you have a minute to talk, do you take that to mean a chat exchange over teams or a quick phone call?

      5. Helmac*

        I’m also taken aback by the angry vibes. Although I tend not to open chats this way, some team mates do, and I’ve always just read it as the equivalent of sticking your head in the office door to see if you’re at your desk for a question, like, “hi, are you On Here right now?” The negativity of some of these reactions seems way, way out of proportion to the imagined offense.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          I don’t think people are angry, but it’s not great communication. If you want to know if people are free, you need to give them specifics so they can respond to you. If you message hi, it doesn’t say “are you free?” it just says hi, and whether or not you’re free depends on what people want a lot of the time. I would find this a little inconvenient, having to prod people to get to the point.

          1. NewNameTime*

            I feel like it’s a lot to expect people to communicate clearly, and maybe at odds with my company’s norms. If everyone else is okay with someone opening a convo with messages that are just like “hi,,,,,,,” (yes, the commas are real) or “o im sorry you are in meeting” when your status indicator clearly says you’re in a meeting, I’d better go along to get along.

            1. Morgan*

              It’s really not a lot to expect. It’s unrealistic to expect that it’ll apply universally across the board at all times – inevitably some coworkers will fall short some of the time – but “communicate clearly and don’t waste my time” is a very, very low bar that’s easy to clear.

              1. Allonge*

                And more importantly it’s something we should be aiming for, so I don’t think saying ‘you cannot expect that’ is an awesome approach.

          2. Antilles*

            It’s not great communication, but that’s also the reality of communication.
            People regularly start in-person conversations or phone calls with “hello” or “good morning” or “how is your day” or other vague pleasantries before jumping into the actual topic they want to discuss. And if you walk into someone’s office, you don’t just start spewing technical data at them the instant you cross the threshold.
            Yes these are all wasted words and not particularly helpful to the topic, but as long as work is comprised of humans dealing with other humans, that’s always going to be the case.

            1. ecnaseener*

              It’s completely different for verbal conversations though. Those are real time. You can hear what’s being said as it’s being said, so there’s no “dead time” where you’re waiting for them to finish typing. Over text, the “hi” message basically means “okay first you say hi back, THEN I’ll start typing my question while you wait.”

            2. TechWorker*

              But this is very different because you know the person is there! You wouldn’t phone someone up, get a voicemail & just leave a message saying ‘hello!’ & then hang up.

              1. Na$ty Larry*

                Exactly! Plus when we’re on a call together, I am already devoting my time to you. I don’t have to divert my attention from what I’m working on multiple times to find out what you need if we’re already talking.

              2. Kay*

                Thank you for this! I don’t know why, but the notion of getting a voicemail that just said “hello” made me laugh out loud! I needed that.

            3. Funko Pops Day*

              I actually think it’s more like walking into someone’s office and saying “Hi” and then standing there silently watching them until they reply. Which would also be weird and unpleasant if your coworker was doing it!

              1. metadata minion*

                Why is it weird to wait for the other person to reply? If they’re finishing typing something or whatever, I’m going to wait for a response. In person, that response might be a nonverbal response such as looking up and lifting the eyebrows, but I’m not just going to launch into whatever I came in for without making sure they’re listening.

              2. Antilles*

                Wait, what?
                Saying hello and the other person replies in some fashion is how greetings work.

              3. Helmac*

                why do you envision this person standing there watching you not reply?? To me the metaphor is sticking your head in and saying hi, realizing that the person they’re looking for is not at their desk, and going on to something else. The person at the other end of that IM “hi” is not actually sitting around staring at their screen until you do or don’t reply!

                1. Frosty*

                  It’s more like, not knocking on the door, but coming in, standing there looking at me while I’m working and then expecting me to say “yes?”.

                  Knock on the door and say “Hey, sorry to bug you, do you have 5 minutes to go over that paperwork with me?”

                  Just say what you need – especially in a Teams message! “Hi! Happy Tuesday! I can’t find that stamp you ordered the other day. Did it come in? Let me know when you have a second. Thank you!”

                2. Helmac*

                  Actually, I think the “hi” is usually the equivalent of the knock on the door. I think that’s why most people send a hi first. Yes, it’s waiting for you to respond, but only in the same way that the knock is waiting for you to respond…and letting the knock-er know to walk away when you’re not there/able to respond.

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          The negativity probably depends on workload. When I am juggling thirty five projects I don’t want to even think there might be one more at my doorstep.

          1. CityMouse*

            As someone who’s had a large workload though, I don’t take it out on my colleagues though. A “hi” on Teams is way less intrusive than someone showing up to my desk so in my list of communication sins at work I wouldn’t even list this in the top minor annoyances.

            I think it’s weird to be this worked up over it.

            1. Don’t know what to call myself*

              I don’t get super worked up over it, but the problem with someone just messaging “hi” with nothing else isn’t giving me any information on how I should be prioritizing my workload. If I’m already juggling several projects and someone messages “hi, do you have a second to talk about Project B?” I know where Project B falls in my priority chain and I can say “I should have some time to talk with you about that this afternoon” or whatever other response is relevant. If all they say is “hi,” I have no way of knowing how urgent their request is going to be so I don’t know if I should stop what I’m doing now and message them back or if I should keep working on what I’m working on and get back to them later.

        3. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

          But when you show up at someone’s desk you wouldn’t just show up and say ‘hi’ and stand there, you’d show up and say ‘hi, are you free to talk about xyz?’.

          I think some of us are operating at a low simmer of burnt out/stressed out rage, so when people message or come by and just stand there, it puts us on edge. Like just tell me what you need so I can tell you if I can help now or later. And with Teams, it’s like leaving a voicemail. I can get to it when I am able to help, and if all of the info is already there, I don’t have to go find someone and say ‘oh, hey I saw your message, did you need something?’ when I could already be acting on it.

          1. metadata minion*

            I would absolutely just start with “hi” if I were at someone’s desk, even though I usually put more context into a text-based message. I can get very focused on my work, so if someone just shows up and starts talking before getting my attention, I’m not going to take in anything they say. On Slack, I can say “Hey, Fergus! Do you have the latest polling numbers for the time travel project?” and Fergus can take the time he needs to read it.

          2. Helmac*

            As someone deep in burnout and literally doing two full-time jobs at present, I agree about the low level of stressed out rage, but I also think this is a self-punishing thing to be angry about. If you have time to respond, say “hi, what’s up?” like you would in person. If not, ignore it, let the person catch you another time, or through a different channel. If I ever find myself feeling rage over a two letter social nicety, I’ll know it’s time to go outside and touch grass.

        4. Kt*

          To me it is the equivalent of sticking your head in the office door and staring at someone wordlessly until they respond to you.

          which is mildly creepy.

          1. Jackalope*

            It seems more like sticking your head in someone’s office and then saying “Hi,” or “Hi, are you free?” Which is a reasonable way to start an interaction.

        5. AngryOctopus*

          It’s really annoying though. If you need something, just tell me right away. Saying “hi” or “are you free?” is not always easy to answer. I might be in the middle of something that I need to focus on, but I can absolutely send you that one slide you need, but I can’t look over your presentation that you’re giving in an hour. Context matters! I don’t want to have to have a back and forth just for you to say “can you send me that summary slide we updated yesterday”.

        6. Mentally Spicy*

          I think that’s actually a good analogy, because, for me and I’m sure others here, it’s like poking your head around someone’s office door, saying “hi”, and then immediately retreating back to your own office and waiting for the person you’ve just said “hi” to to come and find you to ask what you wanted.

          If you think about it in those terms do you see why it might irritate people?

      6. JM60*

        But why do you want to see if they’re free to talk before you tell them what it’s about? Why not just include what it is that you want to talk about? What is the purpose of withholding that information until they’ve responded?

          1. TechWorker*

            You can still ask the question, even pasting it to multiple people, then go back & update when you get an answer (or say ‘no worries, managed to get hold of Bill! Thanks!’)

            1. Emmy Noether*

              I don’t know, I think I’d be much more annoyed if I was well into putting together an answer and then got a “never mind”. Having multiple people work on answering the same question in parallel seems like the height of inefficiency.

              1. TechWorker*

                Sure – but I can see in my chat whether someone’s read it. If they’ve not read it then they’re definitely not about to respond.

                1. Emmy Noether*

                  But then do you like… continually monitor all the chat windows to see who has read it? And what do you do if multiple people read it but haven’t responded yet? Also if someone reads just the popup notification it will not be marked as read, only if they click through to teams.

                  (I’m thinking of questions that take more than a few seconds to answer, so there may be quite some time between reading and answering).

                2. TechWorker*

                  To be clear I don’t use this frequently but it’s about the only situation in which I’d say ‘hi’ with no other info (& even then I’d usually ask the question).

                  It’s more like ‘I need info ideally ‘now’, one of these 2/3 people might know’. If I get no response from one person & they’ve not read it but see the other is online, I’ll ask the other. And yes, go back & either add something or just delete the prev question so that first person isn’t left hanging or thinking I need them to get back to me.

                  I work with people in timezones either side of me so not uncommon to message someone & then realise they’ve probably left for the day.

                3. JM60*

                  @Emmy Noether How many people are you talking about?

                  If you’re talking about more than a few people, then I think it would be more appropriate to pose the question in a group chat, rather than use one-on-one chats to either ping many people with “Hi” messages before asking them the question, or asking the question to many people (with the intent of following up once you no longer need an answer).

                4. Emmy Noether*

                  @JM60, yeah, I think the group chat is the way to go (sometimes though, group chat has the problem that nobody feels responsible for answering).

                  I can see wanting to ask Ann as first choice, sending her “Hi”, getting nothing back for 20 minutes, texting fallback Bea “Hi”, and then working with whomever responds first.

                5. Allonge*

                  @Emmy Noether

                  I can see wanting to ask Ann as first choice, sending her “Hi”, getting nothing back for 20 minutes, texting fallback Bea “Hi”, and then working with whomever responds first.

                  I really don’t get how someone has time to hi someone and wait some time and hi someone else and wait again, but not write up the question in the meanwhile. I assume they will be doing something else in the meanwhile but still.

                  In this setup, a fairly long time can pass by without achieving anything at all. If it’s not that urgent, why not send an email or message with the actual task to all possible recipients and ask who can respond or propose an order; if it is urgent, just call (or message) until someone picks up, but explain what is needed.

                  It feels like if there is nobody responding, the task itself ceases to matter. I am sure that happens sometimes, like it’s a low-key issue and the asker says eh, does not matter. And if it’s not like this, but there are multiple people who can respond – that may call for a ticketing system.

            2. Seeking Second Childhood*

              if you’re asking 3 people please put them all un one chat and ask specifically who has time for a quick separate chat.

              1. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

                This! I have a small team I lead and we have group teams chats. That way, I can see what has been asked of my team, and I can know if I need to pick it up or if someone else does.

                Alternatively if people don’t want to use group chats, then you can always put ‘hey Brenda, can you review my llama grooming slides today? If I don’t hear back from you in two hours, I will ask Ben.’ That way if for some reason they can’t do it, or can’t get back to you, they will know you have moved on to another person and not expend the effort.

              2. AngryOctopus*

                Yes! “Hey all, I need to go over the X presentation with outside eyes before 3. Is anyone free at 11?”. Then they can respond or not as appropriate.

          2. Allonge*

            This if course totally depends on the workplace setup but for me, for 99% of the questions I am getting, there is nobody else to ask.

            Sure, if I am on leave or whatever, there is a backup, but that person will not be taking my questions when I am here. So I appreciate some context to hi.

          3. Allonge*

            Another thing I don’t get here is – ok, if there are five Teapot Analysts and you would be ok from an answer from any of them – that does not mean that adding a ‘I need someone to add XYZ to Big Tea Report’ is superfluous. At some point you will need to disclose what you need; just because someone says Hi back does not mean they have time to do the job.

            And even if you have concerns about them sharing a screen, you can share a lighter on details version that still covers the basics (are you available – job deadline 4pm).

        2. Helmac*

          If they weren’t avail for a quick question in real time, I would probably send an email. for me, Slack is for real time communication, so even though I don’t do “hi,” I don’t care if people do it to me. I’d much rather have that asynchronous request in my inbox (ie to-do list) than Slack, where it will get buried quickly.

      7. Emmy Noether*

        Yeah, I don’t do it myself because I find it slightly more efficient to put my question/topic immediately, but I’m not mad at others for doing it.

        The “are you free to chat?” is implied, and I don’t see what spelling it out changes.

        In my company culture, you either get “Hi, do you have 5 minutes?”, which means “call me when you have the time”. Or you get “Hi, [question]” if it’s a simple one-liner, or you get just “Hi” if the person wants to chat back-and-forth. What I like the least are actually the people who will just video call without warning for something that could have been a one-liner question.

        1. allathian*

          I agree that the cold video call is the option I want to avoid at any cost because it’s so disruptive. A “Hi, do you have 5 minutes to jump on a video call with me about X?” is far preferable, and about 75% of the time I’m going to reply, “Sure, when? Now’s good for me.” Most of the rest of the time I’m going to ask them to schedule a short call with me or call them myself within a specified time, usually not longer than an hour or so.

          That said, I’m in Finland and we’re pretty direct communicators in general. We’re also notorious for not seeing much value in social lubrication type small talk. This is slowly changing, and when I was in business school I had lessons in small talk in foreign languages/international business courses, but it wasn’t considered a necessary skill for doing business here. One of my friends’ kids is a student at the business school I and the friend got our degrees from, and he tells me that things have changed since the mid-90s and business small talk is taught on intro courses now.

          Given that my organizational culture in general asks people not to let the greeting just sit there, but state what you want, like “Hi, do you have a few minutes to talk about X?” is the expectation, someone saying just “Hi” with nothing else is running a serious risk of getting a reply that can be either interpreted as “How can I help you?” if you’re feeling charitable and “What do you want from me?” if you aren’t. And for unreasonable requests, the latter interpretation isn’t considered completely unreasonable here.

          There’s also an unambiguous and genuine way to say “How can I help you?” and that’s my standard reply unless the person’s notorious for making unreasonable requests and not just annoying me with their “Hi” messages. I *will* roll my eyes (at least mentally) every time I get the “Hi,” though.

          2. Rogue Slime Mold*

            In the sciences, I’d mark the early aughts for the spread of “So it turns out at some point in their careers our graduates will need to discuss their research with people not in the immediate research group, and we need to help people learn to do that.”

        2. misspiggy*

          I’ve never got the meaning that “Hi” on its own means “are you free to chat”. I work with people of quite varied backgrounds, and in practice I’ve found “Hi” can mean “I’m greeting you out of a desire to be respectful and stay in touch, but ai don’t have anything to share”; “I have important information to tell you but it’s not time sensitive”; “I need to chase information from you and it is time sensitive”; or “I want to ask you something right now”. Those require very different responses, and I sincerely wish people would be clear what they want from me at the beginning of the conversation.

          1. londonedit*

            Yeah, I am glad that the whole ‘Hi’ thing isn’t a thing where I work. Of course, you don’t just launch into a request because that would be rude, but you simply say ‘Hello! Would you mind sending me the latest cover copy for Llamas of the World?’ or ‘Morning, hope you’re well! Just wondered whether you’re free to join the Production meeting at 3 today – we need some input on the upcoming Alpaca series’ or whatever. Still a short message, but to the point immediately and no one has to hang around waiting for a response to a random ‘Hi’ before they actually get to have the conversation they need to have.

            I think it is cultural, though, from a country but also from an industry point of view. I know I’ve seen people here saying they view it as rude to just ‘leap in’ with a question before establishing whether the person is free to chat. But in my view Teams is like email, rather than like a phone call – you send your message and the recipient responds when they see it.

            1. Alexander Graham Yell*

              Yeah, my company’s culture is very much that we start with “Hey! How are you?” or “Good morning” or something and pause. If you’re around, you respond, and if you don’t get an answer in about a minute then you add in your question. Because culturally there is a lot of emphasis on greeting somebody properly and doing the niceties before launching into whatever you want to ask, it’s a way of respecting it but also the short time limit means you’re not left wondering for ages about what’s going on.

          2. Emmy Noether*

            It does seem to be highly (company) culture dependent. All your examples would drive me slightly bananas too. I’ve luckily never encountered them at work.

            Greeting someone randomly over teams without wanting to initiate a conversation is particularly bonkers.

            Anyone who texts me “Hi” will get “Hi!How can I help you?” as a response at a point in time convenient to me. If that’s not what they’re looking for, that’s their problem, and it will hopefully teach them to communicate better.

            1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

              Would you have that same attitude on your first day at a new company though? It just sounds weirdly hostile

              1. ecnaseener*

                “Hi!How can I help you?” sounds hostile? Or waiting to respond until it’s a convenient time sounds hostile?

                1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

                  That, and the tone of “If that’s not what they’re looking for, that’s their problem”

                  Like people are just trying to get through the day, back off a little :)

                2. Emmy Noether*

                  @Don’t You Call Me Lady

                  I think you misread my tone. Imagine me saying it with a shrug, not a frown.

                  I’m not a mindreader, and if someone doesn’t ask me for what they actually want and therefore doesn’t get it, that just factually is their problem. I’m not going to wring my hands about or try to guess at what they might have wanted.

                3. ecnaseener*

                  Ah, I see — I don’t agree that having the private thought “If that’s not what they’re looking for, that’s their problem” is hostile. Hostility is external. Being privately frustrated but outwardly polite is not hostile.

                4. Don't You Call Me Lady*

                  @Emmy – misreading tone online? Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything :)

              2. Emmy Noether*

                I mean, yeah, probably? At least at this point in my career.

                “Teach them to communicate better” is admittedly a bit flippant and may therefore read here as hostile, but it’s internal. Responding “Hi! How can I help” seems perfectly professional and friendly to me, and waiting until I have time seems within general workplace/industry norms. If this new workplace is one that expects me to jump to it immediately no matter what I’m doing, then I guess I’ll be the one to learn that at that point.

                1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

                  It was more this sentence : “If that’s not what they’re looking for, that’s their problem”

                  Maybe I read that harsher than it’s meant but it just doesn’t seem like a great outlook, especially your FIRST DAY at a new workplace

            2. Observer*

              Anyone who texts me “Hi” will get “Hi!How can I help you?” as a response at a point in time convenient to me.

              Sounds reasonable enough, especially if you are already a known quantity and you’re within the cultural norms of your company.

              But on your first day? And not responding at all, to stand on principle? That’s a bit of a different fish.

          3. Rogue Slime Mold*

            I’m now picturing people fervently visualizing as they type “Hi,” trying to get those two letters to clearly convey each of your meanings.

      8. TechWorker*

        In that case if you follow up later by either just deleting the message or saying ‘no worries found the info I was looking for elsewhere!’ you’ll reduce some annoyance.

      9. Jaydee*

        This is not hard to change. Just add a couple of words – “Hi, do you have a minute to talk?” gets right to the point.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          I always interpreted the “do you have a minute to chat?” as implicit and do not see what spelling it out changes.

          1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            But that’s not always what a “Hi” means, in my experience! It could mean they have a simple, factual question like “Have you had a chance to review the presentation for tomorrow’s meeting?”

            1. Emmy Noether*

              Maybe “can you respond right now?” would be more accurate.

              Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for putting the simple question in the first message. It is better and more efficient communication.

              I just don’t think the difference is that big, and I also think the inconvenience will be mostly for the message sender (they’ll maybe have to wait longer for an answer if they don’t want to do asynchronous communication).

              1. Beehoppy*

                But I don’t know if I can respond right now until I know what the question is. Is it a quick answer I know off the top of my head? Is it a sensitive topic I need to collect my thoughts on? Is it something I’ll need to research a little to be prepared for? Give me some context.

                1. TechWorker*

                  Is it something where you’re about to start typing multiple long messages, because your assumption is me responding to ‘hi’ means ‘I have time right now to talk to solely you’ when actually those long messages should go in an email to an alias rather than direct to me? Yes, this happens ALL the time to me & there is a high correlation between ‘people who start conversations by just saying ‘hi’’ and ‘people who should really be sending an email’.

      10. GammaGirl1908*

        Ya, enraging is too strong a phrase, but PLEASE tell me what you want up front.

        “Hi” tells me nothing. It could mean 50 things, each of which requires different levels of my attention. It could be anything from “just saying hi! don’t need a response,” to “hi! the building is on fire! they’re having us evacuate!”

        “Hi! Do you have a moment to talk about the Peterson meeting tomorrow?” lets me know what to bring to the conversation, what to prepare, how long this will take, whether I’m the right person for this, whether this can wait a moment, et cetera. PLEASE get in the habit of adding a few more words after the hi.

        I say this with a lot of love! I understand that many people feel that greeting people is polite — which it is — and have carried that over into electronic communication. Many of them also feel that it is polite to greet people before launching into office drama, which I understand. I appreciate a Hi at the start of the conversation … but also know that just saying Hi with no other context does not point me in a useful direction, which ALSO is polite to do.

        1. Saturday*

          Yes, please give me some idea of what you need. Because sometimes someone thinks something is a “quick question,” and it’s really not, but other times, it really is something simple. So knowing what it is will help me figure out if I want to deal with it now or review my notes first or schedule a meeting or whatever.

        2. I Have RBF*

          This.

          I will say “Hi $Name. Do you have anything for the Teapot Production meeting today? I need to add it to the agenda by 11 am.” It has the greeting, the ask, and the time frame needed. If they are available, they respond immediately, if not, they know my deadline.

          A simple “Hi” doesn’t communicate anything other than a desire for attention. It doesn’t say how long, or how complex, a thing that you need.

      11. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Then please just ask. Say something like “Hi, are you free to talk?” Or “Hi, do you know where the XYZ report is?” That way they can answer your question the next time they’re on Slack, rather than

        “Hi!”…
        “Hi!”…
        “Are you free to talk?”…
        “No but I have time at 2:30”

      12. Tea Monk*

        It’s one of those social niceties that is better for face to face communication. I do write fluff in email because email is more formal but for teams I just ask the question

      13. Don't You Call Me Lady*

        For what it’s worth, I couldn’t care less when people do this and I’m shocked so many people are so bothered by it

        1. Fierce Jindo*

          Do you have a job where interruptions are no big deal? I have a job that has a lot of mismatch between need for intense focus and need to manage tasks—all of us are struggling with managing the conflicting needs between these kinds of work at all times—and I would be extremely annoyed if people were just messaging me “hi” but expected I’d respond. I’m guessing the different norms here do partly reflect different kinds of work.

          1. Great Frogs of Literature*

            It also depends on HOW MANY people do this to you. If you’ve got one or two coworkers who do this occasionally, no big deal. But my wife, at a guess, has a couple dozen people who do this to her, some infrequently and some regularly. It adds up.

            Imagine having this interaction with random coworkers five times a day, each spread out over several hours:
            “Hi”
            “Hi. Do you need something?”
            “Can you review my PR?” [that I already asked for your review on in the PR system, so it’s in your queue]
            “If it’s in my queue I’ll get to it when I get there.”

            But sometimes it’s:
            “Hi”
            “Hi. Do you need something?”
            “The LLama Distribution Network is down — are you available to join the incident call?”

            And things of varying urgency in between.

            1. CM*

              This exactly! I am constantly interrupted throughout the day with “quick questions” that are actually quick questions, “quick questions” that would involve hours of research and consulting with various other people, requests to expedite someone’s work, and sometimes genuine emergencies that need to be dealt with immediately. If you message “hi,” while I won’t become enraged, I also won’t respond. There are already forty people ahead of you on my queue. If you have a request, tell me what it is and then I can triage it accordingly.

      14. YetAnotherAnalyst*

        I think it depends on whether you think Teams is synchronous or asynchronous communication. If it’s synchronous, you’re saying “Hi” like you would on the phone – it means “I’m here, are you there?”, and you’ll start the conversation once you get a reply. If it’s asynchronous – which is the way I use it – you’re leaving a message. For folks who think of it that way, “Hi” is really frustrating, because there’s no indication of what’s needed or how urgent it is, and in the asynchronous understanding it might be another hour or so (reply “Hey, what can I do for you?”, go to next meeting) until that gets explained.

        1. Don’t know what to call myself*

          I think this is a good analogy to use. If I’m not in an active back and forth with someone on Teams, I tend to approach it the same way I would if I was leaving a voicemail. So you do the social niceties, but you also give them some brief context about what you need from them. Like “Good morning, I hope your week is going well! If you’ve got some time free today, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about the X project. Is there a time that will work for you?”

          They might see it two seconds after I hit send, or they might see it in an hour or two, but either way, they know what I need and how to respond to me.

        2. Helmac*

          I think you’ve put your finger on the mis alignment that seems to lead to so much misplaced anger. It hadn’t occurred to me that in so many workplaces people use IM/Slack/Teams messaging as asynchronous communication technology. If so, the “hi” is just clutter in the stream. Frankly, that seems like a horrific and misplaced way to use IM technology–does that mean you functionally have TWO email inboxes waiting for your attention/replies at all times?? Truly, kill me now. No wonder people are so angry, but they’re mad at the wrong thing.

      15. BigBaDaBoom*

        I admit I’m definitely one of those who gets pretty annoyed at this, and it happens a lot at my company. I just get a “hi” and I don’t know if they’re waiting for a hi back or they’re about to continue and ask what they need to ask but either way my flow is interrupted and I’d so much rather they just GET TO THE POINT. If my status is green I’m there, and I’m available, no checking needed. Just ask the question!

        When I randomly need to reach out and ask someone something I usually message kinda like “hey sorry to bother you but when you get a minute can you give me info on how to do X?” Like I want to make sure if I’m breaking their flow they know what I need, but also know they don’t have to drop everything to answer immediately. (Unless it’s urgent and I’d say so up front)

      16. MCMonkeybean*

        For many people, whether they are free to talk depends highly on what you want to talk about. If you don’t say what you want, then I don’t know whether or not it’s a higher priority then what I’m currently working on.

        Personally I ignore any message that just says “hi” unless it’s from my manager.

        1. Kay*

          Very much this! I also find that the people who tend to use “Hi” are also the people I very much need to screen for what may come next, as the liklihood that I don’t want/don’t have time for the next part is much higher than anyone who starts with context upfront.

      17. huh*

        And it’s apparently YOUR fault instead of them being adults and asking you to change that habit in the future. These people aren’t serious.

        1. Flash*

          ??? Most of the comments here are from people who don’t work together. It may be that “Hi there!” works in a culture where “hi” is normal. I assure you that I use my words to ask my coworkers to not “hi” me.

      18. Dido*

        Why on earth wouldn’t you just use your words and ask them if they’re free to talk? Just because I have 1 millisecond to respond “hi” to your “hi” does NOT mean I’m free to talk.

      19. OlympiasEpiriot*

        Yeah, no. Don’t just send “hi”.

        This is AT WORK. I am there to work and by sending “hi” — which as we can see from the array of responses in this comment section — you are putting more work on me to figure out (1) the urgency and (2) the why or what.

        Just write a complete sentence.

    2. Lizard the Second*

      See, for me, whether I’m free to talk depends on what you’re asking me about! Whether I have 2 minutes or 15 minutes available, and how urgent your query is compared to other queries I’ve received or other tasks I’m working on.

      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        “Hi, are you free … to resend your email which omitted the attachment?”

        “Hi, are you free … to present Q1 numbers to the board?”

    3. Numbat*

      There’s also that thing where the first Teams message will pop up in your screen but not the subsequent ones (or maybe it’s an old setting?) so some people got used to sending the first hi in case you were presenting in a meeting. So the “hi” popping up is innocuous, and anything after is invisible.

      1. CityMouse*

        I have this feature turned off on my computer but I have seen message info pop up when people are sharing their screens during meetings.

        However, that’s a setting that you can change pretty easily. It’s a much better and more realistic idea to change software settings that to expect coworkers in a new workplace to change their messaging behaviors for you.

      2. Your former password resetter*

        Most importantly, they still open with the actual question so people actually know what to do with their message.

      3. MCMonkeybean*

        Ok but those of us who complain about people just sending a “hi” with no further context don’t mean that everything has to literally be in one single message. If someone immediately follows it with more information that’s obviously the same thing we’re asking for.

    4. JM60*

      people who do this at my company are simply checking if you are free

      The thing is, you don’t need to know if the person is free when you send the message in order to tell them what you’re contacting them about.

      I think these people are using chat like a phone call, whereas it’s closer to a fast form of email. With a phone call, it’s important to know if the person on the other side can hear you right now because otherwise what you say will be lost (unless you’re talking to voicemail). Chat, like email, is an asynchronous medium in which they’ll still know what you said even if they don’t see you write it in real-time.

      I think that starting a Teams chat with just “Hi” is like sending an email with just “Hi” and no subject line.

      1. Jackalope*

        Someone mentioned above that this is one of the big discrepancies in the discussion. My
        Employer uses it more like a phone call, where a response is expected pretty much right away. If it’s a less urgent thing we’re more likely to use email.

        1. JM60*

          Even if a response is expected within a minute, it’s still an asynchronous form of communication (albeit, an asynchronous form of communication that can be fast). Unless you delete or edit it, your “Hi” will still linger there for the person to respond, whenever that is.

          Even if everyone always sees and acknowledges the message within seconds (they’re never in the kitchen or bathroom), and they always drop whatever else they’re doing to attend to this conversation, regardless of what it ends up being about, I still find no purpose in simply dropping a lone “Hi” messages. It would be a bit faster to include what it’s about or your question right in that same message.

    5. Michigander*

      Yeah, some variation of, “Hi, what’s up?” makes it pretty clear that you’re ready to find out what they need. I get why it feels pointless when people just say hi on Teams, and I don’t do it myself, but I also don’t understand why some people seem to have such strong negative reactions to it. Especially in this situation where you actually know what information you need from the other person. You don’t have to wait for her to volunteer it, just ask!

      1. MCMonkeybean*

        That doesn’t remotely make it clear you’re rest to figure out what they need, because no one can know if they’re ready to figure out what you need if they don’t know what you need. It only makes it clear that they are physically at their computer (or phone)

    6. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, I think it’s cultural because people in our subsidiaries, in other countries, espcially in India, always typed “Hi” as a polite way of asking if I had time to answer a question or discuss an issue, maybe the text equiv of “ringing”. They’d only get into more detail if I replied.
      Those at the same site as me tended to phone questions or ask to come by.
      EMail was for longer answers not needing back-and-forth discussion.

      As I was the global SME for a niche engineering subset, I was expected to answer questions from around the world as soon as possible, alongside my own projects, as otherwise their work would likely be delayed.
      My flkexibility was essential and I’m good at switching from quick answers to returning to deep analysis of my own projects, but that job wouldn’t have suited a lot of folk, going by comments here.

      As a new bod, I recommend the OP be flexible, at least during her probationary / learning period. She doesn’t want the rep of being awkward or not fitting in, right from the start, or this could be a short job.

    7. Fives*

      There are already a lot of comments about this. I don’t particularly need to know how much time I’ll need to answer a question, but I find it highly annoying. We use Jabber at work, not Teams. Sometimes someone will just Jab “hi” at me. If I wait a minute to see if they type something else and they don’t, then I’ll start to type a response. Almost every time as soon as I start typing, I see that they start typing. Just say hi and then what you need!

    8. Pizza Rat*

      This is how I operate too. If someone just says, “Hi Pizza Rat,” I say something like, “Hi, what’s up?” to let them know I’m paying attention. While chats may be asynchronous, most people I know will want a quicker response from one than if they sent an email.

      I understand people find it annoying. Personally, I don’t. Like many others in the comment, wouldn’t choose this as a hill to die on.

    9. TGIF*

      When I am checking if someone is free I say HI, can you help me with something really quick? I don’t just say hi and then sit there like a lump.

  7. Teams for teams*

    Sure it’s annoying when someone sends a low content message, but LW1’s reaction seems wildly out of proportion for a single message. Maybe they should practice logging into and using Teams if they’re that uncomfortable with it

    I kind of wonder if they would have the same passive aggressive overreaction (going to the effort of logging in but then refusing to respond anyway?!?) with a male colleague. The “I must control my peers/how dare someone waste my valuable time with friendliness” vibe just reminds me so much of my most unpleasantly sexist co-workers

    1. Mutually Supportive*

      I think the vast majority of Teams users have the programme open all of the time, so reading a short message doesn’t require putting in a complex password. I think the OP may also need to get used to a different organisational style to how they’ve been used to working and just log in to Teams when they start each day.

      1. Password*

        I assume OP changed their initial windows password, which requires you to update the password in teams (because this still operating with the initial password). The letter is very dramatic about a simple thing: logging into a software for the first time on your first day and to receive a greeting.

        1. WellRed*

          The “long password” and the “I literally don’t have time for this!” Is all a little dramatic. If OP truly doesn’t want to get off on the wrong foot, I hope they rein it in a bit. We’re all busy . Teams is a fact of office life.

          1. 2 Cents*

            I despise Teams as much as the next person, but that’s because of *Microsoft* not my fellow coworkers who are also forced to use it.

            OP, it’s your first day/week. Give yourself and your new coworkers some grace and patience. Take a few deep breaths. You’re wildly overreacting to a nonissue.

      3. Always Tired*

        Right? I hate the desktop app because of how much of a memory suck it is, so when my computer boots up, it’s set to automatically launch my browser, and that launches with tabs open to outlook, calendar, and teams. It’s so normal to have a chat app at work these days, it feels wild to be offended by it’s normal usage.

    2. DeliCat*

      There’s nothing in that letter that points to sexism or even the gender of the LW.

      Regardless, these types of non info messages are annoying to many people, myself included. It’s unlikely I’d keep responding to them in the long term but I absolutely would if the person was new and not necessarily aware of the company culture yet.

    3. Myrin*

      I’m weirdly repeating myself from only last week but I feel like it’s going extremely overboard to suggest sexism when literally nothing in the letter points to that and the only thing that happens is that an OP interacts with a woman.

      1. Account*

        Yeah. I mean, I’m a woman and I understand that sexism exists. But I don’t think that literally every annoying or bad things that I experience is a result of it.

      1. Margot Moo*

        LW1 here. I am also a woman! It’s nothing to do with gender. It’s not inherently an issue if one person does it once, but we all communicate primarily with Teams, and notifications pop up contstantly, interrupting what you’re doing. Unfortunately you have to put in the password to read the actual full message, so it’s useful if the pop-up gives you an indication of how/ when to prioritise it. If you have a colleague requiring the back and forth dance it really impedes flow! However, I concede that my strong reaction is a combination of nerves (new job) and past knowledge of how disruptive one person can be if they use that communication style. However, people are right that it’s too soon for me to be worrying about this!

        1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

          LW, right or wrong, if you make this a thing this early on, it will become the first thing they know about you. And there are a lot of possible good first impressions you can make, but being the “hello what do you want I’m busy” person, however fair, isn’t one of them.

          So yeah, tuck this in your back pocket for when you’re well out of the “first impressions” category—a couple months—and then you can probably bring it up.

        2. TechWorker*

          More than one colleague I work with has ‘nohello.net’ as their status message in chat. Whether you can get away with that might depend on your office culture but it’s more efficient than just stewing over it…

          1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

            Do not do this at a new job. Even if experienced people can get away with it. It is an extremely bad first impression.

            1. CityMouse*

              I would 100% get in trouble if I did this. But I’m supposed to use Teams to interact with my trainees and with people in other departments who don’t know me at all (IT uses Teams a lot, for instance).

            2. TechWorker*

              lol, I did say it depends on culture! I think if it’s the only thing you do & you otherwise *do* respond to people who just say hi, it’s really not that rude.

              I also don’t associate it with not being approachable! You’re not asking people not to contact you, you’re asking them to ask their questions. (It would be SUPER weird to send someone an email saying ‘hi’ and then wait for a response.. when chat is asynchronous, as it often is for ppl in meetings or different timezones.. it shouldn’t be treated that differently)

              1. NewNameTime*

                I get it, but in my world the way to be seen as approachable is to meet other people where they’re at. Asking people to change the way they naturally communicate can create a lot of potential social friction. It’s just easier and nicer for me to adjust to however they want to frame their questions.

              2. Irish Teacher.*

                I think the reason it comes across as not being approachable is that…it sounds a little like you are telling them off or being…well, particular about how you want them to speak to you. Especially when the LW is the new person, it could be a bit off-putting to some people.

                It comes across less as asking (as a favour) and more as telling them what to do. In a lot of companies, a new person telling others what to do (if that person is not senior to them, which I don’t know whether the LW is or not) would come across badly. And it could make them seem unapproachable, not because they are saying “don’t approach me” but because people might think if they are going to be particular about that, what else will they be particular about?

        3. Emmy Noether*

          You probably already checked, but can you change that inane password requirement and/or mute messages when you’re busy?

        4. cornelia street*

          If you make an issue of anything, make it about the fact that you have to put in a password to view every Teams message. That sounds exhausting! My company uses Teams chats as one of our main communication channels and I can’t imagine how anyone would be productive with an IT policy like that.

          1. I Have RBF*

            Seriously. I use Teams. I am always logged in to it. I don’t have to enter a password to see messages. That set up sounds insane making.

          1. Leenie*

            Yeah, I would talk to IT if you don’t have admin power to change your own settings. You really only should need to login once o twice a day. It shouldn’t be a message by message ordeal.

          2. Observer*

            t sounds like you need to change your Teams settings, to be honest.

            Yeah. If you really have to put in the password to see each individual message, something is wrong. That should definitely be changed. If you cannot do this yourself talk to IT.

        6. londonedit*

          I have to say I don’t really understand this password issue…we use Teams where I work and the expectation is that you’ll be signed in and available during your working hours. My computer opens Teams automatically when I start up in the morning, and that’s it. I don’t have to put my password in every morning – Teams is just open and ready to go, I’m signed in, I can see everything people are sending me. We do use Microsoft Authenticator and occasionally it will pop up and say I have to authenticate myself using the app, but that’s not all the time and it’s easy enough to do. Can you change your Teams settings so that it signs in and opens automatically when you start up your computer?

          Honestly, if Teams is the way people communicate in your new job then you’re going to need to be available on Teams. Yes it’s annoying when people just say ‘Hi’ and nothing else, but the thing to do in that situation is just to reply with ‘Hi, how are you? What can I help with?’

          1. allathian*

            On Windows 10 my Teams used to pop up automatically. On Windows 11, it still starts up automatically, but I have to find it in the system tray to see it.

            In my own org, I don’t have to put in any passwords in Teams all the time, only the first time I ever started Teams on my work computer and every time I change my Windows password. I’m an external member on another agency’s particular Teams team, and I have to log in there with MS Authenticator every week or so.

            Sounds like you need to contact IT to get your settings sorted out, I can’t imagine that all your coworkers would be so short in their greetings if they had to type the password every time they want to read a message! But when you first start a new job, there’s nearly always something IT related that goes awry.

        7. Michigander*

          That’s a frustrating requirement! Is it a company-specific setting for security? My Teams is basically never not logged on. I don’t think I’ve had to put the password in since I got a new laptop a few months ago.

          1. Tg33*

            Yes, the settings seem to be a problem. logging onto your laptop in the morning logs you onto teams as well, so you only have to maximize the app to read messages. Teams and email are set to open on startup, so they are always available.

          2. Norm Peterson*

            Yep, I cannot imagine they actually want you to re enter your password in Teams for every instant message … I have teams pn one monitor and my actual work on the other)s), so it’s always open.

        8. AnotherOne*

          LW1, this sounds either like a security measure your office has taken or (alternatively) something you can change.

          because you shouldn’t need to constantly sign into teams to read your messages.

          but if you are logged into teams (whether on your computer or a phone), you should be able to just see the messages when you open the program.

          note: i’m not an IT person by any stretch of the imagination.

        9. Don't You Call Me Lady*

          “However, people are right that it’s too soon for me to be worrying about this!”

          This is my main takeaway – this was your first day on the job! You’ll probably uncover way more toxic things than this :)

    5. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

      I actually thought OP was a woman because I as a woman when I get the chats that just say ‘hi’ I look at my computer and say out loud ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT!?!?’. But as I said above to someone else, I do work at a level of simmering stress/burnout so I personally just need people to be direct because I have like 8 million other tasks to do, and I don’t really want to have to go out of my way to get more work from someone else.

      1. Allonge*

        The workload is definitely part of how annoying this is. I imagine if someone works at a 70% busy level, than there is time and energy to greet every ‘hi’ with an attitude of ‘cool, something new, let’s find out what it is’.

        When I am working 10-hour days, I like it when I don’t need to be proactive about finding out what else I can be doing. Because, let’s not kid ourselves – mostly people want me to do something, that is why they contact me.

    6. AngryOctopus*

      I think it’s especially out of proportion because they just started this job. Is entering a huge password annoying? For sure, but that’s why you should probably be keeping Teams open, especially if people at this job use it. Once you figure out the rhythms of the office, you can say things like “hey when you message me can you please let me know what you need right away, so that I can figure out if/when I have time to help? That really helps my workflow”. On day one, responding to a “hi” is not particularly onerous, and LW needs to tone it down.

    7. Judge Judy and Executioner*

      I wonder how LW1 would have felt if they had received a message like mine. I had been at a new company for a couple of months and was assigned a project with a new person I had never met or talked to. They sent me a message that said “talk” and nothing else. I responded, “Hi NAME, what’s up?” and then they called me.

    8. iglwif*

      I agree LW1’s reaction is wildly out of proportion to the “offence” — which is inefficient, sure, but also could just be someone trying to be friendly to a new coworker??

      The password, etc., is almost certainly just new employee setup stuff. In an SSO environment, whenever you change your password you’re going to have to re-log into a bunch of things, but that’s not going to happen every day.

      I don’t think we have enough information to conclude that there’s sexism happening here…

    10. Kay*

      Funny. The males I know are the worst offenders, actually come to think of it, the only offenders. They very much grate the nerves. While I like these males I also wish they would just get to the point so I know if actually need to address whatever will come next immediately, or if I need to stay focused on the task at hand.

      Since it is such a gamble on what will come next, these “Hi” offenders usually get consistently slower responses from me to avoid possible distractions. If they would just ask for what they need up front it would be so much easier for all involved.

  8. musical chairs*

    LW 4, I’ve never heard of someone putting themselves on a PIP. Why did your manager go along with it? Were they gonna do it anyway? This is a little bizarre and self-flagellating and would not come across well, even with a healthy dose of benefit of the doubt.

    You say you wanna leave this company to move up elsewhere, less than a year later. You likely used up all of your professional capital where you’re at now–both with the prior poor performance and in asking for something so out of the norm–that passing the PIP alone likely isn’t putting you in the position to be considered for more leadership opportunities.

    You did what you had to do to get anxiety of losing your job to feel more real so it could motivate you. I get the thought process, but I would keep this to myself, as it’s really extreme and won’t be understood the way you intended it for yourself. At your next job, you should really focus on building that capital back up with new people and sowing seeds for a better reputation, not shooting yourself in the foot before you even start.

    Congrats on your sobriety, I hope it’s the beginning of a lot of healthy change and, at least at work, leads to momentum through the development of better instincts and job performance.

    1. MK*

      I think you are refining too much on the language here. OP simply jeans they were the ones to propose the PIP because they realized there was a problem to be solved.

      1. musical chairs*

        I understand the LW. The difference between deciding to turn things around independently and being on a PIP is the time-limited threat of termination. What is odd/doesn’t read well is needing to ask others to credibly threaten termination to provide that motivation.

        (Many companies, mine included, have an option for employees to develop independent plans outside of normal yearly objective setting. These plans are employee-led, can include functionally anything, over any horizon they want, but don’t carry the risk of the employee losing their job if the goals aren’t met. They’re expressly not PIPs, and not what the LW is talking about here.)

        1. bamcheeks*

          the difference is … is the time-limited threat of termination

          Not necessarily. It can also be more regular meetings, greater oversight, clearer expectations and more detailed (perhaps written) feedback. A PIP done well isn’t just about the threat of firing.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            Yeah, my assumption was that the LW wanted the clear metrics of what they needed to do to improve and some support with getting there rather than the threat of firing.

            I’m guessing the LW was looking for something more like what musical chairs mentioned in brackets but that her company didn’t offer that so the best she could think of was a PIP.

            Some people need external structure to motivate them or keep them accountable. That doesn’t necessarily mean the threat of firing but just knowing somebody is going to be checking they made the improvement. (I suspect this is one of the reasons people push things like weight loss and steps challenges and so on at work, because THEY want to lose weight or walk more or whatever and knowing they’ll have to give a number to their coworkers is motivating for them. Which…doesn’t in any way justify pressure on others who DON’T want or need to lose weight.) This is not like those as the LW wasn’t pressuring anybody else.

            1. musical chairs*

              I am absolutely an external accountability person, I really get it. But if I wanted external accountability to, in your example, lose weight (I assign no value/ethic to losing or gaining weight, I’m just using the same example) and I hired someone to chase me with a machete every morning to get me to go on a run, and would! not! do! it! unless the Machete Man was at my doorstep, that would be…effective, but not something to bring up in a job interview. It’s not that it’s wrong, everyone gets to their goals in different ways, but such a method requires way more explanation than works well with people I just met and need something from. It wouldn’t get me the results I’m looking for.

              1. bamcheeks*

                OK, if you’re specifically saying, “this is not a good example to use in a generalist interview”, I can agree with that. You just laboured the point rather so it came across as berating LW for finding the process helpful rather than just simply a poor example to use in an interview.

                That said, in jobs where there’s a high emphasis on taking feedback, self-awareness and improvement, I actually think it could be a good example. I think you’d have to know your audience and whether it was the kind of environment where showing vulnerability and growth was going to be a positive, but I don’t think it’s an automatic blanket no.

            2. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

              Yeah but if the OP is trying to move up, at some point this level of need for external accountability is a red flag. I would have few concerns about an entry level person needing something like this, but if they were a senior manager…well, I’m kinda expecting you to have your own accountability things figured out without needing that much oversight at that point.

              So I think a lot of the usefulness of this in interviews/whether it could help or hurt (even if not framed specifically as a PIP) depends on whether the expectations of the role are junior enough that this would be an expected level of support to request from a manager.

              1. bamcheeks*

                I think this is a “know your audience” thing. In most of the organisations I’ve worked in, knowing that someone who was experiencing mental and physical health problems and external stressful events was going to proactively ask for greater support and accountability would be a plus, even if they were senior leaders. The people you’d want to filter out would be the people who either need that level of support all the time or who don’t acknowledge a problem or ask for help until they fall over.

                1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

                  I don’t disagree with that, but I think this is where the “know your audience” comes in. A job interview – definitely not the place to bring up that you were on a PIP, even a self authored one

          2. musical chairs*

            Almost necessarily, actually. PIPs are one of the few business processes in the US that look about the same at every organization that uses them. They have a function that is tied to unemployment and anti-discrimination laws/best practices. Even if you’re one of the few places that uses PIPs without attaching it to termination, nearly everyone else uses it that way, almost certainly including the LW’s next interviewer.

            I’ve put employees on PIPs before, some have kept their jobs, some have not. But the whole point was that certain clear, table stakes metrics needed to be met to sustain employment. Just cause they didn’t get fired doesn’t mean that the spectre of termination wasn’t there.

            1. bamcheeks*

              Right. But you’re kind of berating LW for “needing to ask others to credibly threaten termination to provide that motivation”, as if that’s the only characteristic of a PIP. I’m pointing out that a PIP done well will have several other characteristics that are much more supportive.

              1. musical chairs*

                I hate to quibble semantics this much, but the possibility of getting fired the defining characteristic of a PIP. It’s what the letter writer stated lit a fire for them. The peculiarity of asking for one is part of what makes this letter worth publishing. I don’t think it’s berating the LW to state that. I think they know?

                Of course PIPs don’t have to be a closing chapter and should be about supporting the employee to stay, but you only get to that point if you’re prepared to fire them at the end of it. It’s a tough decision, and if you’ve had to make it, you’ve also had to stare the reality of it pretty squarely in the face.

                1. dude, who moved my cheese?*

                  I have to disagree- I think the question and answer would be fundamentally the same if it were ‘I was struggling and recognized it, my boss decided to put me on a PIP, that gave me the clear structure and self-accountability I needed to turn things around at work- can I cite that in an interview?’ and would still be worth publishing. (Interviews often ask about something you didn’t do well and how you improved so it’s not compeltely beyond the pale to think of this )

                  I understand but don’t agree with your interpretation and analogy. Some PIPs might be like a person chasing you with a machete. It sounds like this – and many others’ experiences with them – are more like having regular check-ins with a nutritionist or fitness coach.

                  I think what people are recognizing as ‘berating’ in your comment is calling the LW things like “bizarre,” “self-flagellating” and “really extreme” and passing along wishes that they develop better instincts at work.

                  LW, from one to another, congrats on your sobriety.

                2. musical chairs*

                  Can’t respond directly to your comment due to nesting, but the question and answer would not be fundamentally the same if the PIP came from their boss alone. The fact that they asked for it is what is very different from how this normally works. They are saying that they needed more accountability (fine, normal), their boss was not providing it, at least not yet or not enough (not uncommon) and they asked for a plan, enforced by their employer, that specifically could potentially result in their termination to turn their performance around (hard left turn, not at all typical to request). That is what makes it seem “a little bizarre and self flagellating…even with a healthy dose of benefit of the doubt”. It doesn’t matter if the PIP process in practice is very affirming, very focused on support, often successful, any of that. Their manager had to be ready to let them go in order for it to work/be a PIP. The LW realizing there was a problem, asking for help and turning things around are all great and stuff the LW can be proud of themselves for, but would not be the immediate take away for a prospective employer hearing *this* story.

                  Generally, employers are looking to hire people that they do not have to convince/significantly push to do fulfill the basic competencies of their role. Even though that’s not the full story here, that is what would come across. The literal question asked is “should I bring up that I asked for them to potentially fire me if I did not drastically change my performance within x number of days in an interview? It is a resounding “don’t do this, not gonna come across the way you want.”

            2. Your former password resetter*

              As I read it, the threat of termination was already there due to poor performance. OP just set up an actual plan with support to get out of that situation.

    2. Double A*

      I think it shows recognizing when you need help, asking for it, and then responding constructively so that you address the issue you needed help with. In which case, I think the LW could possibly use it in an interview in response to a question about a professional challenge or something like that. However, I wouldn’t frame it as a PIP, and I wouldn’t mention the outside work stuff about therapy — but you could talk about how you were struggling, and you asked for increase support and more structured feedback from your supervisor for a specific amount of time and in the end you improved X, Y, and Z.

      2. KateM*

        But it also shows that OP recognized they need help only when they understood their employer was near to firing them. So yeah, PIP is not going to show OP in good light.

    3. ecnaseener*

      I don’t agree with all of your points, but I do agree with the actionable part: Don’t call it a PIP with interviewers, it won’t make you look good. You can still talk about it though, in terms of “my work was slipping due to personal stress, and my old systems weren’t enough anymore, so I sat down with my boss and talked through the issues. Together we came up with a plan for which areas I should prioritize and how.”

      1. Mockingjay*

        I wouldn’t bring it up AT ALL, in any form.

        OP4 should simply discuss their experience and successes in solving business problems, not personal issues that affected their performance. An interviewer will immediately hone in on that aspect of possible weakness, rather than exploring OP4’s qualifications.

        Rather, OP4 take pride in your personal triumph and use that internally to boost your confidence that you can tackle a new job and more responsibilities.

    4. Sandwich*

      On a personal level, it’s great the OP recognized they needed to improve and did it. On a professional level, I think you are correct that it is not going to read the way they are hoping.
      OP, congrats on the progress (really, you’ve put in a lot of hard work), but I would not proactively bring this up in an interview. Maybe you could address some of the specific strategies you’ve implemented at work as a response to “what’s your weakness,” but talking about putting yourself on a PIP is much more likely to be perceived as a red flag than a positive.

    5. LaminarFlow*

      I put myself on a PIP at one point in the last 5 years. I was new to an established team who was/is developing a service that I had a very loose understanding of. After onboarding, and feeling totally overwhelmed, I waited for about two weeks to see if I would have a more clear understanding of things, which did not happen. I felt like a PIP would accurately communicate my level of seriousness and attention to the matter.

      I created my PIP outline and deliverables, and pitched it to my manager. She was hesitant at first. But, she agreed to hold me accountable to my PIP. I ended up completing my PIP before the last due date, and I eventually got promoted within the team.

      I had never asked to be put on a PIP in my career before that, and I doubt I will ever do it again. I also don’t recommend it to just any situation. However, I was the newbie to an established team where I was totally out of my depth. My self PIP gave me the opportunity to create a deeper and more trusting relationship with my manager, while also getting up to speed….I fed two birds with one scone.

      I can see how LW’s PIP was very transformative and important to their personal and professional success, which is awesome. But, regardless of why/how/who initiated the PIP, this is not information I would share with any external hiring manager. For an internal role, if I am asked about the PIP (and only if I am asked), I would provide only the professional achievements for the reasons that Alison gave.

      1. Kay*

        The thing is that all of that could have been done without a PIP though, it is called good communication skills and working with your manager to identify how you can succeed in your role, then implementing those measures.

        Most good employers are going to expect their managers to give feedback to their employees, good employees to be able to implement that feedback so they can succeed, and for good employees to seek help when they need something to be able to succeed. A PIP says that those steps happened, but were not successful, and would therefore raise questions about WHY. To me it also shows a lack of understanding of certain norms – I don’t want to hear that an employee has to be threatened with firing in order to be able to improve, that isn’t healthy!

  9. Need to move to cheaper town*

    I like the idea that some where with median house prices of $500,000 is expensive.
    Compared to where I live that is a bargain

    1. Roland*

      The US median house price is 360k. 500 isn’t the most expensive out there but it is definitely above average.

      1. Myrin*

        That doesn’t really account for specific regions, though, because it counts both very expensive and very cheap areas.
        I just looked it up cursorily and the median house price in Germany is apparently something like 550.000€. Where I’m from, though, houses cost about a million, which in my mum’s hometown you could buy three to four houses with – and yet the median of both of those places taken together would be in the 550.000€ area as well.

        1. Happy*

          I mean…yes? That’s the point of a median. It’s in the middle of the distribution.

          1. Myrin*

            Yes, I’m aware. But I feel like that wasn’t really what Need to move‘s comment was saying, since they’re specifically talking about their own, very expensive region.

            1. Happy*

              I felt like Roland’s comment added extra context and was helpful and informative. YMMV.

              1. Duckling*

                LW1:
                I would assume an intro Teams message from a new co-worker was to help me find them in the system, in case of others with the same name etc, and give me an easy route to contact them. Maybe that could have been specified but I don’t see it as justifiably rage-inducing.
                Similarly to others I expect to be logged into Teams during working hours. I use the status info box to inform people if my actual availability differs from the red/ green dot info that pulls through from my calendar (eg ‘I am working on hard copy this afternoon and may not see messages immediately, please call if you need me urgently’).
                Regardless, I don’t think the first week of a new job and on the basis of one vague message is the time to start setting Rules Of How People Will Engage With Me.

            2. LL*

              Need to Move’s comment was unnecessary. I live in a major city in the US where house prices are among the highest in the country, but the absolute highest. If someone from a city with higher prices was like “oh, you think $1 million homes are bad? that would be a great price where I live” I’d be annoyed because I don’t live where they live, so why would I care what they think is expensive or not?

        2. Roland*

          I mean yeah, median is less than 60th percentile which is less than the 95th percentile. I just don’t think that saying “you think THAT’S expensive? That’s a bargain, MY region is expensive” is great especially when OP’s area is quite literally more expensive than average.

          Tbh it’s like when Americans are discussing leave and then the European are like “2 weeks is average? Oh BOY that’s so little over here!” True, yet irrelevant and unhelpful.

      2. Emmy Noether*

        I agree with Myrin that the median over a whole country as large and varied as the US is not a good point of reference, because the variance is SO large.

        People’s frame of reference for what is “expensive” is going to be based on a more local statistic. (Or just on their personal experiences, which could be anything, depending on where they’re from, and their background).

    2. RC*

      *nods/laughs/cries*

      Median house price is over $2mil around here. $500,000 would be a fantastic deal (or a burned out husk, or a former meth house, or the other dramatic listings that end up in the news every so often).

    3. ecnaseener*

      lol same. They got a HOUSE for about $600k?! That might get you a 500-sq-ft apartment here.

      1. iglwif*

        My thought exactly. (Although I’m in Canada, and US$600K is about CAD$850K, which might get you a 700-square-foot apartment in my area if you were lucky.)

    4. Mockingjay*

      It’s all relative. The median where I live is close to that, because there is so little availability. I definitely do not live in a McMansion.

      But I agree with others; housing prices (listing and sold) are widely available on MLS, Zillow, Redfin, online county tax records, etc. It’s not secret info these days. I wouldn’t think anything of it.

  10. Anon12345*

    I used to find ‘hi’ annoying too, until I found out why people were doing it at my company.
    We often screen share presentations (formal and informal) and so having a quick ‘hi’ pop up means it can be ignored if you are in the middle of something and also means that confidential/sensitive information isn’t accidentally shared with a wider audience.

    I watched in horror as one colleague messaged on Teams a jokey but fireable message and it was shared with all of us in real time. And another colleague had ‘bland’ messages pop up to do with dates/times but it was really distracting because it was about 5 messages quickly in a row and threw her off her stride as she had to click a load of times to turn off Teams. Yes, people should switch off teams during presenting, but it can be hard to remember.
    That’s why we’ve been encouraged to ‘hi’ only and wait for a response before putting anything onscreen.

    1. JM60*

      Don’t prettymuch all chat programs have a way to mute pop-up notifications? If so, I think it’s reasonable to expect a recipient to use it.

      Even if you assume that someone won’t use that function, it’s usually pretty easy to give them some indication regarding what you’re contacting them about without causing problems if it’s displayed in front of others during a meeting.

      1. CityMouse*

        Yes my org uses Teams excessively and you can mute particular chats and set up so there aren’t pop up message previews.

        My computer is set up to basically have Teams constantly open all the time and I have multiple chats for specific projects I work on.

        1. MsSolo (UK)*

          That is a setting you can turn on/off, and also people often get confused between screen sharing and extending the monitor when they’re working with an external screen (also the difference between sharing a presentation in Teams and sharing the screen with the presentation on, though that shouldn’t impact DND)

        2. Emmy Noether*

          It does now for us too (which I think is a good idea!), but it wasn’t always that way and may be an optional feature not enabled everywhere even now.

        3. bamcheeks*

          Screen sharing isn’t always obviously to the computer, though– if you’re in a physical meeting room and plugged in to a whiteboard or aprojector, it’ll just treat it as a extended or duplicated screen. If you’re in Powerpoint presentation mode, it knows not to send pop-ups, but if you’re showing everyone a document, spreadsheet, file structure or something else, your computer has no way of knowing it’s public.

          source: me, having cringed as both a presenter and a meeting attendee.

        4. JustaTech*

          Mine doesn’t, and it’s been an issue. I don’t know why sometimes it will acknowledge that I am presenting and mute the chat and other times let everything go through to be seen by everyone.

      3. I Have RBF*

        Seriously. I hate pop-up messages unless it’s a calendar reminder. Anything else just makes me crazy. I try to set all my apps to not do it, but f’ing Teams keeps resetting it to “Of course EVERYBODY wants Teams pop-ups!!1!!!”. Then again, it’s Teams, and MS makes very bad UI choices for people who actually want to get work done.

    2. Magpie*

      On Teams, there’s an indicator that shows the person you’re messaging is currently presenting. If you’re worried about your message popping up for everyone to see, why not look out for that indicator and wait until later to message that person? That’s what I usually do, not so much because I’m worried about my message being shared with everyone, but because I figure if they’re presenting they’re not in a position to respond anyways and I don’t want my message to be missed.

    3. ecnaseener*

      I have had teams messages break through my DND setting when screen sharing on zoom, so I understand the problem. But you can still do “hi, are you free to talk about X?” or if X is sensitive, “hi, are you free to talk?” One message, not five.

    4. BigBaDaBoom*

      Oh that multiple messages in a row thing really bugs me as well (same with texting). Getting repeated notifications when you could have just put it in one message puts me so on edge. Probably triggering that pathological demand avoidance stuff in me.

    5. mlem*

      Why is that preferable to sending something actually meaningful without full detail, like “Hi, are you free to (talk dates / jump on a video call / grab coffee / chat / join this interview / some other *brief* notion of need)”? My answer likely changes depending on what you’re asking me to be free for! But no, I’m not free to stop what I’m working on, poke you to give me more context, then sit waiting for you to type more details while I can’t focus on what you’ve interrupted.

  11. Ellis Bell*

    I’m completely outraged on OP2’s behalf. This really seems like her boss was actively trying to scupper her career. How completely threatened this guy must have been. Would love to know if OP and their spouse continued to work for these two.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, shocking.
      Also, I think in the EU/EEA & UK it would be breach the Data Protection laws – which generally brings hefty fines. Apparently not in the US?

      1. bamcheeks*

        Just posted about this below, and I don’t think it would. When you give someone as a reference, you are giving consent for them to share information about you. There’s nothing on the ACAS website that says salary is specifically exempted from that. It’s bad practice and bad manners, of course, but I don’t think it would be outright illegal.

        2. Emmy Noether*

          I don’t think the LW gave their boss as a reference. It says in the letter:

          Well, somehow GOB1 found out that I had been offered the job by GOB2, and he reached out and told GOB2 my salary!

          Sounds like boss shared the info completely of his own initiative.

          1. Sloanicota*

            This is pretty common, in my experience; a lot of people in leadership are friends/contacts with each other, and they talk. Like anyone else, they often gossip or back-channel information about mutual contacts. It does stink and it was really on OP’s former boss not to share specific salary info.

            1. Emmy Noether*

              I agree it’s common, but would it change the legality of sharing salary info? Since there is no (implicit) consent to the info sharing by the jobseeker? (I have no idea whether it does or not, only a vague feeling that it should).

              1. Sloanicota*

                I’m not a lawyer but I don’t think in the US there’s much legal framework to use here. There’s “tortious interference” but it would require OP to take her ex-boss to court to even test out.

                1. Eldritch Office Worker*

                  Even then I have only experienced that (HR, IANAL) in terms of preventing someone from getting a job, not from sharing information that impacts pay. And salary information is not typically protected, legally. In some states you can’t ask for it as a potential employer, but there’s nothing stopping a current employer from sharing it proactively. And whether or not LW offered the boss as a reference wouldn’t make a difference. Backdoor references aren’t illegal.

          2. bamcheeks*

            That might make a difference, but to be honest I’d be surprised — getting a reference off a current employer is so standard that I don’t think there’d be a massive difference between waiting for the new employer to reach out or the current employer saying, “Oh, are you wanting a reference for LW?” Even if it did, I find it hard to imagine a situation where LW would have enough insight into the exact circumstances of that conversation to be actionable.

            Interestingly, employment law websites in the UK seem to be split on whether you need explicit consent from candidates to take up their references. There are some that say you do, and others that say that consent is only one of six possible legal bases for processing data and references fall under legitimate interest and in certain sectors legal requirement. So I think it’s a long way from it’s an obvious or definite breach of GDPR.

      2. ecnaseener*

        US doesn’t have general data protection laws, although some states might have specific laws protecting salary info.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          Not in terms of offering it, typically, just in terms of seeking it. Typically the states saying you can’t demand salary information from an applicant are the same states seeking pay transparency from employers, so the sharing of information is harder to regulate/isn’t desirable.

      3. Statler von Waldorf*

        This would also be illegal in my province, as this would clearly violate the BC Privacy Act.

        Now the real question. How much justice can you afford? From what I hear, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) that enforces those laws is a bit of a joke, with their love of everybody-meet-in-the-middle mediation even when there is a clear cut violation of the laws and one side is clearly in the wrong. Based on what I’ve heard, I would expect a gentle slap on the wrist and a warning not to do it again.

        Your other option would be a civil trail. Based on the facts provided and my lawman’s understanding of the law, this would probably qualify as tortious interference. That’s a hard claim to prove in court, because it requires proving intent to injure. The other two factors, economic harm and unlawful means, are possibly strong enough for trial, but unless there is evidence that the LW didn’t share, proving intent to injure on the balance of probabilities would be an uphill battle, and an expensive one.

        Let me remind all you Americans that laws are just words on paper. Without a government agency enforcing them, or enough money that you can afford your own justice, they mean absolutely nothing.

        1. Polaris*

          Your last paragraph explains much about the systems in the USA…on a wide ranging scale.

        2. New Jack Karyn*

          You don’t actually have to remind us of that fact. We are well aware, thanks.

        3. I Have RBF*

          Let me remind all you Americans that laws are just words on paper. Without a government agency enforcing them, or enough money that you can afford your own justice, they mean absolutely nothing.

          Believe me, we know. We don’t need a non-USA person to tell us about our own legal system. Really.

    3. Agree*

      I am shocked too, this is awful.
      But I like how the script deflects their behaviour back to them. Normally, you would not tell an employer to their face, during negotiations, that they intend to pay under market value.

    4. el l*

      I have to think GOB1 did this to not just get rid of OP, but destroy their career. It’s a little too active, and when people move jobs there’s generally an expectation there will be some raise as part of it.

      No way you could prepare for something that harmful. Best you could do was state your bottom line $ to take the job, and when they didn’t meet it if at all possible…walk.

    5. DJ Abbott*

      This is typical Good Old Boy behavior.
      Good Old Boys see each other as compadres who share and do everything together, and everyone else as other.
      They also assume each of them is a fine upstanding man who would never do wrong, and are always shocked and hurt when this turns out not to be the case.

      1. Rogue Slime Mold*

        It reads to me very much as the GOBs carefully preserving their position in the ape troupe hierarchy. Which means the people below them can’t move up.

        1. Sloanicota*

          It doesn’t even have to be vindictive, old boss could have considered it a favor that benefited his relationship with new boss that just happened to throw LW under the bus. It could even be thoughtless small talk among buddies. It could also be the desire to ruin OP’s career but that’s a lot to assume based on what we know.

        2. DJ Abbott*

          Yes, IME that’s part of it. If a woman advances around them, it will be because they allowed it. To them, it’s the natural order.

    6. OP#2*

      OP here. I’d never considered vindictiveness as a possibility but now … yeah, that tracks. This guy was all-around terrible, got into a huge conflict with the board less than two years after he was hired, and flamed out dramatically. He was the worst authoritarian sort. And I’ve heard from others since that he truly hates women. So there’s that. (Also, I’m in the US, not the UK.)

      3. Just Thinkin' Here*

        I wonder if you could have pushed back to the Board and threatened contractual interference (sometimes the threat is more than the action). I would have gone over his head and filed a complaint, especially if this was a religious organization that should be supportive of their members. Unfortunately, if the Board hired him, the Board itself may have the same discriminatory tendencies, or at least were ignorant of his when they hired him. At this point, chalk it up to experience, keep looking for a position that does pay better, and know that even if you are asked to leave, you have leverage.

      4. Butterfly Counter*

        This is exactly my experience with the GOB network, especially in regards to their relationship with women.

        An equal partnership between husbands and wives that works tends to gall them. Marriages only work if husbands are doing better than wives! So that meant that not only did you have to lose your job with GOB1, but he’s going to throw a monkey wrench at any opportunity you have to step up in your career. I suspect that he thought he was also “helping” your husband out.

        I remember a coworker, who knew I lived in a particular town, told me I should see Dr. X if I have any health issues because he’s a “Good Ol’ Boy.” NOPE. I already knew of Dr. X and how he treated patients, particularly women. So this just solidified that I’m right to avoid GOB’s anywhere I can.

        1. Bird names*

          Well, the recommendation for Dr. X clearly worked for you, just not in the way your coworker thought it would.

    7. AVP*

      Also just absurd because GOB1 was trying to get rid of her, and this could have stopped her from leaving! Like if anything he’s sabotaging his own work interests here, although maybe it was worth it to impress his old chum or something.

    8. L is Real 2401*

      She works in religious non-profits with “good old boys.” I think there’s a lot of “I never thought face eating leopards would eat MY face!” going on here, though.

  12. DeliCat*

    Anyone else read LW1’s colleague as her literally just introducing herself to a coworker on their first day? Maybe they met earlier but the thought did tickle me.

    For what it’s worth, if it was a call to action I too find these context-less messages a little irritating, but one day 1?! Your boots have been on the ground mere minutes.

    1. Myrin*

      I actually had the “friendly introduction” thought as well. I’d expect more than just a simple “hi” from that – like “Hi, I’m Belladonna, we’ll be working on the waterskiing choreographies together” or, if they’ve met before, “Hi again, looking forward to working together” – so I’d say it’s a bit unlikely but the thought definitely crossed my mind!

    2. CityMouse*

      Yeah I’m quite confused because I feel like LW is overreacting to something that’s extremely normal pretty much everywhere I worked. Especially if you’re new, you’re going to have to adjust to how your workplace uses these functions and be more ready for introductions and repetitive conversations in the first couple weeks.

    3. Agree*

      I am with you. This seemed like a normal getting, hoping OP would respond as soon as they managed to be logged in.

    4. AvonLady Barksdale*

      I have a new colleague. I sent her a Slack message yesterday. “Hi! Welcome to the team! I put some time on your calendar to chat later and introduce myself. Looking forward to working with you.” Because I wanted to welcome her, not just randomly wave to her and walk off (figuratively).

      I really hate “hi” with nothing else. I agree that LW1 should just let this slide for now, because she’s new, but I don’t blame her for being annoyed.

    5. CommanderBanana*

      Seriously. If you want to get a bad rep right out of the gate, one surefire way to do it is to take issue with someone saying hi over Teams!

      1. TechWorker*

        On the other hand, given the number of people who are irritated by it, maybe the ‘hi’ers should also consider that annoying their teammates on the first day wouldn’t be a good look either :p

        1. CommanderBanana*

          Someone on their first day at a new job doesn’t know the company culture and has zero capital. I wouldn’t just message someone ‘hi’ on Teams, personally, but if I did send a first message to a brand-new coworker who then responded with a screed about how much they hated it, there would be…problems.

    7. Just Thinkin' Here*

      I would be excited to see a new colleague reaching out to me on my first day. I also think some folks either say ‘hi’ or just your name testing to see if you are there, rather than writing a paragraph into the ether.

  13. JustAnotherTues*

    for LW#1: When people ping me with “hi” but nothing else, I reply with a link to “No Hello”

    1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      This is funny but a very bad idea at a new job (unless you don’t care what impression you make, in which case, carry on).

    2. Don't You Call Me Lady*

      That seeems ruder than the initial “hi”, but that aside, would you reply that way your first day at a new job though?

    1. CityMouse*

      Yes, I think LW’s sister should be job hunting anyway because 56 hours a week kills work/life balance, but if they’re not paying OT for this that’s an even bigger problem.

      1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        I’m trying to figure out where they got 56. 6 days, 9 hours/day is 54. Are they expecting 3 10-hour and 2 9-hour days during the week, and another 8 hours on Saturday?

        Agree with everyone else, salaried/exempt and it’s coercion and with overtime it’s no work-life balance. With the job market the mess that it is, LW’s sister might have to deal with it in the short run, job hunt in the meantime, and jump ship at the next opportunity.

        1. Jay*

          Nine or ten hour days, plus a lunch break and a couple of shorter fifteen minute breaks, is what I figured.

    3. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

      Oh, I was thinking they were salaried. One of my contracts tried to do something where they wanted us to log 8 hours of unpaid overtime per pay period. We pushed back (thank you to the old timers who really stood on ‘I will quit, I already have retirement from another job, and our contracts say 40hours, so you can’t do this legally’) and the company changed it from mandatory to ‘suggested’. However, we did hear that since we’re a contracting firm, that another group that got joined to support a new contract came in with salaried contracts that stated that they had to work 45 hours per week charging 40 to the salary code and 5 to the unpaid overtime code. It really depends on what is in the contract.

  15. CityMouse*

    Wait, so LW1 actively needed information from a new coworker, had an opening to get it, and didn’t because they didn’t want to reply to “hi”?

    I’m just honestly baffled and my overwhelming thought is, stop sabotaging yourself over something so petty. Are you really going to pick this as your hill to die on? Is this really worth the impression you might make at a bew workplace? Because this really isn’t a good idea.

    1. allathian*

      It’s not as if you generally get anything useful done on your first day anyway! Meeting and making a good impression on your coworkers is usually about the best thing you can do.

    2. Don't You Call Me Lady*

      Totally agree – this is their first day at a new job! This is such a minor thing to care about imo. LW you need to get over this asap

    3. toolegittoresign*

      And the fact that they had to enter their password — your coworker is making sure you’re online! If I have something non-urgent and someone’s status shows that they’re not active, I do tend to send a “hey, are you online today?” to them because, if they’re not, I can go ask someone else or wait until they are online to chat. Keep your status updated and you’ll not have to deal with this as much. At my company, we’re very clear about when we’re heads down on work, in a meeting, etc so there’s less “hi” messages.

    4. Observer*

      stop sabotaging yourself over something so petty. Are you really going to pick this as your hill to die on?

      Exactly. In addition to the harm you are likely to do to your relationship, you are actually causing much more time waste for yourself than if you answered. Because you need specific information and by standing on “principle” you are keeping that information from reaching you. Information about a meeting, no less. I can’t imagine a better way to mess up your schedule.

  16. Leenie*

    When someone sends one of those “Hi” messages, I usually just respond with, “Hi (Name) – What can I do for you?” Moves things along without delay. I figure most people just do that because they feel rude jumping in without engaging first. Not my preference, but they’re trying to be nice. I wouldn’t want to either ignore them or, worse, lecture them about something so trivial when I can simply ask them what’s up and let everyone get on with things.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Yes, much easier just to be flexible and cooperative, especially as a new person

    2. JM60*

      they feel rude jumping in without engaging first

      Ironically, forcing the recipient to engage before revealing what it’s about is why I find it rude (albeit mildly and unintentionally rude). Giving the recipient some information regarding what it’s about before they engage is considerate and polite.

      That being said, I too typically respond with something like, “Hi! What’s up.” when I have some stretch of of time, rather than explain to them why I think they shouldn’t do that.

    3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      That’s what I do too, but I may not see the message immediately, so there is an unnecessary delay, and that’s what I find annoying.

    4. Teacher Lady*

      Yes, this seems like such a small lift. I am deeply task-oriented, but I wouldn’t balk at all at having to move the conversation towards some sort of action with this type of response!

    5. iglwif*

      Yes, this is what I do. Opening with just “hi” isn’t very efficient, and it isn’t what I would do myself (I’m more of a “Hi Leenie! Can I get your opinion on this document please? [link]” person), but it’s just not that big of a deal to me.

      If I don’t see the “hi” right away for some reason, and they don’t follow up, well, the resulting delay is on them, but I don’t need to add a lecture to it.

    6. JustaTech*

      I’ve literally done this today: yes, I am lightly irked that the person who messaged me “hi” didn’t just ask their question at the same time, but it got figured out in the end.
      Maybe if everyone did it, I would be more frustrated (and I was amused that it happened today after reading this letter when it usually only happens about once a month or so).

  17. pumpkinn*

    LW1 – I’m guessing you’ve had some irritating colleagues in the past. For anyone who really doesn’t get this, it often feels like a tactic to force you to engage so you can’t refuse a request.
    My team and I handle a TON of ad-hoc requests and anyone who just messages “hi” (especially as we have a channel they’re meant to post in) gets ignored. You can’t mentally prioritise their task at all.
    When it could be anything from;
    “Hi the pipeline isn’t running and our biggest client is threatening to quit over it”
    To
    “Hi, I’m curious about creating a dashboard how do I do that?”

    But when it can be the first, you reply and get hit with the second. As you’re actively engaging, they expect a response now, no matter what you were doing.
    I do think a lot of people do it to be polite, rather than feel like they’re making demands of you immediately.

    HOWEVER LW1, it’s your first week. Wait until you know your colleagues a bit better before you say anything. But a general “do you mind sending a more complete message initially? I find it really pulls me out of my work when I need to engage fully to find out if it’s urgent. Promise I won’t find it rude!”
    But for now, just reply?

    1. allathian*

      Indeed.

      That said, I’ve fully embraced my middle-aged no more fucks to give superpower. People get to do this to me exactly once now, nobody gets to pull a gotcha on me more than once. The second time that happens, I’ll say something like “I can’t tell you if I can help you unless you tell me what you want from me and when.”

      In my org, very few people start with a “Hi” and nothing else, the nohello philosophy’s strong here. So when it happens, it’s the people who say “Hi, got a minute for a call/chat?” without saying what they need my help with. If they say a job’s going to take five minutes and it takes ten I’m not going to make a fuss, but if they say five and I immediately realize it’s going to take much more than that, I’ll ask them to contact me on our ticketing system in the usual way. I’m not going to give people who attempt to bypass our processes that have been set up for a good reason any preferential treatment if I can help it. Thankfully our management’s fully on board with the processes and they’re generally very diligent about using them as intended.

      That said, it helps that my coworker and I have a reputation of responding to requests in a timely manner and to deliver on time, so thankfully the vast majority just leave us to do our jobs.

    2. Emmy Noether*

      I must say I have zero qualms about responding “I’ll look into it and get back to you” or “Let’s set up a call next week”, so I don’t really feel that pressure.

      Except when it’s the CEO cold calling me from a meeting. Which happened to me again just yesterday. Then I do my best to engage immediately with the non-urgent problem.

      1. CityMouse*

        Or “hey can you send me this in an email, I need more time to respond”. But also, that’s how I talk to my trainees. You don’t get to “teach” your preferred style to coworkers and definitely not to your boss.

    3. Pinto*

      I agree. I do not respond at all to just “Hi” messages. If they need me they’ll come back with a more complete message. That being said, I’m pretty seasoned in my career and people sending me teams messages need my help with something not the other way around. I see it as a way to train people how to communicate with me. No need to say anything or give a lecture. A couple times and they’ll become conditioned to just get to the point. That being said, this is your first week, build some relationships and a reputation of someone who can be counted on before you start making demands of your coworkers

  18. Mutually Supportive*

    #5 would be a breach of Data Protection laws in the UK.
    Absolutely not acceptable.

    2. bamcheeks*

      Would it? If you’ve given someone as a reference, you’ve consented to them sharing information about you, and according to ACAS the only things specifically exempted are things related to protected characteristics. ACAS doesn’t mention salary as either as something that can be included or something you can’t share, so I don’t know if there’s further case law or anything about it?

      1. AMH*

        OP didn’t give her old boss as a reference, though — her old boss found out where she was working and called on his own behalf. I don’t know enough about UK Data protection to know if that changes things.

    3. Georgia*

      Can we kindly stop being surprised at the lack of job and privacy protections in the US if you don’t live here? It’s really unhelpful and depressing to hear our systems (including healthcare) compared to countries with laws and policies that help the everyday man. We’re trying to improve things, but unfortunately our entire government is being dismantled so having our salary considered private information isn’t too priority.

      1. Tea Monk*

        I also need to explain while some states ( many states are the size of a small country ) have some rudimentary protections, in many areas, you have basically a good ol boy giving you the finger as the employee protection

      2. Don't You Call Me Lady*

        I hear you but if people are surprised, it means they don’t know and imo this is something more people should know about, so that improving those things has more support

      3. bamcheeks*

        I actually think people are wrong about this being illegal in the UK! Many comments about other jurisdictions are not people lording it over the US but just clarifying their understanding of the law in their own countries.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        In other news, our legal requirements (or lack thereof) around sick time and parental leave suck too. SURPRISE.

  19. I should really pick a name*

    which I literally don’t have time for!

    I do not think that word means what you think it means.

    This only takes a long time because you aren’t responding.
    And if your company uses Teams for communication , you should be logging in first thing in the day, not waiting until you receive message.

    1. londonedit*

      Yeah, it definitely sounds like the norms around communication are different in this new job from what the OP is used to. And that’s fine, but they will need to adapt to the norms for their current workplace or they risk looking out of step or even plain difficult. It’s not a big ask for everyone to be logged on in Teams throughout the working day – it’s how it works where I work. Teams is a place where people ask quick questions without needing to email or phone. OK, repeated ‘Hi’ with no other message is going to be annoying, but I do think the OP is overreacting here – it’s their first day and the first message they’ve received! It doesn’t automatically mean it’s the norm or it’s part of a recurring pattern. The thing to do is to a) make sure they’re logged into Teams so they can receive messages automatically without having to enter a password, and b) if – and I mean if – the ‘Hi’ thing does turn out to be a pattern, then, after a period of time has passed, you can say ‘Hey, I find it much easier to keep track of things if people just ask the question straight off, rather than waiting for me to respond to a “Hi”. Would you mind doing that?’.

      I also have to say that getting to grips with passwords, logins, programmes, printers, all the access to different shared files, etc etc, is one of the annoying things about starting a new job, but it’s something that happens with every new job and you just have to work your way through it. I usually have to call IT a few times before I have everything I need set up and working properly! There’s always an ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you’d need access to that…’. So if Teams isn’t set up as it needs to be, make sure it is, and ask IT if it’s something they need to sort out.

      1. bamcheeks*

        Yeah, I did wonder whether the “I have to put the password in” is really the default setting or just a symptom of being new on the network. I started a new job in January, and I put in my password more than five times a day for the first week! There were a few systems where I had to enter it three times a day because it kept logging me out in between specific uses, or it didn’t save the password, or where it wasn’t properly connected to my main log-in and able to proceed without me. In the second week either something had happened at IT’s end which meant that all the different systems were correctly talking to each other about me, or else I’d managed to put and save my password into the one system that all the others depended on. But the impact what that it dropped to only needing it to sign in first thing and then any time after I’d locked my screen.

  20. Don't You Call Me Lady*

    I’m more concerned that after your first day on a new job you were so bothered by this that you had to write to AAM about an extremely minor issue. This is nothing – you need to get over it for your own sanity and your future in this job

    1. DJ Abbott*

      I agree. LW1, I have a story to illustrate.
      I started a new job in 2011 that was two levels up from anything I had done before. I put every effort into being successful there, because it was a great opportunity.
      It was in an administrative office at a hospital, and one of my colleagues did something that drove me nuts. She would raise her voice to talk over the physicians when we were discussing something. Echoes of my dysfunctional childhood, and it took effort to keep quiet and keep my feelings to myself.
      After a few months, I realized she was doing this because busy physicians wouldn’t hear her if she didn’t. A year or two after that, I was doing it too.
      She ended up being one of my best work friends there, and we stayed in touch for a while after my position was eliminated.
      So do your best to accommodate and fit in with whatever is going on there, at least until you fully understand it. If you still think action is needed, do it then.

  21. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, that does sound a bit annoying but I don’t really think there is much you should do about it. As a new person, you probably don’t want to look like you are trying to tell people what to do or change how people do things right away.

    I agree that a long back and forth before you get to the actual information you are looking for would be counter-productive, but the options aren’t just ignore her, ask her not to do this in future or start a long meaningless conversation. The easiest thing is to reply with something like “hi. Thanks for getting back to me. I just want to know where we’re meeting tomorrow.” It won’t stop the messaging but it will move things on quickly and shouldn’t cut into your time much.

    LW4, congrats on your sobriety and the improvements you’ve made at work and in your life. It sounds like you had an awful lot to deal with and that you made impressive efforts to overcome it.

    I agree that it would probably be risky to tell potential employers you asked for a PIP. Some might see it as proactive and as evidence of your willingness to address a problem but others might think it means you lack internal motivation or that you will want a manager or supervisor to take responsibility for ensuring you do your job.

    I do wonder if you could mention it a bit more generally, along the lines of “I went through a period when I was having some health problems which affected my concentration at work. I realised I had fallen below my usual high standards, so I spoke to my supervisor and asked for some additional oversight and support. I also got the health problems under control and as a result, I am now performing at an even higher standard than I was before I experienced those health problems.”

    But I haven’t any experience of hiring so I’m probably not best placed to say if this would be helpful or not.

  22. Don't You Call Me Lady*

    This happened to me one time at work – though I think it was Slack not Teams:

    Colleague: Hi

    Me: Hi how’s it going?

    Colleague: Pretty good – hey can you send me that slide deck before the ABC meeting?

    Me: Sure, sending now

    Colleague: Thanks!

    As you see it can be rough but we got through it

  23. Bananapants*

    LW1 literally just say « Hi! What’s up? » They could just be checking you’re active and not busy with other stuff before proceeding with the convo. This is a dumb hill to die on.

    1. TechWorker*

      That’s exactly what they’re doing, but you’re missing why that’s so irritating :p (and perhaps it depends a lot on role). Whether I am available to talk on chat depends what the question is. We have ‘formal’ channels for a bunch of things, including support. I have a team of 4 people to handle support – there’s an alias! And yet – people know I run the team, so they ping me their problems directly.

      If they said ‘hi I have a support issue can you help?’ I’d be like ‘sorry no can you email it to our alias’. Instead what they actually do is say ‘hi’, wait for me to respond, then spend 5 minutes typing up a question (having just grabbed my attention) that I then still have to ask them to put on email. Can you see how that wastes time?

      1. CityMouse*

        I lean it was her first day. Maybe the coworker was just checking in or seeing if she had her Teams set up.

        But I can’t emphasize this enough, this is a dumb hill to die on as a new employee.

        1. TechWorker*

          Oh sure, I agree with that, but Bananapants sounded like they didn’t think it’s rude to say ‘Hi’ and nothing else – and I really think it is at work..

        2. Starbuck*

          Yeah this is one of those things where you can convince yourself the irritation is totally valid, sure… but you will be so much happier if you can just let it go!

  24. Elizabeth*

    The worst boss I ever had demanded to know what I paid for my new home, and when I said that was private he said “it’s public record, you can’t stop me from looking it up”. Yikes.

  25. Mouse named Anon*

    Alot of people will message you “Hi” or “hello” before asking you a question. Personally I am not a fan of this, but I just deal with it. Its not worth getting upset over IMO. Its just different communication styles.

  26. AnonyNurse*

    PIP LW — it is great that you are doing so much better. And I get the feeling of getting meds/therapy right and feeling like you can conquer the world. But it has been no more than a year. You’ve made major changes in your life (yay!) but those aren’t yet solid. Please considering a pause on the job search til you are more established in your recovery. You are working in an apparently supportive environment, didn’t mention any toxicity or inability to meet your basic needs. Take a deep breath and get more confident in your sobriety and mental health before you throw yourself into the murky waters of a new job. Even if it is amazing, that kind of change is rough.

    Best wishes to you!

  27. Lizzle*

    LW 3: Don’t stress. People were 100% going to look up your house themselves. It’s the norm these days, love it or hate it.

    1. The Rural Juror*

      I’d also point out that a listing price is not the same as the purchase price! I was curious about a neighbor selling their condo in my building. They initially listed it WAY high. The person who bought it shared with me that they negotiated to about 20% less than the listing.

      1. Coverage Associate*

        Ok. This is more what I remember being public around here, especially if the down payment was relatively large, because the amount of the mortgage can be public, but not the actual purchase price.

        Value for property taxes is a whole other ballgame that doesn’t tell you anything about sales value, around here.

  28. Peanut Hamper*

    LW #1: Just think of this as your coworkers pinging you to see if you have time/bandwidth for things. It’s the online equivalent of “Do you have a moment?”

    I have a coworker who will do this in Teams. If I have time or can switch things up, I’ll either “Hi” back or just give a little thumbs-up icon and then they know I have time for a convo. If I don’t, they just type their message and they know they won’t get a response until later when I have the time for it.

    It’s just a difference in communication styles, and if you adjust your attitude toward it to reflect that, you’ll find this easier to deal with.

    Also, though, you’re waiting on information from this person and you didn’t respond to her ping? Maybe she has questions she needs answers to before she sends it over and doesn’t want to waste time sending and then resending it. Which means that you are the one who is wasting time here.

    1. Broadway Duchess*

      I think this is so dependent on industry, company, workload, etc. TBH, I don’t ever “have a moment” to chat. I can steal a moment from another task if it’s important enough, but I don’t know that unless the Hi-sender asks.

      I understand that to some, jumping right in with the ask may feel rude, but for my work/company/industry, I prefer that it all comes in one message. Unless it’s from a higher up, hellos are going to be deprioritized in favor of the messages that are actionable.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        This is definitely going to be dependant on the company culture, but LW is seeing what that culture is on day one of their new job and is already bristling about it. I can’t imagine a situation where a new person is so overwhelmed by work in their first week that that they actually have the time and energy to be bristly about this and to write to an online advice column about it.

        Like many others here, I have my doubts as to how long LW will last at this job unless they adjust their attitude immediately.

  29. SarcasmBeforeAnger*

    #1, I frequently start a message to ask a question and get distracted by something else and don’t get back to it for a while. If you start to see a pattern, say something, like Allison said.

  30. coffeecup*

    Just say hi back and start a conversation. I don’t see what the problem is. If they still don’t tell you, then that’s definitely annoying, but different people communicate differently and it’s not like they’re going ‘reply NOW’ or anything rude. If someone does it to me I reply along the lines of ‘hey, how’s it going?’, which doesn’t actually take up much time.

    1. bananners*

      I’m glad to see this response because I was starting to wonder if I’m committing some major faux pas by replying “How’s it going” or “hey, what’s up?” That’s how I’d respond to a phone call or in-person greeting, why wouldn’t I do that on Teams?

      1. Broadway Duchess*

        I don’t think we can apply the same tactics to calls and messages because they are not the same. If I called you, said hi (and nothing else), you’d think I was pretty strange.

  31. tr6 woundwort*

    Hi OP1, I am also slightly irked by singular “hi” messages, but I may have a solution for you. I’m an analyst that fields a lot of stakeholder requests each day, and often times people will just say “hi”, I respond in kind immediately, and then they disappear for 2-3 hours without even telling me what they need. This makes it difficult for me to triage and prioritize these requests so I feel your pain.

    What I’ve been doing lately is instead of sending a message response to the “hi”, I react to the message with the wave emoji. This doesn’t give them the standard message notification but it does light up the teams icon. It’s an unobtrusive but polite response that forces them to then elaborate on their requests. I’ve tried this with a few people and have seen some improvement in including the information in their greeting.

  32. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    1. Yeah it is kinda annoying – I much prefer a message of ‘Hi, got a minute? I have a question about system X’ but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in the decades in IT it is that there’s always going to be a system that’s a pain in the butt to log onto and use multiple times a day. The trick is to not take it personally.

    4. Frankly I admire you. I definitely SHOULD have asked for the PIP I neded up on in my 20s because my behaviour was bad and it was only being put on one that got me to face up to reality that I needed help. Like yourself, a lot of my stuff was due to outside of work pressures (and a major medical issue).
    I don’t know what it’s like in the US but here in the UK my boss at the time has become my mentor and good friend in the years after because he saw how I pulled things around and will give me a sterling reference.
    SO I don’t think it’s a negative by any means.

  33. Delta Delta*

    #1 – From the letter it appears this was on OP’s *first day.* Giving the coworker a little grace here, is it possible the coworker 1) had not yet met OP, 2) wasn’t sure if OP was set up on Teams, 3) was the right person, 4) other answer consistent with reaching out to a new coworker? Rather than solve the problem by responding, “hi – could you send me the meeting location for the Oatmeal and Llamas merger tomorrow?” the response was to be angry that someone made contact this way, without thought to possible reasons (including possible security reasons) for the method of contact. Hopefully as OP settles into the new job things will even out.

  34. HailRobonia*

    #1: I’m getting painful flashbacks of a previous boss who would send me Slack messages like “HailRobonia can we chat?” which sounds very ominous. Then I would say “sure” and she would say “do we have the updated enrollment statistics for this years group of llama grooming trainees?”

    In person I even told her she can “feel free to just ask the question in slack, I always get notification.”

    2. bananners*

      My boss texted me the other day and asked me to stop by his office when I got in and I sped to the office (hitting every red light) only for it to be some gossip. I haven’t gotten a “sit down” from a boss in over a decade and yet it’s still scary…

    3. Coverage Associate*

      There was just an article about not texting just “Can we talk?” because it scares people. Like in People or something.

      1. I Have RBF*

        Seriously. I’m considered a high performer where I work, but I still get a butt clench when my boss or grandboss messages me with “Got a minute for a quick call?” It’s a holdover from having been in some really, really toxic workplaces.

  35. JK*

    For LW1, I expect the “hi” is a ping to make sure someone even around before they type in the whole, possibly elaborate, question. By ignoring the message you’ve just confirmed to them that it would have been a waste of effort to type the actual question.
    A lot of people just don’t know you are waiting for the actual content. It’s like answering the phone and remaining silent.

    1. ecnaseener*

      Why would it be a waste of time to type the question? It’s not Snapchat, the message isn’t going to expire. They’ll see it when they see it.

      It’s not like answering the phone and remaining silent — it’s like *not* answering the phone, secure in the knowledge that you have voicemail.

      1. JK*

        No idea! Sometimes I send a question on Slack and don’t get an answer for hours or days. Or the person doesn’t notice it and eventually types something unrelated.

  36. BigBaDaBoom*

    The absolute most rage inducing pingers are the ones who send “hi” and then you reply…and then they say nothing for another 10 minutes or more. How about you not bother me until you actually are ready to ask the question?? Gahhh

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      Did you ever think that maybe something happened and so they got distracted. Like they got a phone call or their boss came up to talk with them?

      1. BigBaDaBoom*

        Maybe! But it would be moot if they’d just included their question right away instead of the hanging “hi”! Then they’d get what they needed from me and I’d get to stop being in anticipation mode.

  37. birder in the backyard*

    #3, I applaud you for trying to be sensitive to your team’s feelings. I agree with Alison, that sending photos rather than the listing might have been a better route. I had a former manager who was slowboating my request for a reclassification/compensation review. During that time, they bought a new house, a new car, and a new designer pet. Every day I had to hear in great detail about these major purchases they were making, how expensive it is to move, etc. If we were friends it would have been fine (although still a little exhausting) but given the power dynamics, it was profoundly wrongheaded. It left me feeling bitter each time and I eventually left the firm.

  38. Z*

    Removed. Please feel free to repost it without the condescension to Americans, who are dealing with enough shit right now. – Alison

  39. James*

    #1: In my workplace, it’s incredibly common to start the Teams message with “hi” and wait for the other person to respond with “hi / hello” back, to indicate when they are ready / able to have a conversation, before asking any questions. I’d say it’s weirder for someone to just jump right into what they want.

  40. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    #1 seems to be wildly overreacting.
    “To find out this was all she said, I had to put in a long password to open the app, just to find nothing actionable.”
    Well at some point you were going to have to log in to teams. You shouldn’t have to put that password in every time.
    What probably happened was your coworker sent the message, then realized you were not on yet, so then never went on again. If you are waiting for something from her, just ask.

  41. Gollumgollum*

    It’s better to say “are you free” instead of “hi” purely because then you can pretend you are on Are You Being Served.

    (“I’m freeeeeeee~”)

    1. Delta Delta*

      I would look over my shoulder to see if I’m doing anything and then say, “I’m freeeee.” I’d also insist on being called Mrs. Slocum, but that’s more for me than for anyone else.

  42. Brank*

    LW#1 is less than a full day into their job and already annoyed with a co-worker and writing to AAM. Let’s see if they even last a few months. For me this is a super small issue, just reply “Hi! It’s my first day and excited to meet everyone. Is there anything I can help with?”

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Great kind of text to send during the OP’s first few days. It establishes her right away as friendly and helpful.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      Yep, agreed. Having to enter passwords is just part of life these days, and having to enter “long” passwords is also part of that life.

      I’m not sure how someone “literally” does not have time for this on their first freaking day. Good grief!

      I don’t know if LW wants to be seen as super efficient or what, but being ornery about this is not the flex they think it is. They literally have zero capital at this place and are already trying to change their coworkers’ behaviours. Oof! I don’t see this ending well.

  43. DD26*

    About 15 years ago, we were told on a Friday, that starting Monday, we were required to work mandatory 50% unpaid (we are exempt) overtime until the project was completed (so about 7 months). No PTO time would be approved during this time. If you didn’t like it, quit.

    We replaced all our name plates with barcodes of our employee IDs, as we felt we were no longer considered as people to management.

    About two months in, we had enough. We demanded management meet with us to discuss and come to a solution. We had a two day off-site meeting, tears were shed. We insisted we could meet the deadline given, without the mandatory overtime. Management agreed to give it a try, and not surprisingly, we absolutely did meet it.

    And this important project and deadline? We sold a minimum amount, and in the last few years we rolled back all the changes that were made in the product.

    1. I Have RBF*

      Good gods, that sounds like an RGE. I would be looking to quit as soon as I got something else.

      I’ve done 60 hour a week jobs, but I was paid straight time hourly. I refused to go on a low salary for the same hours.

  44. Panne*

    For #5, I would recommend unionizing or joining an existing one.

    The unions in my country were largely responsible for making it illegal for employers to demand more than 40 hours as a requirement for continued employment. As in, employers can’t force us to work more than 40hrs a week and also cannot penalize us for refusing a request for more hours. More hours of course mean overtime pay or compensation opportunities.

    And I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that they also cannot ask us to work 16hrs overtime as a long term arrangement. Sounds like this employer should just hire more people.

  45. Observer*

    #1 – People just say “hi” on teams.

    I have a few thoughts, some of which I know mirror what others have said. Also, I haven’t read every comment so I may also inadvertently repeat something as well.

    Firstly, trying to “nip” almost anything in the bud on your first day of work is a bad idea. Of course there are some exceptions (eg someone is using the wrong name for you or something clearly unsafe is going on.) That’s true even if your whole reason for being hired is to make change / and or you have standing to do so.

    Secondly, the whole idea that it was some major imposition to you that the other person sent you an information free message is beyond weird. So is the idea that this is “literally” going to cost oodles of time that you don’t have.

    You had to put in this long password to see her first message. It would have taken all of 5 seconds to respond “Hi. What’s up?” And then you would have seen her response. If she had sent the message with the information in the first place, you would have had to put the password in then. Which means that this initial interaction would have cost you all of 5 seconds.

    As annoying as this is to you, your framing is not going to make you look good. It makes it sound like you either don’t know how to use Teams (or *any* instant messaging type system) or you take yourself waaaay to seriously. Because if you explain to someone that you “literally don’t have time for this” most people are going to think “You’re new here and you already as too busy for a 5 second interaction? What on earth?”

    Do yourself a favor. Log into Teams at the beginning of the day so you can look at messages as they come in / as your schedule permits without having to wasted the time and headspace to enter the log in credentials each time. That enables you to use Teams the way it is meant to be used. And a nice side effect is that if people send you messages like that, it won’t waste your time.

    But also, if you can you may want to consider having Teams alert you to incoming messages when you are not in “focus” or “DND” mode. Because then you can see when a message coming in has information you are looking for or not.

  46. Bast*

    RE: Hi On Team: Perhaps I have a different view of the “hi” than others, because in most offices where I have worked, using Teams (or its equivalent, since we typically did not use Teams itself) was meant to be for a specific business related purpose, not general chit chat. There was supposed to be a (work related) point behind the message. Management tolerated the odd “good morning” from people, but you weren’t supposed to carry on a non-work chat there, or clog up the chat with “lol” “cool” etc. Occasionally someone would say something like, “I’m ordering from Restaurant, anyone want anything?” but this was supposed to be quick and to the point answers – “no thank you” “I’ll have a hamburger, thanks.” And if it got beyond that management would shut it down if they felt the conversation was going on too long or people were wasting too much time on it.

    The “hi” would have to have more than that, and even then, it was preferred that you kept it to one message directly spelling out what you wanted.

    “Hi Emily, can you make sure to call Mr. Smith back before noon” was preferable to “hi” followed by “Can you make sure to call Mr. Smith back before noon” or even worse “hi” then “Mr. Smith called” then “please call him back before noon.” Messages sent the second or third way (particularly the third way) would be seen as nuisances.

    RE: PIP — I would not mention this. Not at all. I am thinking of somebody volunteering the PIP information during the interview and coupled with a longer explanation would likely eliminate them from consideration, unless the person was a particularly strong candidate in a batch of otherwise weak ones, or perhaps had a very specific knowledge or certificate or something that not many others had. If you were already a strong employee and this came out after being hired, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but sometimes even the smallest things can get someone knocked out of the running, particularly if you’re up against a bunch of other strong candidates.

    1. helmac*

      Bast, is your nym from the Patrick Rothfuss series? I never read the last volume in the trilogy!

      Your description of the online chats in your former work places and zero tolerance for chit chat makes me very sad to read. I assume people let their hair down a bit more in DMs, but how sad to spend eight hours a day in a workplace where even IMs had to be task-oriented at all times. I am feeling a new appreciation for even the cringey aspects of our company’s Slack culture, and it’s endless proliferation of animal emojis.

  47. leeapeea*

    For LW 5, pushing back as a group is more likely to get your sister an immediate reaction from management, and from there she can decide if she can stay at the jobs under whatever the terms end up being.
    I agree with Alison that unionizing is helpful, but I think a lot of people wouldn’t know where to start, especially if unions aren’t common in their industry or sector. I was tangentially involved in unionizing a workplace once – a friend was in a related industry to me, I was the union steward for my group, so I used my contact with the union to get things rolling in her shop. It still took over a year, and this is an industry where unions are common and the employer was not trying to bust. But if you’re in an office, or an industry/area where unions are scarce or nonexistent, what are the first steps?

    1. Bluenyx*

      Large labor unions have explainers on their websites and are happy to help you unionize your workplace. So I would start with those FAQ pages, and then contact a union related to my industry for help with starting a chapter in my workplace. Call or email someone whose entire job is helping new unions form, they’ll help!

  48. Nancy*

    LW1: It’s your first day, maybe she literally was just saying hi to you, the new person. And you would have had to enter the password to log on at some point, might as well do it the first day and get it over with.

  49. Religious Nutter*

    LW 1, since you’re trying to both set a good impression AND get rid of those deeply aggravating “Hi” messages, maybe try replying back with what you need?

    “Hi”
    “Hi Coworker. Did you have the location for tomorrow’s meeting set? I want to get it on my calendar so I don’t forget.”

    This models the behavior you’re looking for without openly challenging their behavior.

    I’ve been at my job a long while, so when someone messages “Hi”, I just don’t reply until they follow up with something more meaningful.

  50. Ess Ess*

    OP#1 – in my job it is expected that you turn on your Teams as part of your morning login. This is a main way that coworkers reach out to you. If you do this, you would not have to type in your password each time they send you “hi”.

    Sending “hi” is frequently a polite way to make sure that you aren’t currently sharing your screen or have people at your desk to avoid exposing information to the wrong people.

  51. Camellia*

    LW1 -perhaps this context will help.

    My department does the ‘Hi’ or ‘GM’ thing on Teams. Why? Because it’s our equivalent to politely knocking on an office door and waiting until the person says ‘Come in’, instead of just rudely barging in and starting to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. If the person is available (on Teams), they reply with ‘Hi’ or ‘GM’ or, in my case, “Hey, what’s up?”. If they don’t reply, then you can wait until they’re available or go ahead and type out your question/issue/reason for reaching out, knowing they won’t get back to you for a while.

    Every office has it norms. This might be the norm for your office and if you violate it, people might be uncomfortable with you and not even realize why. As others have said – is this the hill you want to die on?

  52. Touchofthe'Tism*

    Lw1: Respectfully, at a new job I think there are bigger fish to fry. Also it may be cultural or personal differences? I’m a girl from the north living in the south (and autistic) and I’ve been told I’m rude for not making as much small talk as people expect or opening messages with ‘good morning’ or such, when to me it’s also a bit irritating to waste time with stuff like that. But your colleague may view it differently. I’d just respond ‘hi, how can I help you?’ and move on.
    Lw2: Also respectfully, if your previous boss is an older gentleman in a religious nonprofit there’s a non zero chance he either doesn’t think women should be working or thinks your career isn’t serious (demonstrated by the fact that he thought you should be the one to go) and wanted to undermine you to your new boss. What a jerk.

    1. Meep*

      It is literally just “Hi.” No. “Hi. Let me know when you have availability to discuss x.” Just “Hi.” That isn’t small talk. That is a waste of time.

  53. Meep*

    LW#1 – I had a former boss who would do that. I honestly just didn’t respond until she told me what the heck she wanted. It wasn’t important if she made me wait hours. -shrug-

  54. Corey*

    “I live in a smaller but popular metro city where median house prices are ~$500,000 – it’s expensive to live here!”

    [cries in Bostonian] :'(

    Anyway, 20% over median is not lavish for a manager. I think LR3 is fine. Also, CoL discussions turn into salary discussions turn into equity discussions — it could be a net benefit for everyone to acknowledge what it takes to buy a house in your city.

  55. Don't You Call Me Lady*

    When I think of Good Old Boys, I think of Bo and Luke Duke, or the band from the Blues Brothers, not non-profit CEOs. I’m going to have to recalibrate

  56. ItsAllFunAndGamesUntil*

    #1 just be prepared that regardless of what you say down the road about this, you will have folks who just keep doing the “hi” or “hey” messages that are their way of saying “respond to this” and they won’t ever change no matter how much of an issue you make of it.

    And the more of the issue you make of it, these folks are perfectly OK with making it seem like you are the rude one. It’s just how some people are. I have been working in a teams heavy use place for 7 years now, and there’s a set number of folks who have, will, and always will do this.
    Is it annoying? Yes.
    Have I determined there are other mole hills more deserving of my time? Also yes.

  57. Veryanon*

    I absolutely hate it when someone IMs me “hi [my name]” on Teams and nothing else. If it’s so urgent that you need to ping me on Teams instead of just sending me an email, then please provide the context of why you are contacting me instead of just saying “hi” and waiting for me to respond. It’s super annoying and I will die on this hill.

  58. DefinitiveAnn*

    re: #1 – everybody should know that the proper way to get a groups attention on chat is: “Y’all.”

  59. supply closet badger*

    I don’t have strong feelings either way on whether it should be acceptable to send just ‘hi’ on Teams/chat — but I’m kind of fascinated by the multiple people saying that the ‘hi’ or even the ‘hi, do you have a minute?’ or ‘hi, are you free to help me with something?’ is not okay because you can’t know if you have time for the person’s request if they don’t immediately tell you what the request is. So you would rather they just tell you what the request is upfront so you can say no or set expectations if you can’t fulfil it quickly, right?

    But if you respond to the ‘hi’ and then they tell you and you *don’t* have time, can’t you just … politely tell them so?

    I mean, I don’t really see what is especially wrong or onerous about a scenario like the following?

    Coworker: Hi
    You: Hi, what’s up?
    Coworker: Could you help me pull data for the XYZ report due tomorrow?
    You: Absolutely, but I’m just in the middle of something else so will come find you after lunch.

    Or
    You: Sorry, I’ve actually never done that before either, so I don’t know the process. Good luck with it!

    Or
    You: Sorry, I’m just super swamped this week and that would require background research that I don’t have time for. I could help next week if you can get an extension on the report deadline.

    Would any of the above really be significantly improved if Coworker had instead opened with ‘Hi, can you help me pull data for the XYZ report due tomorrow?’?

  60. Raida*

    1. How to get someone to say what they want on Teams chat, not just say “hi”
    “Well I don’t *want* to say hi.” is not going to win you any freinds at work, mate.
    If you really wnat to push the conversation along then respond with “Hi [Name], anything I can help with for [file] for [deadline]?”

    And “URGH, I had to *put in a password* to see that is all she said” is… well mate, can get the devices working so that you just open Teams and only log in once a month or something? Or just respond when you are back at your computer? The delay of seeing it on your phone and then using the PC shouldn’t be a big deal unless there’s something urgent – in which case you can put in the password and respond with the appropriate level of urgency.

    But, in answer to the specific question, and not this one instance of it happening:
    You can talk with them and say “This is how we did it at my old job, and this is why it went over well and this is why I will be communicating that way. So I will not think you are at all rude for frontloading the chat with the reason for contacting me.”

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      What I love about that site is that the two examples on that page are both four lines long. So the point is what?……..That different people have different communication styles, but we eventually get there in the end either way?

      The fact that your colleague has this as a permanent Teams status (when, by definition, status is something that changes over time) does not endear me to him at all. I get “hi” messages and I just respond with a thumbs-up emoji to let the person know I’m aware of them and their message. It takes less than a tenth of a second to do this.

      FWIW, I never just send “hi” messages, I always just send a question. (“Good morning. Have you approved this week’s TPS report so I can distribute it?”) But I also don’t get tetchy at people who need to preface their question with the digital equivalent of a tap on the shoulder or a knock on the door. The amount of time that’s being spent on this is highly over-estimated by those who find it annoying. (As proof, see my first sentence.)

      It’s far more efficient to just respond with “what’s up?” rather than taking the time to get my knickers in a twist, choosing to be annoyed for a fair amount of time, and then coming down from my high state of dudgeon and untwisting my knickers. People sure choose some weird hills to die on.

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