In programming culture, there is this concept called “hello/nohello,” where people disagree strenuously over whether it is (a) okay/preferred, (b) neutral, or (c) infuriatingly rude to send someone an IM that just says “hello” or “good morning” or some other unspecific greeting.
The theory on (c) goes, it’s rude to break the other person’s concentration without specifically telling them what you need. For the standard “I am mostly focusing, but could slightly multitask” sort of function level, saying “hello” forces the other party to stop working on whatever they’re working on and type back to you to reply and say “hello, what’s up?” or something similar.
By contrast, the theory on (a) holds that it’s rude to just launch into asking for something without first greeting the other person. (This is shades of Ask vs Guess.)
I’m a (b) person myself. I don’t generally just type “hello” at somebody (my style is to just send a hyperlink with absolutely no context…working on that, too), but I also don’t mind if someone Hellos me.
This is all well trodden ground in the computerysphere. (At least in my social circle.) But what I find really interesting is a real-world equivalent that I saw play out (at some distance) between coworkers.
One, I’ll call Branwen, is very socially oriented towards saying “Good morning!” to everyone, and very invested in receiving a “Good morning” (or other acknowledgement) back from them. If someone doesn’t reply to her, she perceives this as very rude. Ignoring someone (that you have an existing relationship with) who has directly addressed you is not really an appropriate behavior, to her, regardless of other circumstances.
The other, I’ll call Calvin, is introverted to the extreme. He is the stereotypical programmer, who gets “in the zone” when working and finds it difficult to recover from disruptions. If someone says “Good Morning!” to him, he can ignore it (some of the time), but he can’t really make a response without breaking his concentration and losing his train of thought.
Branwen and Calvin aren’t bad people. Both are very good at what they do. They just have different social mores, and different standards of etiquette. Their definitions of what is Rude and what is Polite are polar opposites of one another. It’s sort of an “unstoppable spear meets unbreakable shield” situation.
I never did ask what Branwen and Calvin decided on as their compromise. Maybe they just kept silently stewing. But if I had been their manager, I think the compromise I would have suggested was that Branwen can keep saying Hello, but that she should stop expecting a response; and that Calvin could perhaps put on headphones if he didn’t want auditory distractions, since multi-person offices often have those in spades. (Although there’s a fair bit to be said about the hazards of multi-person offices; early Aughts computery essays don’t always age well, but I find myself coming back to that column a lot.)
I’m not writing this essay to come down hard on either side. (For some of my Differences essays, I will absolutely do that; just not this one.) I’m just writing it because I see this argument happen constantly, and I want to remind people that this isn’t a Moral Judgment sort of situation; it’s a case of differing social mores, where people have to come to terms with compromises that let them coexist.
TikTok about regional differences in the US with regards to greeting people: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRHy9K9v/
Emilybook 