hey Melz we need to talk…
about getting some ice cream and chocolate sauce for dessert tonight. 
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I blame an insecure boyfriend that I had back when I was 18.
It seemed like every single time I turned around, he’d come running to me with some petty campus gosip he’d overheard, and tell me “we need to talk.” It was aggravating as hell, and eventually led to me dumping him.
Ever since then, those words have a completely negative connotation, as far as I’m concerned.
What’s there to talk about?
Bring that shit ON!
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Ditto salutation - it already says who it’s to.
I suffer from this anxiety at least five times a day. People always like to start with “hi” or “ping me when you’re back” and I’m just enjoying my anxiety until they usually ask me a mundane question or ask if I have access to some system or could check out something. Personally, I prefer to put a small summary in the subject like “QQ Defect xxxxxx - CR yyyyy impact” and just type the full question in IM “Hi, do you know if [whatever question]” I mean it’s not any harder. If nothing else it increases the chance of it even being read. If 20 people are copied on an ambiguous sounding email all of them end up figuring it’s something between others on the chain. Why create suspense?
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Sadly, I can top that.
A certain HR director, who I sometimes refer to as Catbert, sent out company-wide instructions telling all staff how to create ridiculous signature blocks that basically screamed “I know nothing of computers” - chock full of pipes and other common metacharacters, embedded graphic of the company logo with insane resolution, that sort of thing. She has a well known history of responding to informed criticism by lashing out, so everybody shrugged and followed the instructions.
But if you followed the instructions, you ended up with a signature block that contained a mailto: URL with Catbert’s email address in it, but under your own name. So people would click on “cheerfuldrone@company.net” and their mail would be sent to “Dr.Catbert@company.net” by Outlook.
As the mail began to flood in, she became increasingly irate, insisting that the email system was broken, and that it was IT’s fault. The kind and generous fellow who runs the email system* pointed out that the cause was the instructions she’d sent everyone, without asking for input from IT first, and that she’d have to tell everyone she’d made a mistake to get this fixed.
She wrote him up for being obstructionist and refusing to fix the broken email system.
* obviously not me 
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I hate getting “Hi” by itself in any messaging app. It causes be to pay attention without having anything there to process or respond to. I want to type back “What the fuck do you want???”, but mostly I just grunt.
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The best response is, “If you have to ask, you probably don’t want to know.”
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Thank god i don’t have this problem, i can definitely see how it can be stressful. Even if you knew you weren’t going to be fired, just getting such a short message from a superior that doesn’t elaborate on the nature of the initial interaction seems like a trap to lull someone into an unpleasant conversation. If someone does this accidentally then it is best for them to be more descriptive from the get go, just saying hi and waiting for a reply wastes time. Say what you want to say from the start: Hi, messaging you in regards to X thing… etc, etc.
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I haven’t been fired this way but it is a common behavior even outside of work for people to initiate an unpleasant conversation with short ambiguous dialogue. If you haven’t had this happen in your personal life then i must envy you.
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no. the proper response is…
I’ll
phone
you
next
week
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mmm Sometimes, yes. But more often than not it is a neutral interaction at worse. Some times a pleasant one.
Granted, I am likely to feel like, “Oh fuck… people.” But I don’t assume the interaction will be worse than average.
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I tend to look at things in an optimistic light and a superior opening a conversation with “Hi” would make me anxious. I wouldn’t necessarily think i’m getting fired but i would definitely worry its a possibility, or that something else unpleasant will be discussed involving me. I have had my boss open a conversation like that once over IM and i genuinely had a panic attack, the logical part of my brain had a good feeling that nothing bad might be discussed but my instant gut reaction was beyond my control.
Beyond possibilities of getting fired or unpleasant conversations. Its more efficient in a work setting to lead into what the intent of the conversation is, that way i can judge if its a conversation i can prioritize or not. I have had quite a few colleagues IM me with a hello and if i’m busy i just outright ignore it because i have no idea what they want.
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One time my employer sent out a paper memo to everyone, in personally addressed envelopes. I don’t remember what the memo was about, but I remember it was printed on pink paper. This annoyed every single employee there.
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What a concept!
I used to put my question in the e-mail’s body, but in the past few years if it’s a short question (which it often is) I just put the whole thing in the subject line and put a “thanks” in the body.
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My manager once asked to “Have a word,” and he followed me in to his office and said take a seat; I sat at his desk.
He sat in the little chair. He never did regain his momentum after that.
Can’t have that kind of fun via email 
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Oh, that is EVIL!
You should have your own advice column!
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Lol my boss would likely get a kick out of that if i did that.
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Actually the subject line that screwed me up a couple of times at work was “Thanks.” Which is fine and considerate after I have helped somebody. I would appreciate that and not bother to read the body of the message, which was usually the answer that I had given them. But sometimes people us that when the message is something more like “Thanks, and now I want this other thing.” or even "Thanks in advance for this task that I want you to do. I have since realized that I have to actually read through the body to make sure that they don’t want something else from me.
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Exactly. Which is why I would never use it to deliver bad news. I would get to the bad news as quickly as possible, with a minimum of stress.
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So you’re the sassy one on that sitcom?
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