"I took a shower and I put on my best blue jeans
I picked her up in my new VW van
She wore a peasant blouse with nothing underneath
I said “Hi”, she said, “yeah, I guess I am”
One of my favorite songs:
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Yes, it’s come to this. Even our communication verbs are now branded. We don’t call we Skype. We don’t message, we Facebook or Tweet. We don’t take a picture, we Instagram. And we don’t chat, we Slack.
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Yeah as @LutherBlisset says its slack. Around work its common for us to use slack to send small bits of information like hey can you slack that password to me and so forth. I have a slack channel with my wife and my son, which we use for communication between ourselves and the various systems in our house.
The odds say ‘clueless behaviour by employer’, but there is a chance of expert level nasty trolling.
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I owe you a drink.
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“Son, once upon a time… yourdogwasrunoverbyacarthismorning.”
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k
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I would reply ‘Yes, I am.’
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If someone made a where’s lionel richie book, I’d buy it.
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Dude, my mother sends complete emails in the subject line. And nothing in the body, of course.
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I come from a country where it’s illegal to fire someone without a certain number of verbal and written warnings and action plans to improve performance. I wonder if those who are anxious of being fired by non-standard email usage would not have their fear if they knew they could get $10,000 awarded for unfair dismissal if they actually were fired by email (I live in New Zealand where you pretty much can’t fire people unless it’s for gross incompetence).
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Any chance you need some botanists with GIS, database and statistical programming experience, with PhD degrees? Curating a botanical garden, e.g.? Or in landscape planning, especially conservation-related?
Anything well-payed outside the academic publish-or-perish rat-race would do. I really like my current job, but NZ sounds nice whenever someone talks about it.
(Exceptions include botanists, lamenting that nearly everything you see outside conservation areas is dominated by aliens.)
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We use IM extensively at work.
I HATE HATE HATE it when people open up conversations with just “hi”.
I have to:
stop what I’m doing.
respond back to them.
wait for them to respond to my reply, which is usually something like “how are you doing?”
respond back to their non-reply, something like “fine. what can I do for you?”
then wait for them to actually tell me what they want.
If they would just tell me what they wanted in that initial message, things would go better and I could get back to work that much sooner. “Hi! I was wondering about the status of whatever!” or “Hi! We’re having a problem with application X!”. But NOOOOO…
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We have IM built into our phone system, as well as a slack space, and nobody fucking checks either of them or answers me.
I have to constantly stop what I’m doing, get up, lock my computer, walk down the row of cubes to a colleague’s spot or the boss, and ask them, “Hey, what’s the procedure for this?” then when they tell me “okay could you plug that into the slack or IM me?” “Sure!”
I’d be so much more productive if people actually checked their comms, instead of just expecting me to walk down to their cube every ten minutes. I’m new at this current job and am still learning the ropes.
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At least you are getting some exercise.
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I suggest you check out the immigration NZ website: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa to see the criteria for applying for a work visa.
You also should check out the skills shortage list to see if your profession is valued here in NZ: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa
The fact you have a PhD gives you a heap of points for getting in. Good luck!
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Mr. Spore, not too long ago I saw you described here in some kind of BBS meta-discussion as “a happy mutant par excellence” or “the definitive happy mutant” or “benchmark happy mutant” or such.
Comments like the above pretty much prove that point! 
Personally I could also replace the first line of your little dialogue with this one:
Telephone: ring ring
Me: Oh SHIT.
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I am shocked to say that this actually happened to me on Saturday. Someone messaged us through Instagram, and their first message was just, “hi.” That brought this thread to mind. Sure enough, that turned out to be bad news.
I think I’m going to send fake out-of-office responses to anyone else who does that to me.
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My current boss does this one so I’ve gotten immune. She starts every email with “Please Read” and if she requires a response, even if it’s something as inane as how many people are coming to the pizza party, she ends every email with “Please Advise”.
Yes, I advise that a toddler is coming to the pizza party. You look stupid.
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I had a boss who would do exactly this. As well as set up meetings with the subject line using project titles that I were nonexistent. You always knew the shitstorm was about to hit.
He was a terrible manager and turns out he was unhappy so he left.
Best decision he ever made for my career!
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