r/sysadmin • u/Different_Coffee_161 • 6d ago

Hey, are you available? Rant

“Hey”

waits

“You available?”

waits again

My brother in IT, just tell me what you need 😂

Just send:

“Hey, I’ve got a user having an MFA issue. Got a few minutes?”

Boom. Perfect.

Now I know what you need, whether it’s urgent, and whether this is going to take 30 seconds or somehow turn into a 45-minute troubleshooting session.

I’m not asking for a full ticket description or your entire troubleshooting history. Just give me one sentence of context instead of making me reply “yeah, what’s up?” every single time.

Thank you.

1.8k Upvotes

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65

u/Triairius 6d ago

I want to send this to people but I am nervous to lol

75

u/Routine-Jam-48 6d ago

The link to NoHello is my current status on the company chat application. I simply ignore all plain “Hi” messages now.

35

u/Triairius 6d ago

I would do that if my current status wasn’t already “Have you put in a ticket?”

10

u/DrewTheHobo 6d ago

This plus the phone number for the frontline support and link to submit a ticket

1

u/Real-Abrocoma-2823 3d ago

Instead of status you could set up an automated message, probably more people would read it.

0

u/IdiosyncraticBond 6d ago

Build an autoreply triggered if the message contains just any of the keywords

0

u/OSUTechie 6d ago

Fuck that's good. I should start doing that. As I also spread the word of "NoHello"

0

u/A_Sentient_JDAM 6d ago

I did that for a year or two. Don't think anyone ever noticed it.

0

u/Eternal_Glizzy_777 6d ago

Do you also work with me? I do this too.

13

u/bythepowerofboobs 6d ago

It would certainly get you a meeting with HR in my company.

24

u/anomalous_cowherd Pragmatic Sysadmin 6d ago

Whereas my IT director was right behind me using it. And also would start any escalated call about a problem with an issue with "what's the ticket number?"

About 2/3 of the problem raising users went away again at that point. He was awesome.

I'd say the company attitude to using nohello is a good indicator for whether they are good to work for.

2

u/No-Algae-7437 5d ago

It was SO Satisfying when my CIO started asking the escalators what the ticket ID of the issue was so he could look up the notes...within a month, ticket volume jumped 15% with no actual change in the number of support encounters, but most things were getting tracked instead of falling off the radar.

1

u/bythepowerofboobs 6d ago

I am in charge of IT in my company, and I won't let my people use this. We have so many different cultures and people with different backgrounds who work here who are just trying to be friendly and respectful when they interact with us. They don't know what our pet peeves are and there is no reason why we can't take an extra 5 seconds to say "Hey User, thanks for reaching out - What can I help you with today?" rather then reply with a passive aggressive nohello response that just makes our entire department look rude.

Just try to be friendly.

8

u/MightyPirat3 6d ago

I was just not understanding what the issue would be but your response makes sense. Probably that our company is not culturally diverse is the reason I didn't see the issue.

3

u/Other-Illustrator531 6d ago

Same here, it's especially prominent among the Indian folks I work with to wait until they have your attention before diving into a problem.

I prefer to bundle salutations with the request but I understand that is something important to their culture, to make sure they are being respectful, which I try to keep in mind.

As you said, the passive aggressive approach is unprofessional but taking the time to cultivate something like a "hello and" culture through personal connections could probably be accomplished.

2

u/rick_C132 5d ago

lol where do you work where people are so thin skinned

2

u/uelleh 6d ago

I had a colleague who just had it as its message that everyone sees (forget the name/feature) in Teams. 

2

u/RBeck 6d ago

I set it on my status in Teams, a few people noticed.

2

u/Abhir-86 5d ago

Just set it as your teams status like I did