- If you've ever sent a message that said "hi" and nothing else, you may be guilty of "hey hanging."
- Some workers say the practice can cause anxiety and disrupt productivity.
Have you ever been deep in the zone, finally making quality progress on a challenging project that had stumped you for weeks, when the audible, abrupt, triple-ping alert of a new Slack message pulled you out of your concentrated state, only to read a simple message of:
"Hey."
And nothing else.
You may be a victim of so-called "hey hanging," in which a coworker sends a brief greeting in an instant message but does not actually tell you what they want — leading you to, naturally, enter an anxiety spiral of speculation about whether you've done something horribly wrong or if you're about to get pulled off task into another project.
Or maybe you've been the one to send a "hi hi" or "heya" or "hello" and then forgotten to follow up.
The practice of "hey hanging," as it was called in The Wall Street Journal, is a small way in which coworkers can find themselves out of step with each other, especially in the age of remote work, which studies suggest has negatively impacted communication in the workplace.
Workers who engage in "hey hanging" may not see the harm in it, or they might intend to send a quick follow-up but get distracted or pulled into another task themselves. Regardless of why they do it, some people on the receiving end are begging them to stop.
There's even a website dedicated to condemning the practice: nohello.net.
"Please don't say just hello in chat," the website says, "Imagine calling someone on the phone, going hello! then putting them on hold..."
"Just ask the question!" the website reads, along with a whining emoji.
The Journal talked to pairs of coworkers who had different views on the subject. One brand strategist in Chicago told the outlet when her colleague "hey hangs" her via text, she simply doesn't respond until they send a follow up with the actual question.
But the "hey-hanging" colleague told the Journal she thought starting with a simple greeting was just being polite.
"It's kind of rude to jump into someone's texts and word-vomit whatever I want," she said. "But now I'm seeing it's a thing that people don't necessarily love."
Ultimately, if a colleague regularly "hey hangs" you and you find it disruptive, it's best to communicate to them openly and honestly that you'd prefer more information in the initial reach out, Constance Hadley, a professor of management and organizations at Boston University, told the Journal.
In part, because I could relate to having my editor "hey hang" me, I hesitated a moment before bringing this story up to her via Slack.
But she responded very quickly.
"ugh i do this to ppl all the time," she wrote. "and i feel terrible."