The Wangiri Method or why I'm not responding to your chat requests

Wangiri, a colleague tells me, is a Japanese word meaning?'one (ring) and cut'. It's a telephone scam where criminals trick you into calling premium rate numbers. If you have a missed call from an unknown number, it's a good idea to not call back :).

Have you thought about how many online chats you have, on average, in any given day? How disruptive are online conversations to your regular workflow and what we should change so that these interactions be more productive and efficient? I would appreciate some ideas from readers in the comments section of this article.

It is high time once and for all that this is acknowledged: saying hi and waiting for the other person to reply is a complete and utter waste of your time and of the other person's time.

Given the:

1. limited time we have available

2. numerous chats we have to participate in

3. variety and complexity of other tasks, apart from chats, that we have to solve in any given day.

... it is extremely tiring to always switch between conversations and other types of work.

A Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Microsoft Teams chat is not a real-time phone conversation. No one will have the time and availability to engage with you if you don't clearly state, upfront, the purpose of the conversation you are initiating.

In fact, saying hi or hello itself has ceased to mean a form of politeness long ago, or, better yet, not saying hi or hello has ceased to mean a lack of politeness long ago. I am constantly finding that being direct, to-the-point and showing respect for other people's time is way more appreciated. Just as we don't need to greet a colleague each of the 10 times we meet them around the office, hallway, cafeteria, stairs, lavatory in any given day, on a similar note, it is completely ok to not be redundant and skip the online greeting.

This is the year 2022 and, at least in a work environment, we'd better open a conversation by stating clearly what we want from each other:

- may I please have x

- would you please be so kind and y

- what you suggested yesterday will work just fine and also z

- I'm wondering whether you are the right person to contact about y

- I will need your help with q

- etc. etc.

Another point that must be made: even though the history and tradition of web-based chat clients says that they were created to sustain live conversations in real-time, that ship has sailed.

We cannot expect a person to reply instantaneously (again, not a phone conversation). So the argument that "I'm just saying hi to see if you are available" is invalid, because our conversation will most likely not be in real time.

Therefore it might be a much better idea just state what that person can help you with in the first paragraph, and they will reply whenever they have time.

I will leave you now with a cool website I received from another colleague that you can distribute to your conversation partners, whether they're private acquaintances or coworkers. Here it is.

Meanwhile, I think we can all agree that the work environment has increased in complexity in the latest few years, especially during this pandemic. As a consequence, we also need to respect our conversation partners and be mindful of how we communicate.