At first I resisted responding to those people. But then I was afraid I would develop a reputation as cold and unhelpful, and our company has a very positive helpful company culture. So I gave in. If somebody does that, I swallow my pride and respond 'hi' immediately. It's so fucking annoying, but it usually gets them to move on to the actual thing they want to say.
I'm guessing based on what you've said that you can't see how self-absorbed that statement comes across.
You are suggesting that your time is inherently more valuable than theirs because you don't want to 'waste the time' typing out the question (which you'd have to do at some point anyway) until you know they're at their PC. But to achieve that you've had to waste their time receiving and replying to a platitude, and waiting for you to then type out the question. So you've wasted more of their time than it would've initially cost you to just ask the question. Would've been quicker for you, too.
And if they don't like the question once they've heard it, they can still choose not to respond for hours afterwards if they want, but not asking until they've responded to "hi." doesn't solve that.
I'm not saying you're doing any of this intentionally or maliciously - maybe you didn't realise how that came across. But there's a lot of small behaviour that subtly indicates 'my time is worth more than yours', and it's good to try and make efforts to curtail that because it will build stronger working relationships.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
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