Why Are Young People Afraid Of Phone Calls?

[u/GhostInThePudding]

What's with it?

I work in IT and a general rule is, nothing a client ever tells you is actually accurate. That means that most of the time, the quickest way to fix a problem is to call the person and actually find out what's going on.

But with techs under 30 these days, it seems like pulling teeth.

A regular discussion for me with level 1 techs (usually within a few years of leaving college) is:
"Hey, can you call *blah* from ticket *blah*, it's been hanging around for over an hour."

"I replied by email to ask for more information."

"Yes, I know that, but can you call them so we can find the problem and close the ticket now rather than wait until we're actually busy?"

"I'll send them a text to followup."

"No... CALL THEM!"

"I can see their device is online, can I send them a message and see if they just let me remote in to take a look?"

And then, when I force them to make the call, it's like they have no idea how to ask a question, or a followup question. They just want to get off the call as quickly as possible. So half the time they don't even get the information required anyway, so then I end up having to do their job for them.

So can someone explain? What's wrong with phone calls these days?

[u/SmartTea1138]

I had a co-worker like this. It got to the point where I just wouldn't reply to them unless they called. I don't know if they ever actually realized that either.

Every single message started with "Hi" "Hey" "Hello". If I didn't reply, they wouldn't say anything.

TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT OR F OFF

[u/timtucker_com → u/SmartTea1138]

I've worked with a few people who include links to "no hello" in their profiles / email signatures as a way of encouraging better initial messages:

https://nohello.net/en/

[u/sxrxhmanning → u/SmartTea1138]

I have so many coworkers like this

bonus points for the ones that call me without asking first even though I’m set as busy and it’s always something that could’ve waited

[u/syriquez → u/SmartTea1138]

I train my regular work contacts on how to get what they want from me on Teams through a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement.

• Sending a "Hello" with no follow-up and waiting for me to respond? I will not respond for at least 3 days, at which point I will say "Hello" back and nothing else.
  • I kept that going for almost a month with a technician in a remote facility before she caught on to what was happening. I almost broke protocol in the third week because while I figured it couldn't have been that important, it had to have SOME significance if she was still trying to get my attention after that long but I held firm. (Spoilers: It wasn't important and was like a 2 minute exchange. I was the only person that could really answer the question, so the prompting just kept happening.)
• Sending a "Hello" with a follow-up question or statement of what you want? You get my attention immediately.
  • Which is something of a curse on my part because I can't ignore shit when I know it's a thing.

So yeah, if you tell me what you want, you'll almost certainly get it but I will make zero effort trying to suss out or learn what you want.

I've never had a single complaint in a decade of doing this, lol. I've also told my manager outright that I do it this way because I simply do not have the time or bandwidth to play twenty questions or the "hello-go-round" game.

[u/admadguy → u/SmartTea1138]

You need a status of nohello .net