With most colleagues connected nowadays through instant message tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, the ability to summon their attention is just a “hey” away.
And that’s the problem, according to a new article in The Wall Street Journal, which names this new scourge of the always-connected workforce: “hey hanging.”
While the folksy-seeming “Hey” is a common starter, a “Hi” or a “Hiya” can suffice, too — but the effect is the same, particularly if it stands alone, leaving a colleague waiting for what’s to come.
“While the quick-drop salutation is often innocuous, it can leave recipients fearing the worst — or it can feel like a trap, its friendly tone masking that something else is being added to your already lengthy to-do list,” the publication notes.
To that end, the author interviewed employees as to what the hey is wrong with the dreaded hey, as well as Bryan Robinson, a psychotherapist and author who wrote a book on hybrid work.
He says those three little letters can actually trip one of humans’ most primitive instincts: the flight-or-fight response. “The brain has to know ‘What’s going to happen?’ for survival,” he reasons. “Our minds go, ‘I’m in hot water.'”
Employees who spoke with the publication agreed: “My mind goes to the worst places,” offers an account director who gets hey hanged often by her supervisor. “It’s like, ‘Am I fired? Am I in trouble? Is your mom OK?'”