I can’t conceive of working in an environment where coworkers are enraged by minor communication differences. Like wow you just work with a bunch of assholes.
Probably that’s the thing to solve for, not “hello”, “query” vs “hello, query”.
...there must be some psychology student out there to whom this thread is an absolute gold mine for their Ph.D. thesis. ...or maybe a standup comedian.
> You cannot control how a recipient receives your message.
My point exactly. Only problem: If A hurts B's feelings, that doesn't automatically mean B has the moral high ground and A is therefore in the wrong.
If B plays the "hurt feelings" card after A has done nothing to give offense other than start a conversation with "hello" in a text chat where they had no way of discerning B's emotional state, then that's the best example I've encountered yet, of a situation where A's hurt feelings clearly seem like A's problem.
I already established that (a) I'm one of those hello people. (b) I'm allowing this conversation to change my behaviour, based on the fact that I simply never had any idea that people could take offence from a "hello". If your definition of "learn" is "coming around to your point of view", that would seem to make me a counterexample to your psychological typology.
But it still rubs me the wrong way to think that this society is leaving the business of "creation of cultural norms" to crybabies. Show me a group that's complaining about being said "hello" to, and I'll show you a group that needs to check their privilege.
No, I got all that from my multiple years of repeated interactions with "hello" people and noticing a consistent pattern.
Maybe you don't fit that mold and just like to say hello and you are a good coworker without all the bad traits I mentioned. Didn't mean to make this personal... just sharing my observations of the past.
My data point: it enrages everyone I know. And they lose respect for the person who said "hello" and wasted their time.