Facebook Messenger isn’t that intrusive. You may get a bing, and a message awaits your reading. Or perhaps it’s just a notification, and or a chat head. Look at it when you want.

At work (we use Skype {for now}), there are similar bings. But these messages can be important. They may require immediate attention. Or attention soon. At least before you go home for the day, right?

“Hi. Can you tell me what the spend rate was for October?” Or
“GM. How long will it be before UAT starts?” Or even
“Sorry for the interruption, but can you IM for a moment?”
Whatever. But there were times when these pings were interruptions. You’re in the middle of a thought, and bing, someone wants to know something. But what is annoying are those that just interrupt with “What time is that call?” Or “Do you have the URL for that financial file?”

How hard would it be to say “Hi” first? Seriously, how rude is it that you interrupt someone…. and don’t least say “hi”? Or “good morning”? YOU are interrupting ME. And after we have whatever chat we do, I’m going to have to get my brain back on track to focus on what it was I was focused on.

Especially the ones that fail to say “hello” (yes, I know, Messenger can be the same way).

And as I mentioned in the “Knock knock knock” post, the IMs increased due to COVID. So the frequency of those rude interruptions increased too.