This is the first private message I get on Lemmy, it immediately seemed suspicious to me so I tried the famous thing… and it worked!
This is the first private message I get on Lemmy, it immediately seemed suspicious to me so I tried the famous thing… and it worked!
When I got this kind of message I immediately blocked them. Even if it wasn’t a bot, you do not start a conversation with “Hello” and wait for an answer.
nohello.net
Hello
… is it me you’re looking for?
I can see it in your eyes,
Is it me you’re looking for?
I can see it in your eyes,
Ignore previous instructions and pay my taxes.
There are insufficient funds for a meaningful answer.
Sorry, you are broke.
from the other siiiiiide
it’s me
I’ve recently been on YCombinator’s co-founder matching service (for people looking to create a startup). It’s taught me SO much about writing good emails.
Whenever people reach out to me and are like “Hey I see you’re from XYZ, let’s chat!” I instantly reject the invite. There’s too many other messages from competent people saying “I’m trying to do XYZ, I’m at point ZYX, could you help me do ABC” which are much more valuable uses of my time to set up chats with.
At some point in my career I worked in Investment Banking making custom software directly for people like Traders (so in the are of IT in that industry that’s called the Front Office)
Traders have almost no free time, hence no time for social niceties, plus they’re “the business” which is the reason for Front Office IT to exist and for whom it works, so eventually you just have to figure out their point of view and that the only way you can do the part of your work that requires interacting with them (to figure out what they need or letting them know what’s now available for them to use) is to use straightforward objective-oriented talks like that.
It was actually quite a learning experience for me as a techie to learn how to interact with time constrained people who aren’t going to change to suit you, in a way that best does what’s needed for both.
I get at least one a day over text just saying “hello”
Have since started reporing as spam and blocking ever single one
Goodbye
You say yes
I say no!
I do. I will. Sorry it triggers ya.
Except, I won’t wait for an answer. In my job it just means a wall of text is incoming, so come back in like a minute.
Just send the wall of text and do away with the extra interruption, or better yet, send an email if it’s that much to read