Bad Manners and Brimstone

I don’t use instant messaging, but if I got a work email that didn’t explain it’s purpose, or a phone call with no message, I would not respond at all. If someone sent me a message of, “Hi, Jem,” I would likely hit delete and move on. It comes across, to me, as creepy almost. It reminds me of people I would block on Facebook or Instagram trolling for who knows what. If someone on those platforms DMs me with, “Hi, Jem. I wondered if you could share your experience with [thing I posted about]. I am specifically interested in how you got into [thing] and aspects A, B and C. Thank you!” That I might respond to. But just “hi Jem.” Nope.

I think that emails and phone messages fall into a different category than IMs. Emails and phone messages do not assume an "instant" reply that "instant" messaging does. Now, given, IMs do not always get an instant reply, but it's sort of the nature of the tool that it plays out more like a phone call, with the back and forth conversation, than a phone message where you say something and then wait for an undetermined amount of time for the reply.

At work, if I ignored people who didn't state their business up front in an IM, I'd probably end up with negative feedback for being non responsive. I may be annoyed, but I still gotta help my customers!