New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Do you like it when your manager starts a meeting with “how are you”?

Ask HN: Do you like it when your manager starts a meeting with “how are you”?
3 by poisonborz | 2 comments on Hacker News.
After moving to a new country and position, I'm surprised how often I'm greeted with this question. Maybe it's cultural, but I find it extremely superfluous, especially in a work context. It signals a very cheap understanding of care: a standard one-shot catchphrase one can use to measure mood and happiness. Whenever I mentioned this everyone defended it saying "I don't use it in the _classical_ way, I actually mean it". If someone would actually care, one could ask something specific about the person (what game you played last time?) even without knowing background (what did you do in this nice weather?). Is it just me who is annoyed by similar conversational generics - do I expect too much of small talks?

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