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I left out the "I" ("I helped ...") in my last message which is quite common in colloquial german. (Ich habe heute eingekauft => Habe heute eingekauft). But reading this again, I think it might sound like a passive aggressive insult that she did not help in the office. What do you think? I did not mean that at all.

She didn't reply to this message - for more than 2 weeks now ... :/

Me: How did your start to the home office season go? :)

She: It was good fortunately. What about u?

Me: Good to hear! Helped our ppl in the office today, so it is still pending. The overall situation is new for all of us, what do you think about it?

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    Got your question. Not only is "Helped..." normal in email messages, you date yourself if you treat interoffice chats like formal letters from the government, complete with Dear Name, every 'you' spelled out, and all other polite but lengthy touches.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 21:00
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    I would say leaving out "I" is less problematic than spellings "u" and "ppl". In other words: do not do it in formal writing.
    – GEdgar
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 21:48

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In your example

"Good to hear! Helped our ppl in the office today, so it is still pending.",

there are two opposing truths:

  • The sentence is perfectly idiomatic (= natural) English for informal situations, writing or speaking.

  • English (as well as German) is not considered a pro-drop language, meaning one can never drop the subject pronoun like this. Italian and Spanish are pro-drop. That is, at least in this context of a declarative statement, the subject pronoun must appear.

Pro-drop is the more common situation among the worlds languages. It appears in Some West European languages and in West Africa, but most everywhere else it's optional or obligatory to not have it.

But a linguistic rule can often be more of a suggestion. So informally... well, don't do it too often, it'll sound weird, as weird as referring to yourself in the third person too often.

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  • Thank you Mitch! :) I did not know about the term "pro-drop"! Since her first language is likely Hindi (though I don't know for sure), which seems to be a pro-drop language from my quick research, it should be familiar for her independent of the popularity in english. So maybe the Covid-19 topic was not a good choice and caused her to ignore the text.
    – alsdkjasdlkja
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 21:21
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    @alsdkjasdlkja I'm only addressing the linguistic situation, not the interpersonal one. For that, ask on Interpersonal Skills. But if that was the entire conversation, noting you said was strange, perfectly normal office chat. Maybe she just didn't have a good answer worth responding or she just forgot. Wait... -what- Covid-19 subject? You didn't mention anything about that?
    – Mitch
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 22:54
  • Yes, I sent it on the first day everyone started to work from home because of Covid-19 and I thought asking an open question about that would be a nice way to get to know each other.
    – alsdkjasdlkja
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 23:28
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    "never" is a bit strong. In Italian and Spanish the subject can be inferred from the conjugated verb. In spoken French many conjugations for the same verb are homophones, although they are written differently. In English most conjugations for the same verb homophones (as well as being homographs). This makes dropping the subject harder in English (I'm not sure if it's allowed in French) but not impossible. For example: "Been to the shops yet?" for "Have you been to the shops yet?" "My dad came over yesterday. Gave me a punch in the arm!" for "He gave me a punch in the arm", etc.
    – CJ Dennis
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 23:29

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