A salutation like "Hey" invariably got a return of "Hay is for horses" when I was a child. Hey was definitely at that time considered a lazy, disrespectful greeting; it gave off the impression that you had forgotten the actual name of the person you were addressing. As the years went by, I didn't have much difficulty shaking off my childood tendency to "hey" people.
Hey is back in style in a new arena: MESSAGES. With answering machines at home, and voicemail for both cellular and business users, people of all ages and walks of life have pulled hey off the shelf as the first word of every message they leave. It's immediately apparent when you have a whole boxful of messages, and you quickly scan through them, listening to only the first couple of words: "Hey, Sam, it's Evelyn..." and "Hey, Edna, just wanted to touch base with you..." and "Hey, Sam, did you find that book I loaned you?" Scan quickly through your voicemails and you get a full-throttle rush of "Hey--Hey--Hey--Hey--Hey--HEY."
When I happen to actually pick up the phone, I find that the callers do not start off with "hey"---they typically call me by my name. "Ellen, it's Susan. Did you find the book I loaned you?" So why is HEY only a popular greeting on a message? I have listened to a lot of voicemails in my day, and even the non-spontaneous ones (like the Boss reading a scripted announcement) start with hey. Now that I am super-aware of the ubiquitous HEY, it almost shocks me to get a message that starts with "This is Susan from accounting..." or "Greetings All!"
I am now a conscientous objector to HEY-messaging. I not only refuse to leave a HEY-message, I am considering escalating my protest to the next level: deleting the voicemail as soon as I hear the word. This will certainly free up a lot of time, as only 1% of the messages I get start with anything other than hey...and most of that 1% are calls from "tone" (fax machines accidentally calling my phone).
Now that I've pointed this out to you, the HEYs of your world will start to crush you down as well. JOIN THE RESISTANCE!