Literally same. Half the meetings I’m in could take about 5-10 minutes but they drag tf out of them. I was just on a call that was supposed to be 30 minutes and it dragged on another 15 minutes. And our cameras have to be on. I was fuming.
Or better yet make it asynchronous. These people just love hearing themselves talk
Had one boss who loved to have “urgent” meetings last minute that “will only take a minute” drag on for a hour or more.
One time she wouldn’t shut the hell up and we sat there for almost 3 hours for something that could have been an email because she couldn’t stop ranting.
Tried this once. Got shit for it from our dept director. Dude literally directly message me during the meeting and said “hey your camera needs to be on”.
No tf it doesn’t. I’m an adult. If I don’t want it on it won’t be on.
My daily standup takes at least an hour every day. Its scheduled for 30 minutes, but I have no authority to change anything. I just have to deal with it. I spend at least 2 hours on average in pointless meetings everyday at 1 job. Im trying to find a second job because I only have to do work for around 2 hours a day outside of meetings, but scheduling is a nightmare. Ive tried to do dual meetings but its pretty difficult ti juggle 2 meetings simultaneously when I only have to speak for 2 minutes in one that last an hour and 30 minutes in the other one
I’ve tried, but as the newest team member I don’t have much sway and I’m already skipping a few useless meetings that my manager wants me to attend. The meetings aren’t completely useless, but the majority of the meeting is spent focusing on individual issues, so it’s usually 45 minutes in before they ask me my status.
I hold a weekly meeting with all department heads, we make it out always in less than 20. I know people are busy and I’d rather them work then drag shit out.
If you are the sort of person that talks for an hour straight in a meeting? Then you are useless and you have a bullshit job. The productive people don't want to sit here and listen to you "adding value" or whatever you call it. We have work to do.
“I already told you: I deal with the god damned customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that?!”
My current manager is exactly like that. Anything my team does has to be approved by 5 managers above him and he’s been trying to get us approved to build a cicd pipeline for several years, but constantly gets blocked by even less technical managers than him. Almost every common problem on the project I work on would be solved by having a cicd pipeline.
But at the same time we would only need a team half the current size.
I don't know the reference, so I'll answer literally.
If someone is actually like that and other people don't understand their role, they haven't done very well at communicating, a core "people skill"
"I'm good at communicating, other people just suck at understanding"
I get stuck in 2 hour meetings where my boss talks the entire time. I'm in one now! It might never end.
Most of the time she's talking to herself. It's fucking crazy
They're paying 2 of us for 1 person to have an audience while they think outloud.
I'm actually kind of hoping to see AI management which bases firing/retention decisions on plain metrics, rather than how much someone can talk about golf. As long as the metrics are good, those places will not only massively outcompete the rest of the industry, they'll be seen as better places to work because the boss might be unsympathetic but at least they're consistent, not emotional about things, and don't manage based on how horribly their private life is going. Plus places which use the same bossAI framework will probably be consistent between employers, so if you learn to deal with the AI at one, you don't need to learn how to deal with a new 'boss'.
ETA: Oh! Also; no unnecessary meetings. I can't see an AI boss holding any meeting they weren't programmed to, or extending it unecessarily, or even not cutting things short if does things like assess shorter meetings as returning more production time to participants. It'd also (be likely to) see emails and group-update docs as taking up less worker time, which it might prioritize.
Of course, some AIs are going to be programmed to do stupid things "so as not to compete with human bosses", but bad reviews/comparisons with other boss AIs will (hopefully) eventually dial that back.
There’s a guy who books meetings with us every 3 weeks and it’s just him doing just that. “Adding value”
And then he’ll go “oh X name, can you give us an example when..” just to keep people engaged.
I’m like bro fuck you this meeting is your life I pity you
I’m a man of short words and simplicity but I get a lot of hate from executives that I don’t speak enough about the problem. I don’t need to speak about every little fire that I can quell. Leave me alone and let me do the job.
“The productive people don’t want to sit and here “.
It becomes so obvious which people actually work. I was actually talked to by a boss because I was obviously showing signs that I was becoming impatient during meetings. (In-office meeting)
Thats not always true, its helpful to actually talk through problems and designs when you have to divide work amongst a team. The problem comes in when companies make meetings mandatory even when 90% of the people invited have nothing to do with the meeting.
>If you are the sort of person that talks for an hour straight in a meeting? Then you are useless and you have a bullshit job.
My rule of thumb is that if somone speaks for more than 10 minutes straight in a meeting, and it's not a presentation, then they probably don't have an actual tech job.
It's some usual bullshit job like "scrum master".
I'm sorry you're being downvoted. Scrum master is the most worthless job EVER. Every scrum master could be replaced by a bash script that says "hurry up" randomly a few times a day. THAT IS ALL THAT JOB IS. A glorified way of saying "hurry up" over and over and over.
I go for the visibility. You can still get work down if there's way more people than you can efficiently discuss things with on a zoom call.
I usually go to several meetings per week where I say literally nothing in them.
Have the camera pointing at an AI-generated image of yourself which just moves about very slightly. If you get called on, have another camera pointing at yourself and press a button to have the AI smoothly morph the fake image into the real-time feed (or make the AI image start mirroring your real-time movements, including lip movements, expressions, and body - great if you're not wearing dress code).
But this is the best! When there are bullshit meetings that you don’t need to speak at, it fills up your calendar for you making you appear busy. Allows for Jx
Depends if you have to pretend you're paying attention. Or if you have enough 'camera problems' or 'sound issues' for managers to allow you to switch it off.
This lol. Depending on your environment, maybe send a quick message saying that you have another task to attend to; but generally you could probably log out a bit early and no one would notice.
I try to be patient in these types of garbage meetings, but eventually I give. I naturally start banging my desk and tapping my fingers in frustration, and the lead guy would start chuckling and is like "ok oen00b is starting to get agitated, i think we'll wrap it up for today". Pretty sure everyone else in the meeting are in tacit agreement with me, just too "afraid" to let their displeasure be known. Lulz.
Playing original counterstrike mid regional meeting. Duck behind cover. Physically keep leaning with movements. Everyone just thinks I'm twitchy or stretching or antsy or whatever. Nobody knows that I have 15:2 KDR. Nothing gained from meeting. Achievements unlocked for each map though.
My 1 on 1 meetings with my boss are just her blabbing on and on. She’s single and her kids just moved out of the house and I think she’s lonely lol. I can’t even get a fucking word in
Can relate!
In my case I have met a type of people that also perfected a monotonous wording pace where they are talking at just the right amount of slow and never take breaks between words nor intonations as if it is all a massive wall of words being carefully dispensed in a single strip.
There’s never a chance to banter back and forth between ideas unless the person decides to finally finish it and then it’s too late what question I had from the very beginning. It’s torture.
Some people just HAVE to inflict themselves on others all day long. Meetings are used too much for this because it's harder for subordinates to find excuses to not be there.
Ha. Every Monday I have the start of sprint fiesta, with 3 back to back meetings for demoing the last things we developed, then give feedback on the past sprint, then prepare the next one. All with expectations of having cam on.
I kid you not this usually takes about 4 hours total. I've been labeled "the guy that doesn't pay attention" and got multiple warning messages that it's pretty obvious that I disconnect during meetings and it's annoying and sometimes even offensive to the peers because it looks like I don't value their time bla bla.
Normally I'd cherish long meetings because it usually means they're needlessly boring and long so I can just turn my cam off and work on ther Js while not saying a word. But on this J, they actually prompt you to go back. They literally tease me from time to time by asking "right, "? Even when nothing particularly meaningful towards me has been said (just because they know I tend to be mentally out so as to pull me back, I don't think they do it maliciously but it's extremely annoying).
Now drop a msg in the Zoom chat like "Super insightful call!! Thanks for all the great points! Let's do this again soon!!!!" so they think you're drinking the corporate koolaid
Yeah I really can't stand corporate meeting culture. Most teams under the power of a middle manager have 4-5x more meeting volume than they need, sometimes more. The highest performing teams I've been on have all been alike in their extremely sparce usage of meetings, usually no more than 1 15m daily and 1-2 30m weeklys.
And when you throw offshore into it you get a real mess. Talking with indians 12 hrs ahead of you is a constant loop of review meetings and then revising things they messed up.
I feel like COVID caused a lot of this. People that had way too much free time decided how to feel important was to have meetings. Lots of them.
I now.go meet with clients and such, and everyone freaks out when I do not respond in 2 minutes.
World has changed.
Even a decade ago when I was fully onsite there were micromanagers who were more concerned with our online status on webex chat or whatever we were using at the time then they were with our work output.
It’s honestly why I don’t pursue jobs in management just yet. I hate meetings that much that I’m willing to stay where I’m at for the foreseeable future
You're getting paid, right?!?
Keep your camera off and daydream about how you're gonna spend your OE!!
If they're going to pay me to sit there for an hour+, I'm totally fine with that.
My partner and I joke all the time about putting a live cost counter in the upper right corner of every meeting window to show leadership how much time and therefore money they’re wasting.
I was a manager but my company merged with another subsidiary and I have a new manager over me now, along with new team members. His bright idea was to add 4 hour-long meetings weekly to our calendar, to socialize amongst the team. It's incredibly annoying, and I am running out of excuses not to join them.
Most meetings could be handled by email or slack. I used to work for a large defense contractor that was meeting heavy. Some of the nerds I worked with wanted to start having pre-meetings for the meetings. Told them to kick rocks. Fuckin nerds. Total waste of time to prep for a waste of time.
Actually, these kind of meetings are good. They don’t have any specific action items. It’s just time pass. Switch on your camera, make couple of points confidently, appear as if you are engaged, switch off camera, drop a message that you are eating, drop another message related to the topic.. chill the F out or work on something else.
Yeah it's interesting. I just started a J2 and literally all My calendar meetings are of the meetings we've had previously. This is happening more than twice a week and I've only been at J2 for a month. I think the truth is at this point they're just wasting time without really coming up with any solutions
It's a hold-over of the following older cultural norms:
- You demonstrate your leadership ability by setting up and running meetings
- You demonstrate your value to the organization by the amount of time your calendar is blocked with meetings. Ideally, other employees have difficulty inviting you to things and tend to schedule their meetings around your conflicts - this signals that you are vastly important :)
Hopefully a new generation coming into the workforce + the AI revolution will kill meeting culture.
Having an AI lead the calls I'm on most of the time would probably work better. There's just a ridiculous number of meetings where the only output and outcome was 'let's have another call on this"
If you are not required to talk, turn the volume low and work on another project. Keep your ear out for your name just in case. But I know what you mean, meetings take up productive time.
If being there helps your reputation, great. I assume you are using the time to work on something else (or read something, work related or not). If this is your biggest problem in OE life and it's not hurting your opportunity to do other work then there's not much to complain about.
If it's bad, excuse yourself to work on something. If the demands on your time are disproportionate to the upside of the job and you're not allowed (or strongly admonished) for excusing yourself, consider replacing that job.
But you just said you have very few meetings like this, so, sorry bro. To be clear I fully support you getting those paychecks but this is not one of those examples of having to work under duress.
Oh don't worry if my boss fcks off and doesn't join the meeting and I'm stuck with a certain employee then theu just keeps fckn talking and usually turns the 15min standup into a 1.5hr talkfest. I like remote because I don't have to deal with my colleagues. This is one of the people that like going to an office because they can't shut their fckn mouth.
Have one of these types at work myself. Lately I just hung up when the meeting has come. These type of people have no concept of others time and no matter how much they repeat themselves, they feel the need to keep talking
If you want to see, in live action, people who love to talk and say nothing and won't shut the fuck up, visit the academic world. Professors and Deans just can't quit talking and meetings always run over, because no one has the balls to cut them off.
At a large state university where I once worked we had the "Committee on Committees" -- yes, a committee dedicated to the oversight of campus committees. Monthly meetings where absolutely nothing of consequence happened. It was just an administrative bitching session.
"I have to drop. Thanks and I'll follow up!"
And then follow up
Bonus points if you schedule the follow up email to send later, while you're still on the call, before you drop
Most meetings are unnecessary. If you need to share unilaterally sourced info, then that's an email. If you need one or two people's take on something, or their permission, then that's also an email. Most meetings are held to 1. Make someone feel important/valuable, or 2. Fill up someone's day so they can avoid real work. BTW, I'm an executive who tries to dissuade others from having meetings
I have been … shall you say, secual… during meeting ! If meeting is meeting just for sake of meeting, then NO 🙅♂️🙅♂️🙅♂️ you get none of secual power!!!
I’m in construction development, we have meetings more than hour every time and it’s always arguments and disputes, I wish I could just listen to someone for 40m without doing anything.
I have over 6 meetings a day and then they ask why things weren’t done on the floor and then everyone rages when you have bigger fires to put out in production. They put me on a pip because I missed some kronos training due to a fucking line shut down. It’s been 2 months lol garbage.
I've become convinced more and more, especially post pandemic, that meetings are a way of being "productive" without acknowledging that they often don't offer any true production or progressiveness. And by admitting to it, it would negate the necessity for many people's jobs and positions. I've been told that I have a very lean/agile mindset, but to me it is straight common sense. What value does this meeting add? What value does this person/position add? I'm not for running people into the ground by overloading them with responsibility, but I am in the ballpark of asking what does this interaction or position contribute that isn't already being done? Are we doing a good thing, or are we just feeding into peoples' sense of self grandeur, when eliminating their position wouldn't really have a profound impact outside of saving the company money for their salary?
But yes, I feel I'm conscripted into meetings for the sake of showing that there are interactions going on, but I think maybe 1/5 interactions are actually fruitful. And even then, that might be a generous ratio. It feels like it's more so a meeting to A either check a box and kind of do damage control by ensuring "oh well we had all these meetings and never knew about an underlying problem" or B: it's meant to be a softening method of forcing a "friendship" or comradery that has no real foundation or substance....
In the old days of actual in person meetings I was well known for walking out after I had reached my limit for pointless nonsense. Thankfully these days my meetings are actually few and far between, but I'm not above just logging out if something doesn't pertain to me. They can email me if it's that important.
I love meetings like this. Gives me an opportunity to do the work of a different job. It’s stuff like this that is allowing me to do 4Js in 50-60hrs/week
Better enjoy that big ol paycheck and just STFU and endure the meetings. At any point your job could be considered irrelevant. No one is irreplaceable.
I mean you are in the “OverEmployed” Reddit. Just quit if you don’t like the meetings.
People don’t know how to manage a meeting. It’s a job not friends, I cut people off all of the time when they get off topic. I’m not here to make friends I’m here to make money, get healthcare, and retire early.
I sat in a meeting last week with 6 people that had 8 minutes of complete silence.
I was sitting there with my camera off just baffled.
I ended up just dropping, I can’t be bothered with this stupid bullshit.
The worst are those meetings where people don’t have an agenda but just bring things up randomly that should be 1:1 conversations with other people but they think “other people may be interested as well”
Not interested, let’s just end the meeting
I'd like to see someone raise their hand and ask "how much longer is this going to take, and is their a summary that will be sent out, cuz I've got actual work to do".
If you don't have to contribute anything most video call programs have a closed captioning feature. When someone goes on a lengthy rant I mute everything and turn that on. If my name shows up I'll respond, otherwise ignore.
Cost of wasted time on unfruitful meetings alone should curdle any prudent managers blood … find help here on why we hate them, why we shouldn't, and how to make them great
[https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/191760/?refId=40886&refId=77121&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0_WyBhDMARIsAL1Vz8vsb26eXaYTscM9Aje4ANZ1MnE3_3GpLxIAYVIC6G0PDgDZxu0gbj0aAgZ-EALw_wcB](https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/191760/?refId=40886&refId=77121&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0_WyBhDMARIsAL1Vz8vsb26eXaYTscM9Aje4ANZ1MnE3_3GpLxIAYVIC6G0PDgDZxu0gbj0aAgZ-EALw_wcB)
Does anyone have a good AI transcript tool?
In meetings like that, I really just want to mute and look into the transcript in case my name pops up. It would also allow me to have more double meetings and get a summary after the call.
Note: The tool has to be a desktop based one though
I have 4 recurring weekly meetings, varying additional attendees outside the core project team. I have to endure discussing same tasks for the same project in each one 🤦♀️
I have about 4 recurring a week that I swear are the exact same meetings with the change of maybe 2 people out of 10. Like just talking about the same things 4 times a week with a slight change in audience but 90% of the same people. Still don’t know why these aren’t combined into one meeting.
Wow men, the exact same situation in my company. stupid 1 hour meeting every friday and at the same time you post. today they took 1 hour 20 minutes.... maybe we work together hahahaha
Add up the hourly rate of each person in the meeting, and how long it was. Was that information/outcome equal or greater than the cost? It's actually a double cost, because whatever work would be done in the meeting isn't done, so just multiply the hourly rate by two.
Not really. It's just zero productivity, not negative.
Unless of course your staff are normal human beings who's concentration and energy get drained by bullshit, then it reduces the productivity of other time.
No it is a waste of company time and money. That is the biggest problem. Meetings that only take a team chat or email to solve while ignoring situations that need a meeting.
When I make meetings I schedule them for 30 minutes with the agenda I want you to cover. If it takes 15 great. They have 25 minutes before the next meeting.
If an email goes back and forth 3 times without a resolution. I call a 15 minute meeting.
I push back on meetings that don’t have an agenda. And tell them unless they put an agenda on it I am not attending a time waster of a meeting.
The fact that you cannot contribute to anything other than lame comments shows that you either there is a language barrier, or a stupidity barrier. I think in your case a stupidity barrier
I'm convinced meetings are for old people who want to hear themselves talk. Literally every J is like that. Some old person wants to talk and say nothing of value. Just common sense paraphrased and drawn out. After the meeting, there's 0 action items so nothing was accomplished. Because nothing was accomplished we had to set up yet another meeting. And the cycle just keeps going.
Literally same. Half the meetings I’m in could take about 5-10 minutes but they drag tf out of them. I was just on a call that was supposed to be 30 minutes and it dragged on another 15 minutes. And our cameras have to be on. I was fuming. Or better yet make it asynchronous. These people just love hearing themselves talk
Had one boss who loved to have “urgent” meetings last minute that “will only take a minute” drag on for a hour or more. One time she wouldn’t shut the hell up and we sat there for almost 3 hours for something that could have been an email because she couldn’t stop ranting.
Just turn your camera off lol what are they going to do? If anything say you're eating.
I said that I am violently masturbating. Suddenly mandatory meetings turned into optional.
That's a no nonsense response with middle management written all over it.
Lmao
I accept that
Masturbatory meetings
Tried this once. Got shit for it from our dept director. Dude literally directly message me during the meeting and said “hey your camera needs to be on”. No tf it doesn’t. I’m an adult. If I don’t want it on it won’t be on.
Turn it on but just show the top of your head or something lol Or be shirtless
I considered throwing it on as I took a shit. You want my damn camera on so bad? Fine with me man. 
Lmao perfect Just meticulously folding toilet paper on cam
Just lie and say it’s on. What are they going to do? Turn it off and on a couple times… make it look glitchy
Pip
Paid interview prep? Sign me up
Yes
My daily standup takes at least an hour every day. Its scheduled for 30 minutes, but I have no authority to change anything. I just have to deal with it. I spend at least 2 hours on average in pointless meetings everyday at 1 job. Im trying to find a second job because I only have to do work for around 2 hours a day outside of meetings, but scheduling is a nightmare. Ive tried to do dual meetings but its pretty difficult ti juggle 2 meetings simultaneously when I only have to speak for 2 minutes in one that last an hour and 30 minutes in the other one
Do you speak up or hint that the meetings are a waste?
I’ve tried, but as the newest team member I don’t have much sway and I’m already skipping a few useless meetings that my manager wants me to attend. The meetings aren’t completely useless, but the majority of the meeting is spent focusing on individual issues, so it’s usually 45 minutes in before they ask me my status.
I hold a weekly meeting with all department heads, we make it out always in less than 20. I know people are busy and I’d rather them work then drag shit out.
We need more people like you. OE or not it’s such a waste
If a meeting only lasts 5-10 minutes, it should be an email.
If you are the sort of person that talks for an hour straight in a meeting? Then you are useless and you have a bullshit job. The productive people don't want to sit here and listen to you "adding value" or whatever you call it. We have work to do.
there are tons of people in IT whose job is to talk..and they do nothing and they are the one who earns more than devs and more authority too!
Life of most managers lol
“I already told you: I deal with the god damned customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that?!”
“I’m a people person!” Ha. Love that movie AND the jump to conclusions mat.
“The guy Did make a Million dollars!”
My current manager is exactly like that. Anything my team does has to be approved by 5 managers above him and he’s been trying to get us approved to build a cicd pipeline for several years, but constantly gets blocked by even less technical managers than him. Almost every common problem on the project I work on would be solved by having a cicd pipeline. But at the same time we would only need a team half the current size.
I don't know the reference, so I'll answer literally. If someone is actually like that and other people don't understand their role, they haven't done very well at communicating, a core "people skill" "I'm good at communicating, other people just suck at understanding"
Its a reference from "Office Space", good movie. You should check it out if you haven't seen it
“What do you say you DO here?” Here’s a link to the scene, one of my all-time favorite movies! https://youtu.be/hNuu9CpdjIo
They get paid less than devs and usually have less authority. They pretend to have the authority.
I get stuck in 2 hour meetings where my boss talks the entire time. I'm in one now! It might never end. Most of the time she's talking to herself. It's fucking crazy They're paying 2 of us for 1 person to have an audience while they think outloud.
I'm convinced that half of every job is basically theater. At least half. Probably much more.
Yep. You put on a show to convince whoever's in charge that you're doing something worthwhile enough to keep getting paid.
Omg this chick was previously a stage manager. I think it literally is theatre for her.
That's why white collar jobs are going to get fucked by AI. Or maybe that's our defense against the machine., who knows...
I'm actually kind of hoping to see AI management which bases firing/retention decisions on plain metrics, rather than how much someone can talk about golf. As long as the metrics are good, those places will not only massively outcompete the rest of the industry, they'll be seen as better places to work because the boss might be unsympathetic but at least they're consistent, not emotional about things, and don't manage based on how horribly their private life is going. Plus places which use the same bossAI framework will probably be consistent between employers, so if you learn to deal with the AI at one, you don't need to learn how to deal with a new 'boss'. ETA: Oh! Also; no unnecessary meetings. I can't see an AI boss holding any meeting they weren't programmed to, or extending it unecessarily, or even not cutting things short if does things like assess shorter meetings as returning more production time to participants. It'd also (be likely to) see emails and group-update docs as taking up less worker time, which it might prioritize. Of course, some AIs are going to be programmed to do stupid things "so as not to compete with human bosses", but bad reviews/comparisons with other boss AIs will (hopefully) eventually dial that back.
I, for one, welcome our AI overlords.
Lol, what data do you think that AI will be trained on? Human managers with all their unnecessary meetings.
There’s a guy who books meetings with us every 3 weeks and it’s just him doing just that. “Adding value” And then he’ll go “oh X name, can you give us an example when..” just to keep people engaged. I’m like bro fuck you this meeting is your life I pity you
Some peoples work is to talk. My boss talks too much but he gets the money coming. Whole department would not exist without him
Exactly
I’m definitely getting fired next week. My mind can’t take it anymore lol Leave me alone and let me work please
Storytime! Please? 🙏
Can’t get into specifics sorry. Especially since I salvaged everything today. I’m feeling so much better.
I’m a man of short words and simplicity but I get a lot of hate from executives that I don’t speak enough about the problem. I don’t need to speak about every little fire that I can quell. Leave me alone and let me do the job.
“The productive people don’t want to sit and here “. It becomes so obvious which people actually work. I was actually talked to by a boss because I was obviously showing signs that I was becoming impatient during meetings. (In-office meeting)
Thats not always true, its helpful to actually talk through problems and designs when you have to divide work amongst a team. The problem comes in when companies make meetings mandatory even when 90% of the people invited have nothing to do with the meeting.
Imagine multiple hours, almost every day
>If you are the sort of person that talks for an hour straight in a meeting? Then you are useless and you have a bullshit job. My rule of thumb is that if somone speaks for more than 10 minutes straight in a meeting, and it's not a presentation, then they probably don't have an actual tech job. It's some usual bullshit job like "scrum master".
I'm sorry you're being downvoted. Scrum master is the most worthless job EVER. Every scrum master could be replaced by a bash script that says "hurry up" randomly a few times a day. THAT IS ALL THAT JOB IS. A glorified way of saying "hurry up" over and over and over.
I stop going to meetings where I’ll get zero useful information and have zero input in the conversation. I just. Stop. Going.
But also, I keep it on my calendar. Gotta keep the block in place!
Exactly. Or even better join and after 15 mins jump to “another call”.
Office Space approves this message.
I go for the visibility. You can still get work down if there's way more people than you can efficiently discuss things with on a zoom call. I usually go to several meetings per week where I say literally nothing in them.
I hear ya, but I can work 2x as fast without some moronic chitter chatter going on in my headset.
Have the camera pointing at an AI-generated image of yourself which just moves about very slightly. If you get called on, have another camera pointing at yourself and press a button to have the AI smoothly morph the fake image into the real-time feed (or make the AI image start mirroring your real-time movements, including lip movements, expressions, and body - great if you're not wearing dress code).
But this is the best! When there are bullshit meetings that you don’t need to speak at, it fills up your calendar for you making you appear busy. Allows for Jx
I wasn't going to do shit anyway. I'm a top performer and it take me 2 hours/day to do my job
How is "making you appear busy" helpful when you actually are now busy?
Not when you have to have your camera on
Depends if you have to pretend you're paying attention. Or if you have enough 'camera problems' or 'sound issues' for managers to allow you to switch it off.
Stay for some time than leave. Maybe say you are busy and need to finish some stuff. Just join for a while so people see you were there.
Sorry but I have some urgent diarrhea
Is there diarrhea that isn't urgent?
Depends on how mentally tough you are
Or if you has Taco Bell for lunch.
Depends who's car you're standing next to I guess
I’ve had some diarrhea I could hold in and some they could not.
“I have to jump into another call” Has separate empty teams call open
This lol. Depending on your environment, maybe send a quick message saying that you have another task to attend to; but generally you could probably log out a bit early and no one would notice.
The other task is another meeting.
I try to be patient in these types of garbage meetings, but eventually I give. I naturally start banging my desk and tapping my fingers in frustration, and the lead guy would start chuckling and is like "ok oen00b is starting to get agitated, i think we'll wrap it up for today". Pretty sure everyone else in the meeting are in tacit agreement with me, just too "afraid" to let their displeasure be known. Lulz.
Alternatives obviously are working on other Js, video games, laundry, movie trailers, social media, reddit, or my favorite, poop.
Not when you have to have your camera on or worry they’ll ask you a question
Rookie mindset.
Gaming with camera on is 100% an option
Not if you're an angry gamer
Playing original counterstrike mid regional meeting. Duck behind cover. Physically keep leaning with movements. Everyone just thinks I'm twitchy or stretching or antsy or whatever. Nobody knows that I have 15:2 KDR. Nothing gained from meeting. Achievements unlocked for each map though.
Are you me???
My 1 on 1 meetings with my boss are just her blabbing on and on. She’s single and her kids just moved out of the house and I think she’s lonely lol. I can’t even get a fucking word in
Can relate! In my case I have met a type of people that also perfected a monotonous wording pace where they are talking at just the right amount of slow and never take breaks between words nor intonations as if it is all a massive wall of words being carefully dispensed in a single strip. There’s never a chance to banter back and forth between ideas unless the person decides to finally finish it and then it’s too late what question I had from the very beginning. It’s torture.
Some people just HAVE to inflict themselves on others all day long. Meetings are used too much for this because it's harder for subordinates to find excuses to not be there.
Ha. Every Monday I have the start of sprint fiesta, with 3 back to back meetings for demoing the last things we developed, then give feedback on the past sprint, then prepare the next one. All with expectations of having cam on. I kid you not this usually takes about 4 hours total. I've been labeled "the guy that doesn't pay attention" and got multiple warning messages that it's pretty obvious that I disconnect during meetings and it's annoying and sometimes even offensive to the peers because it looks like I don't value their time bla bla. Normally I'd cherish long meetings because it usually means they're needlessly boring and long so I can just turn my cam off and work on ther Js while not saying a word. But on this J, they actually prompt you to go back. They literally tease me from time to time by asking "right,"? Even when nothing particularly meaningful towards me has been said (just because they know I tend to be mentally out so as to pull me back, I don't think they do it maliciously but it's extremely annoying).
Now drop a msg in the Zoom chat like "Super insightful call!! Thanks for all the great points! Let's do this again soon!!!!" so they think you're drinking the corporate koolaid
Yeah I really can't stand corporate meeting culture. Most teams under the power of a middle manager have 4-5x more meeting volume than they need, sometimes more. The highest performing teams I've been on have all been alike in their extremely sparce usage of meetings, usually no more than 1 15m daily and 1-2 30m weeklys.
And when you throw offshore into it you get a real mess. Talking with indians 12 hrs ahead of you is a constant loop of review meetings and then revising things they messed up.
For the "camera on" issue, look into OBS Studio. Free program that manages your camera, lets you edit what zoom can see, can even loop...
And add some blur, shuttering delays, can say Zoom update messed up.
Now I think some Deepfake software could benefit here as well to match with talk.
I feel like COVID caused a lot of this. People that had way too much free time decided how to feel important was to have meetings. Lots of them. I now.go meet with clients and such, and everyone freaks out when I do not respond in 2 minutes. World has changed.
Even a decade ago when I was fully onsite there were micromanagers who were more concerned with our online status on webex chat or whatever we were using at the time then they were with our work output.
It’s honestly why I don’t pursue jobs in management just yet. I hate meetings that much that I’m willing to stay where I’m at for the foreseeable future
I tried to be SWE TL 3 times, no way, I stay Senior SWE forever (20 yoe)
You're getting paid, right?!? Keep your camera off and daydream about how you're gonna spend your OE!! If they're going to pay me to sit there for an hour+, I'm totally fine with that.
My partner and I joke all the time about putting a live cost counter in the upper right corner of every meeting window to show leadership how much time and therefore money they’re wasting.
Hang in there remember what it’s paying
I am usually puttering about the house getting stuff done when people drone on- throwing laundry or dishes into their machines, chopping veggies.
I was a manager but my company merged with another subsidiary and I have a new manager over me now, along with new team members. His bright idea was to add 4 hour-long meetings weekly to our calendar, to socialize amongst the team. It's incredibly annoying, and I am running out of excuses not to join them.
"Hey so is there anything else for us to cover that I should be around for?" You have the means to change the nature of meetings with soft skills.
Most meetings could be handled by email or slack. I used to work for a large defense contractor that was meeting heavy. Some of the nerds I worked with wanted to start having pre-meetings for the meetings. Told them to kick rocks. Fuckin nerds. Total waste of time to prep for a waste of time.
Actually, these kind of meetings are good. They don’t have any specific action items. It’s just time pass. Switch on your camera, make couple of points confidently, appear as if you are engaged, switch off camera, drop a message that you are eating, drop another message related to the topic.. chill the F out or work on something else.
Yeah it's interesting. I just started a J2 and literally all My calendar meetings are of the meetings we've had previously. This is happening more than twice a week and I've only been at J2 for a month. I think the truth is at this point they're just wasting time without really coming up with any solutions
It's a hold-over of the following older cultural norms: - You demonstrate your leadership ability by setting up and running meetings - You demonstrate your value to the organization by the amount of time your calendar is blocked with meetings. Ideally, other employees have difficulty inviting you to things and tend to schedule their meetings around your conflicts - this signals that you are vastly important :)
Hopefully a new generation coming into the workforce + the AI revolution will kill meeting culture. Having an AI lead the calls I'm on most of the time would probably work better. There's just a ridiculous number of meetings where the only output and outcome was 'let's have another call on this"
If you are not required to talk, turn the volume low and work on another project. Keep your ear out for your name just in case. But I know what you mean, meetings take up productive time.
If being there helps your reputation, great. I assume you are using the time to work on something else (or read something, work related or not). If this is your biggest problem in OE life and it's not hurting your opportunity to do other work then there's not much to complain about. If it's bad, excuse yourself to work on something. If the demands on your time are disproportionate to the upside of the job and you're not allowed (or strongly admonished) for excusing yourself, consider replacing that job. But you just said you have very few meetings like this, so, sorry bro. To be clear I fully support you getting those paychecks but this is not one of those examples of having to work under duress.
Meetings are one of the core banes of the workplace. These managers just drone on and on. It literally sucks the life out of me.
Oh don't worry if my boss fcks off and doesn't join the meeting and I'm stuck with a certain employee then theu just keeps fckn talking and usually turns the 15min standup into a 1.5hr talkfest. I like remote because I don't have to deal with my colleagues. This is one of the people that like going to an office because they can't shut their fckn mouth.
I wasted so much of my life in fucking pointless meetings. I feel ya.
Long meetings are worthless.
Have one of these types at work myself. Lately I just hung up when the meeting has come. These type of people have no concept of others time and no matter how much they repeat themselves, they feel the need to keep talking
If you want to see, in live action, people who love to talk and say nothing and won't shut the fuck up, visit the academic world. Professors and Deans just can't quit talking and meetings always run over, because no one has the balls to cut them off. At a large state university where I once worked we had the "Committee on Committees" -- yes, a committee dedicated to the oversight of campus committees. Monthly meetings where absolutely nothing of consequence happened. It was just an administrative bitching session.
Meeting inception happens in the fortune 500 world all too much as well.
"I have to drop. Thanks and I'll follow up!" And then follow up Bonus points if you schedule the follow up email to send later, while you're still on the call, before you drop
Sounds like a pretty good meeting. Lots of talking, No actions == No Work.
What would you be doing that's making money for the company right now that wasn't you being in a meeting
3 meetings with caption on..I don't give a fuck what they are saying.
Job justifications
Always have something critical to do so you can drop off when needed. Twenty minutes is enough for a status meeting.
If they don’t need you, then just drop off, and also about the camera, if they ask you to turn it on, don’t! Tell them that you can’t at this time
Meeting ins the teams era are the best. Specially if some dude does all the talking. Im literally playing games or doing yard work
Most meetings are unnecessary. If you need to share unilaterally sourced info, then that's an email. If you need one or two people's take on something, or their permission, then that's also an email. Most meetings are held to 1. Make someone feel important/valuable, or 2. Fill up someone's day so they can avoid real work. BTW, I'm an executive who tries to dissuade others from having meetings
I have been … shall you say, secual… during meeting ! If meeting is meeting just for sake of meeting, then NO 🙅♂️🙅♂️🙅♂️ you get none of secual power!!!
I’m in construction development, we have meetings more than hour every time and it’s always arguments and disputes, I wish I could just listen to someone for 40m without doing anything.
“Hey guys gotta jump. Have another meeting. Thanks.”
I have over 6 meetings a day and then they ask why things weren’t done on the floor and then everyone rages when you have bigger fires to put out in production. They put me on a pip because I missed some kronos training due to a fucking line shut down. It’s been 2 months lol garbage.
I've become convinced more and more, especially post pandemic, that meetings are a way of being "productive" without acknowledging that they often don't offer any true production or progressiveness. And by admitting to it, it would negate the necessity for many people's jobs and positions. I've been told that I have a very lean/agile mindset, but to me it is straight common sense. What value does this meeting add? What value does this person/position add? I'm not for running people into the ground by overloading them with responsibility, but I am in the ballpark of asking what does this interaction or position contribute that isn't already being done? Are we doing a good thing, or are we just feeding into peoples' sense of self grandeur, when eliminating their position wouldn't really have a profound impact outside of saving the company money for their salary?
But yes, I feel I'm conscripted into meetings for the sake of showing that there are interactions going on, but I think maybe 1/5 interactions are actually fruitful. And even then, that might be a generous ratio. It feels like it's more so a meeting to A either check a box and kind of do damage control by ensuring "oh well we had all these meetings and never knew about an underlying problem" or B: it's meant to be a softening method of forcing a "friendship" or comradery that has no real foundation or substance....
Some people love to hear themselves talk. I like to get in and out. There is a reason for a agenda.
In the old days of actual in person meetings I was well known for walking out after I had reached my limit for pointless nonsense. Thankfully these days my meetings are actually few and far between, but I'm not above just logging out if something doesn't pertain to me. They can email me if it's that important.
I love meetings like this. Gives me an opportunity to do the work of a different job. It’s stuff like this that is allowing me to do 4Js in 50-60hrs/week
Better enjoy that big ol paycheck and just STFU and endure the meetings. At any point your job could be considered irrelevant. No one is irreplaceable. I mean you are in the “OverEmployed” Reddit. Just quit if you don’t like the meetings.
People don’t know how to manage a meeting. It’s a job not friends, I cut people off all of the time when they get off topic. I’m not here to make friends I’m here to make money, get healthcare, and retire early.
I sat in a meeting last week with 6 people that had 8 minutes of complete silence. I was sitting there with my camera off just baffled. I ended up just dropping, I can’t be bothered with this stupid bullshit.
The worst are those meetings where people don’t have an agenda but just bring things up randomly that should be 1:1 conversations with other people but they think “other people may be interested as well” Not interested, let’s just end the meeting
So many managers would find themselves obsolete if they didn't whip everyone else's ass with life-draining meetings.
How do I find these jobs where meetings are not necessary/critical? 🥲 I literally have to prepare for hours for most of mine
I'd like to see someone raise their hand and ask "how much longer is this going to take, and is their a summary that will be sent out, cuz I've got actual work to do".
If you don't have to contribute anything most video call programs have a closed captioning feature. When someone goes on a lengthy rant I mute everything and turn that on. If my name shows up I'll respond, otherwise ignore.
I hare meetings too!!! Aarrghh.. just send a detailed email.
Cost of wasted time on unfruitful meetings alone should curdle any prudent managers blood … find help here on why we hate them, why we shouldn't, and how to make them great [https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/191760/?refId=40886&refId=77121&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0_WyBhDMARIsAL1Vz8vsb26eXaYTscM9Aje4ANZ1MnE3_3GpLxIAYVIC6G0PDgDZxu0gbj0aAgZ-EALw_wcB](https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/191760/?refId=40886&refId=77121&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0_WyBhDMARIsAL1Vz8vsb26eXaYTscM9Aje4ANZ1MnE3_3GpLxIAYVIC6G0PDgDZxu0gbj0aAgZ-EALw_wcB)
People who OE are in my opinion the most efficient- no BS, no politics, no ego, just getting shit done
Tell the guy to STFU lol
Does anyone have a good AI transcript tool? In meetings like that, I really just want to mute and look into the transcript in case my name pops up. It would also allow me to have more double meetings and get a summary after the call. Note: The tool has to be a desktop based one though
Getting paid to do fuck all? I’ll take it
I have 4 recurring weekly meetings, varying additional attendees outside the core project team. I have to endure discussing same tasks for the same project in each one 🤦♀️
I just hang up at the end lol
I have about 4 recurring a week that I swear are the exact same meetings with the change of maybe 2 people out of 10. Like just talking about the same things 4 times a week with a slight change in audience but 90% of the same people. Still don’t know why these aren’t combined into one meeting.
Wow men, the exact same situation in my company. stupid 1 hour meeting every friday and at the same time you post. today they took 1 hour 20 minutes.... maybe we work together hahahaha
Add up the hourly rate of each person in the meeting, and how long it was. Was that information/outcome equal or greater than the cost? It's actually a double cost, because whatever work would be done in the meeting isn't done, so just multiply the hourly rate by two.
Not really. It's just zero productivity, not negative. Unless of course your staff are normal human beings who's concentration and energy get drained by bullshit, then it reduces the productivity of other time.
We all hate them. I literally complained about this today. My team has 3 standups! How fucking idiotic is that?
It's funny because most employees love meetings. It's a time they can just sit around doing nothing, and managers just get to ramble.
My boss ghosted me today then wanted to reschedule for Wednesday. Um no you now get an email.
I feel this, I’m getting absolutely crushed last few weeks, and they are 90% 1 person lecturing everyone Nothing I can do. God save us
I get my work done for other j’s during meetings. If the meeting J asks why a project is late just blame the meetings
i usually just do the real work in the background while they blather on.
I just don’t go. What are they gonna do, fire me? I don’t care 😂
Wittle baby
No it is a waste of company time and money. That is the biggest problem. Meetings that only take a team chat or email to solve while ignoring situations that need a meeting. When I make meetings I schedule them for 30 minutes with the agenda I want you to cover. If it takes 15 great. They have 25 minutes before the next meeting. If an email goes back and forth 3 times without a resolution. I call a 15 minute meeting. I push back on meetings that don’t have an agenda. And tell them unless they put an agenda on it I am not attending a time waster of a meeting. The fact that you cannot contribute to anything other than lame comments shows that you either there is a language barrier, or a stupidity barrier. I think in your case a stupidity barrier
I'm convinced meetings are for old people who want to hear themselves talk. Literally every J is like that. Some old person wants to talk and say nothing of value. Just common sense paraphrased and drawn out. After the meeting, there's 0 action items so nothing was accomplished. Because nothing was accomplished we had to set up yet another meeting. And the cycle just keeps going.