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For a short time I was "working two jobs" as part of a transition (everyone was aware) and I found it almost impossible to even manage one or two meetings a wee
by odonnellryan 5y ago
For a short time I was "working two jobs" as part of a transition (everyone was aware) and I found it almost impossible to even manage one or two meetings a week at each job - conflicts were crazy.
What are you supposed to do when you have a conflict, if you're keeping things secret? "that time doesn't work for me" "uh, why? I just hired you. You have another meeting?"
- xwdv 5y agoYou can’t just take any two random jobs, you need the right two jobs. One that doesn’t require meetings preferably.
- odonnellryan 5y agoHow many jobs are like that? All the jobs I have had, contractor or otherwise, require at least some meetings. I can't imagine a new hire who is making $150k/yr+ not being in a few meetings a week.
- MattGaiser 5y agoDo you speak in the meetings you are in? I have a lot of meetings, but my part usually involves joining the meeting and doing little else. I could plausibly see someone doing both at the same time.
- odonnellryan 5y agoAbsolutely. Not for the entire meeting, but I try not to join meetings (at least long ones) where I'm not going to be participating.
- MattGaiser 5y agoAh. Maybe you are more senior. I speak in maybe 1 in 10 meetings that are not standup. I have muted them. Taken naps during them. Most of the time I just carry on working.
- odonnellryan 5y agoAh, that does suck. Yes I am a senior developer (or like to call myself that... I guess..)
- MattGaiser 5y agoThat makes sense. I am just moderately experienced run of the mill worker dev. At every company I have been with, there have been meetings between team lead/senior dev and product manager and then there are 4-10 other devs just chilling while they have this conversation. Or the even bigger architecture convos involving several team leads and all their subordinates chilling in the Zoom. Have had too many fellow devs joke about how half our value is as a visual entourage. Could someone be in two visual entourages at once? Probably.
- odonnellryan 5y agoThat sucks! I'm sure you're aware, but the wasted resources are insane.
- actually_a_dog 5y agoAbsolutely. The GP scenario is a prime example of a meeting that should be an email, or, really, more like a wiki page.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI can see how a lot of it would be theoretically valuable if people had 5 year careers at companies, but that is not what happens. You are a very old hat at two years everywhere I have worked. I am in Canada, and we don’t really get equity like Americans do, and even if we do, not a lot of it so many people have 1 year stints everywhere.
- drenvuk 5y agothis happens when you ride along rather than drive the meetings and schedules. if you stay ahead you have control. it's when deadlines become an issue that other people start acting out of line with your predicted work windows.
- odonnellryan 5y agoUh, I don't know man. I don't agree. People will always ask you to have a meeting at a time that conflicts with another meeting.
- iwork3jobs 5y agoJust say to have it 30 mins later or whatever, problem solved. Come up with some excuse, or don't say anything at all. And then have the meeting and be as effective as possible during it. Cut bullshit meetings to a minimum. If you have more than 6 people in the meeting and you're not essential, don't attend. If you have meetings longer than 1h, try to go through the points as effectively as possible and underscore the conclusion dor each point until you get a resolution (important, so you don't get invited to _another_ meeting)
- odonnellryan 5y agoI am talking from experience here, not just out my ass. I can't imagine how it would be remotely sustainable with two full time jobs, nevermind more than that.