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In 27 years of meetings, I've only been to 5 that couldn't have been replaced by a 3-paragraph email. I hate meetings.

dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
I share your feelings. Although I have admit it depends on the industry and position a lot. When working as a programmer, I see meetings as an obstacle to getting my work done, period. If you really want something from me, write to me, and when I finish what I'm doing, I'll get back to you. However, when I'm working in consulting and other fields, meetings are the key. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what you talk about. Sometimes you can spend a lot of time not talking about business at all. Having a lunch together is also good. Having established this kind of relationship makes it easier to do business later. Everything run more smoothly.
rawgabbit 4y ago
People who can’t write coherently love meetings. The problem is, during the meeting, they can’t talk coherently either. I would not mind it so much except it literally takes 15 minutes of them unloading their jumbled stream of consciousness before they get to the point.
hhmc 4y ago
A surprising number of people can't write an effective 3-para email.
kortilla 4y ago
Do people not have discussions and build consensus in any of the meetings you attend? I can see a 3-paragraph email easily summarizing meetings but it’s not like people knew the summary going in or else they wouldn’t have had the meeting.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  what's interesting to me is that, for example, the LKML is able to "build consensus", or at least make decisions, all over text discussion -- email. And yet all teams I've worked on in corporate software development have relied on in-person collaboration or discussion to do that, in one form or another.
izacus 4y ago
> In 27 years of meetings, I've only been to 5 that couldn't have been replaced by a 3-paragraph email. The problem is that you most likely wouldn't read that 3 paragraph email and answer it in timely fashion. So meetings it is.
onion2k 4y ago
I think if something that you hate has been happening to you for 27 years and you haven't refused to participate any more, or fixed the problem, then (just as the article suggests) you secretly like it. Also the fact that all those meetings could have been a single email implies that you had no input or raised any objection. That makes me wonder why people are still inviting you to meetings.
- sparrish 4y ago
  This is a good observation and it took too many years to extract myself from organizations that were addicted to meetings. 13 years ago I started working from home and 11 years ago started my own business. We rarely have meetings or phone calls. We discuss and communicate async via chat and email. We try to get together for face-to-face time yearly for relationship-sake.

I share your feelings. Although I have admit it depends on the industry and position a lot. When working as a programmer, I see meetings as an obstacle to getting my work done, period. If you really want something from me, write to me, and when I finish what I'm doing, I'll get back to you. However, when I'm working in consulting and other fields, meetings are the key. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what you talk about. Sometimes you can spend a lot of time not talking about business at all. Having a lunch together is also good. Having established this kind of relationship makes it easier to do business later. Everything run more smoothly.

rawgabbit 4y ago

People who can’t write coherently love meetings. The problem is, during the meeting, they can’t talk coherently either. I would not mind it so much except it literally takes 15 minutes of them unloading their jumbled stream of consciousness before they get to the point.

hhmc 4y ago

A surprising number of people can't write an effective 3-para email.

kortilla 4y ago

Do people not have discussions and build consensus in any of the meetings you attend? I can see a 3-paragraph email easily summarizing meetings but it’s not like people knew the summary going in or else they wouldn’t have had the meeting.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
what's interesting to me is that, for example, the LKML is able to "build consensus", or at least make decisions, all over text discussion -- email. And yet all teams I've worked on in corporate software development have relied on in-person collaboration or discussion to do that, in one form or another.

izacus 4y ago

> In 27 years of meetings, I've only been to 5 that couldn't have been replaced by a 3-paragraph email. The problem is that you most likely wouldn't read that 3 paragraph email and answer it in timely fashion. So meetings it is.

onion2k 4y ago

I think if something that you hate has been happening to you for 27 years and you haven't refused to participate any more, or fixed the problem, then (just as the article suggests) you secretly like it. Also the fact that all those meetings could have been a single email implies that you had no input or raised any objection. That makes me wonder why people are still inviting you to meetings.

sparrish 4y ago
This is a good observation and it took too many years to extract myself from organizations that were addicted to meetings. 13 years ago I started working from home and 11 years ago started my own business. We rarely have meetings or phone calls. We discuss and communicate async via chat and email. We try to get together for face-to-face time yearly for relationship-sake.