6 ms·

I bet there are a bunch of people in upper management who hear about this phenomenon and think that employees are skipping meetings to slack off (appearing to d

by jawns 1y ago

I bet there are a bunch of people in upper management who hear about this phenomenon and think that employees are skipping meetings to slack off (appearing to do work but they're actually playing Mario Kart). In reality, it's more likely that they're being judged on their attendance of BS meetings, but if they attend the BS meetings, they won't be able to make the BS deadlines they're responsible for hitting. So they're likely buying themselves time to do the actually important work, while still attempting to meet unrealistic expectations around meeting attendance.

mystifyingpoi 1y ago
> while still attempting to meet unrealistic expectations around meeting attendance I've routinely seen people attending a meeting from the office on Zoom camera, all gathered in a single big conference room, all looking and typing on their laptops for the entirety of the meeting, saying something maybe once or twice. I suppose they were simply working on their assigned tasks, listening to others in the background. How effective is that - I don't know. These days I don't care. I'm 100% "at work" when I'm in the office, so whatever. I just pull up my phone and plan my next vacation trip or whatever. When I'm remotely I take my laptop to the kitchen and start preparing stuff for dinner. Life is too short for this mess.
- theamk 1y ago
  Many meetings I've been on only require my attention for a small part. So I've been doing my work and listening in background; once they start talking about part I care about I stop my work and start to actually participate.
- celsius1414 1y ago
  > I suppose they were simply working on their assigned tasks, listening to others in the background. How effective is that - I don't know. If I’m doing that, I’m taking notes on the meeting. As long as the agenda items are at all relevant.
pj_mukh 1y ago
Having had been on both sides of this coin, I agree a lot of managers mis-manage meetings. But then there's those engineers who don't show up to meetings and then a month later come to you with a "I don't know how we're deciding on some of these critical product features" and I don't know how to tell them its because they skipped some meetings where they could've been part of that discussion.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  Just tell ‘em that! We had an internal RFC comment/discussion meeting on a proposed engineering standard. In that exact meeting, a dev flipped out and expressed exasperation that they weren’t asked to comment on the proposal. In the exact meeting that was one in a series of opportunities to comment on the proposal…
  - robertlagrant 1y ago
    Yes, this is pretty universal I think. Some people think software engineering in a team is writing code as much as possible, and doing anything else is bad.
  - skywhopper 1y ago
    Did they get to read the RFC before the meeting? If they had access but didn’t use it, then this is out of line. But if they only got the RFC during the meeting when they were asked to comment, then flipping out is overboard but the feeling is understandable.
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      Fair Q. It was a multi-week process where the doc was published/open for written comment and then we had a series of meetings for live discussion as well. The engineer in question just completely mis-read where we were in the process and thought this was being announced as a mandate in the one particular meeting.
- bargainbin 1y ago
  100% this. As some who’s regularly derided by his colleagues for “hating meetings”: I don’t “keep meetings to a minimum”, I “keep meetings to a benefit”. If I’ve called a meeting it’s because there’s a benefit to the instant vocal communication. If you’re not there, you’ve not attended the meeting, no matter which tools you use to record, transcribe or translate. Conversely, if I thought I didn’t need to be in a meeting, then I wouldn’t send a tool to gather stuff for me to then just ignore the tool output - because I don’t need it. These tools are a sign of cultural rot from both participants and the fact people are even making them shows deep flaws in how we communicate in the modern workplace.
LiquidSky 1y ago
These are the same executives/managers who lost their minds at the idea of butts not being in the physical seats at the office, so yeah.
apwell23 1y ago
> it's more likely that they're being judged on their attendance of BS meetings Some middle manager types in my company track emoji reactions to their messages in slack. I got written up for it, no joke. That was easy to automate though.
- david-gpu 1y ago
  I would be updating my resume and talking to old colleagues. What a load of BS you have to deal with, man.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
  That’s next level.
- briangriffinfan 1y ago
  That reminds me of when I worked at Kroger.
- esafak 1y ago
  You did not use the right amount of flair?!
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> bet there are a bunch of people in upper management who hear about this phenomenon and think that employees are skipping meetings to slack off Everyone I know in senior leadership sees this as a plus. It’s known that middle managers waste time with performative meetings. Their value add is just seen to outweigh that drag. So if they can perform and employees can work, that’s sort of a win-win for shareholders.
anal_reactor 1y ago
I skip meetings in order to play Mario Kart. Why? Two reasons: 1. My company offers no promotion path. I asked for a raise, and my manager gave me a project that is impossible to complete. Recently he admitted that the project is indeed impossible, but the upper management expected him to spend a year trying anyway. 2. I am often given very vague task descriptions, and when I come up with a solution, we keep having meetings until my solution is remolded into whatever my manager wants but didn't say explicitly. It's very difficult to stay motivated in such an environment, but I'm afraid to change jobs because what if I end up with a similar manager except I'll be expected to actually attend the meetings instead of playing Mario Kart.
tranchebald 1y ago
I agree that this probably says a lot more about the lack of value these meetings provide the attendees. I’ve been to enough where the organizer will stall and small talk to stretch them out to the scheduled time that I know some people are using these events to fill out their time card.

by jawns 1y ago

mystifyingpoi 1y ago

> while still attempting to meet unrealistic expectations around meeting attendance I've routinely seen people attending a meeting from the office on Zoom camera, all gathered in a single big conference room, all looking and typing on their laptops for the entirety of the meeting, saying something maybe once or twice. I suppose they were simply working on their assigned tasks, listening to others in the background. How effective is that - I don't know. These days I don't care. I'm 100% "at work" when I'm in the office, so whatever. I just pull up my phone and plan my next vacation trip or whatever. When I'm remotely I take my laptop to the kitchen and start preparing stuff for dinner. Life is too short for this mess.

theamk 1y ago
Many meetings I've been on only require my attention for a small part. So I've been doing my work and listening in background; once they start talking about part I care about I stop my work and start to actually participate.
celsius1414 1y ago
> I suppose they were simply working on their assigned tasks, listening to others in the background. How effective is that - I don't know. If I’m doing that, I’m taking notes on the meeting. As long as the agenda items are at all relevant.

pj_mukh 1y ago

Having had been on both sides of this coin, I agree a lot of managers mis-manage meetings. But then there's those engineers who don't show up to meetings and then a month later come to you with a "I don't know how we're deciding on some of these critical product features" and I don't know how to tell them its because they skipped some meetings where they could've been part of that discussion.

sokoloff 1y ago
Just tell ‘em that! We had an internal RFC comment/discussion meeting on a proposed engineering standard. In that exact meeting, a dev flipped out and expressed exasperation that they weren’t asked to comment on the proposal. In the exact meeting that was one in a series of opportunities to comment on the proposal…
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  Yes, this is pretty universal I think. Some people think software engineering in a team is writing code as much as possible, and doing anything else is bad.
- skywhopper 1y ago
  Did they get to read the RFC before the meeting? If they had access but didn’t use it, then this is out of line. But if they only got the RFC during the meeting when they were asked to comment, then flipping out is overboard but the feeling is understandable.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    Fair Q. It was a multi-week process where the doc was published/open for written comment and then we had a series of meetings for live discussion as well. The engineer in question just completely mis-read where we were in the process and thought this was being announced as a mandate in the one particular meeting.
bargainbin 1y ago
100% this. As some who’s regularly derided by his colleagues for “hating meetings”: I don’t “keep meetings to a minimum”, I “keep meetings to a benefit”. If I’ve called a meeting it’s because there’s a benefit to the instant vocal communication. If you’re not there, you’ve not attended the meeting, no matter which tools you use to record, transcribe or translate. Conversely, if I thought I didn’t need to be in a meeting, then I wouldn’t send a tool to gather stuff for me to then just ignore the tool output - because I don’t need it. These tools are a sign of cultural rot from both participants and the fact people are even making them shows deep flaws in how we communicate in the modern workplace.

LiquidSky 1y ago

These are the same executives/managers who lost their minds at the idea of butts not being in the physical seats at the office, so yeah.

apwell23 1y ago

> it's more likely that they're being judged on their attendance of BS meetings Some middle manager types in my company track emoji reactions to their messages in slack. I got written up for it, no joke. That was easy to automate though.

david-gpu 1y ago
I would be updating my resume and talking to old colleagues. What a load of BS you have to deal with, man.
vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
That’s next level.
briangriffinfan 1y ago
That reminds me of when I worked at Kroger.
esafak 1y ago
You did not use the right amount of flair?!

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> bet there are a bunch of people in upper management who hear about this phenomenon and think that employees are skipping meetings to slack off Everyone I know in senior leadership sees this as a plus. It’s known that middle managers waste time with performative meetings. Their value add is just seen to outweigh that drag. So if they can perform and employees can work, that’s sort of a win-win for shareholders.

anal_reactor 1y ago

I skip meetings in order to play Mario Kart. Why? Two reasons: 1. My company offers no promotion path. I asked for a raise, and my manager gave me a project that is impossible to complete. Recently he admitted that the project is indeed impossible, but the upper management expected him to spend a year trying anyway. 2. I am often given very vague task descriptions, and when I come up with a solution, we keep having meetings until my solution is remolded into whatever my manager wants but didn't say explicitly. It's very difficult to stay motivated in such an environment, but I'm afraid to change jobs because what if I end up with a similar manager except I'll be expected to actually attend the meetings instead of playing Mario Kart.

tranchebald 1y ago

I agree that this probably says a lot more about the lack of value these meetings provide the attendees. I’ve been to enough where the organizer will stall and small talk to stretch them out to the scheduled time that I know some people are using these events to fill out their time card.