God, why are people so freaking meeting-happy?

[huesmann]

Cause humans are basically social creatures. Those of us on this board are misanthropes, so we don't get it.

 

looks like somebody has the case of the mondays!

 

[Kadarin]

Fortunately I work in a small company where the meetings that do occur tend to be more focused (like the weekly friday meeting for my group).

but often I find myself in a meeting about something that revolves around 2 of the 5-6 people there discussing something and the rest of us sitting there like dicks wasting time and money

Skoorb, if you have any kind of seniority or authority, is it not possible for you to speak up and ask those two people to "take it offline"?

 

[trmiv]

Originally posted by: kranky
Meetings - The practical alternative to work!

I'm another person who walks out of poorly-run meetings. Luckily I have enough clout to get away with it, and it brings embarrassment to the meeting organizer.

There are a few of us at work who got fed up a couple years ago with interminable, rambling, incoherent meetings and we started emailing the CEO about it. He asked us which regularly-held meetings had problems, and he started occasionally "sitting in" unannounced. That really shook people up, and those of us who had complained behind the scenes started passing the word that he only does that with meetings which he thinks aren't being run well.

He never had to say a word. If he shows up at a meeting, the organizer already knows the CEO suspects it's a poorly-run meeting, and generally there is instant improvement. But I still don't hesitate to walk out.

On those occasions when I don't rank high enough to leave, I bring my Tablet PC with WiFi, and get to work at about 75% efficiency anyway by working on reports, answering emails, etc. That's the way to go!

LOL, I printed that out and gave it to my supervisor, she loved it! She's hanging it in her cube.

 

[Optimus]

Meetings create jobs. I can pick out dozens of people I've worked with that I can only describe as "Professional Meeitng Attenders".

These people often have no concrete skills, I notice.


Skoorb: I've finally found a solution that works for me. My job gives me a laptop (with docking station for my desktop). I've started taking my laptop to the useless meetings and finding a seat where no one can see my screen. Then I connect to the network and I can actually get some work (or at least some surfing ) done.

 

[jjones]

I avoid meetings like the plague. Big waste of time mostly, but it seems some people can't wipe their own ass without having a meeting about it first. I work for myself so I'm not subject to them that much but every once in a while a client wants a meeting. I make it well known that I dislike meetings so they don't ask too much.

 

[FoBoT]

i have people trained not to invite me to meetings

i spout off and get excited/angry and spew bitterness and sarcasm so thickly that my boss tries to keep me out of meetings

 

[Parrotheader]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
i have people trained not to invite me to meetings.

I've finally mastered that too. While the rest of the deparment all has overlapping and intertwined jobs that require them to be working closely together I'm the only one who does what I do so I'm kind off on my own and don't always need to be in a lot of the meetings. I'll still sit in on some if I have spare time as I want to be involved and keep in touch, but I have finally made them realize that I don't need to be there everytime everyone else meets. Our current project manager is MUCH better about not pestering me about it. Our last one was a meeting superfreak wanting to have 2-3 meetings a day.

I feel sorry for our clients sometimes when I sit there thinking about how much time/money gets spent on meetings. Six people in a conference room all billing that meeting time at $100+/hr means a 2 hour meeting can potentially cost a client (or our deparment's profitability if we can't bill it) over $1,200. That's just insane considering that most meetings end up unresolved requiring more meetings.

 

[kenshorin]

At my last job, we would have meetings to discuss future meetings. Man did we have a lot of pointless meetings.

 

[bleeb]

Just SKIP THE MEETING and say you "forgot" or you "never got the memo." Quit your whining!!

 

[Mani]

The beauty of 802.11x...I just bring my laptop to every meeting and if it sucks I just connect and get work done.

 

[acemcmac]

My company never has meetings that I don't want to attend. I got to call a meeting once about network expansion and the system administrator, webmaster and VP in charge just looked at me and said "whatever you think is best, you have your budget"

:Q :beer:

lasted 5 minutes.

never been in a meeting over 20 minutes, never been in a meeting with more than 5 people.

 

[PatboyX]

Originally posted by: huesmann
Cause humans are basically social creatures. Those of us on this board are misanthropes, so we don't get it.

social is one thing...
but this is always business that leads to nothing.

 

[trmiv]

I'm digging this thread out of the scrap head because I need to complain.

In addition to our weekly staff meeting, tech meeting, and product meeting, they have just added a weekly "one-on-one" meeting with our supervisor. My company has 10 freaking employees! 10! And we need this many meetings to know what each other is doing? Next thing you know we'll be having a weekly "what meeting should we have next week" meeting.

I know what these weekly one-on-ones will be like.

"So, how are things for you here"
me:" Well, they'd be a whole lot freaking better if I didn't have 40 goddamn meetings a week!"

 

[damiano]

Originally posted by: xmellyx
I bet you waste more time on the forums

 

[Ogg]

Originally posted by: trmiv
I'm digging this thread out of the scrap head because I need to complain.

In addition to our weekly staff meeting, tech meeting, and product meeting, they have just added a weekly "one-on-one" meeting with our supervisor. My company has 10 freaking employees! 10! And we need this many meetings to know what each other is doing? Next thing you know we'll be having a weekly "what meeting should we have next week" meeting.

I know what these weekly one-on-ones will be like.

"So, how are things for you here"
me:" Well, they'd be a whole lot freaking better if I didn't have 40 goddamn meetings a week!"

hahahahahahahahahaha:evil:

 

[Ogg]

Originally posted by: bunker
My boss is forever pissed at me. I never go to meetings. My excuse? I was doing something that sucks a lot of my cpu so I shut down Outlook and didn't get the reminder.

I actually do something like that maybe once a month.

Thats a great idea :beer: