Meetings at work: classick or dud?

Bah!

The gentle whir of a projector is the most soothing sound I know, and guaranteed to send me express to the Land of Nod

I am no longer being invited to meetings! I'm officially redundant!

And it feels good.

Meetings are classic. I get to have human contact for a few minutes.

i've never learned anything in a meeting that couldn't have been expressed in a better way: quick conversation, email, phone call. especially after an hour, meetings are worthless for me.

most people don't know how to hold meetings. meetings and conference calls are for getting the absolutely necessary people all coordinated on a series of points in an agenda, on which all of their input is likely to be required or is expected. Then the conclusions on each point are reviewed, consensus is confirmed, and the meeting is over. It's like merging in traffic, it's an absolutely essential and fairly simple skill nobody ever, ever gets taught.

We have weekly meetings which are exactly the same every week without fail. The only point appears to be to give our Fridays some structure and make me anticipate the pub more. I've never got anything out of them other than a feeling of deja vu. That, and making everyone feel pressured to exaggerate the effectiveness of their week to not look like the underachiever. Except everyone knows everyone else is just saying stuff to justify the reason for the meeting, and not because they actually need to say anything.

They are an opportunity to zone out. Surely everyone remembers this skill from childhood when suck at an aunt's house or in a fabric store. Or in church.

I don't know whether to be disappointed or elated that nobody (out of 4) but me showed up to my 10AM meeting today.

I think that the organizer is ducking it because he didn't deliver on a promise he made in last week's meeting.

The majority of my meetings are one-on-ones with my boss where she gives me shit for stuff I've done wrong (though quite often we'll find that it was her mistake). She could just say, "hey dude, fix this", but instead she pulls me into a board room and goes over things in detail just to piss me off. I asked her once why we always have to do it that way and she said she likes to FORMALIZE things. FUCK OFF. So meetings = dud.

Massive dud. I always always zone out until someone says "blah de blah de blah isn't that right TOM" and I suddenly snap to, realise I haven't got a clue what's going on and hastily try to improvise.

That's awful, Bryan. Talk about absolute lack of people skillz on her part.

As annoying/boring as they can be, they are usually valuable and clear up confusion.

I'm lucky in that most of my meetings involve me just listening and then interjecting once in awhile to tell people when and why they are wrong. I'm kind of like Meeting Cop in that.

Can be classic. More often dud.

A classic meeting needs to be well-integrated into the work flow of the people who are meeting. It needs to make valuable information available to the attendees. It has to be informal enough to allow a free give and take among participants and asking questions for clarification, even a couple of jokes, but focused enough to not waste everyone's time. Finally, if there are donuts, they shouldn't be the focus of the meeting.

Dud. Tombot was OTM back in July 07. I have to run team meetings and they are the worst, because it's a 'catch-up' session and no-one can be arsed to let anyone else know what they're doing. In fact I just told my team that we are going to rotate the Chair, note-taker and agenda organiser as I am sick of doing it and getting zero input.

Er, I have not thought through what will happen if nothing changes after that.

if nobody is providing input to the meeting, why not just e-mail blast everyone once a week with what you have to say and attach an empty file called "Minutes"

Seriously, not a bad idea. At the moment everyone blasts everyone with updates as they get information in. If we all filtered that into a once-a-week update it would be refreshing... but I doubt anyone would do it (they'd never get it together to collate the info.

God I hate my team. And I use this hatred to cover up my own inadequacies. Great.

Meetings are hell on earth, except that 1 in 1000 where everyone becomes slightly hysterical and giggly and it's obvious nobody is taking it seriously and you get no more work done than in a normal meeting, but at least you get some good jokes.

the last two meetings i have been to have been GREAT. really constructive and with people getting quite excited, and actually discussing stuff.

GTD bot say everyone leave meeting w/action item next steps or meeting bad.

only classick with snacks

http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/how-to-control-meetings.html

Let’s say you’re a business owner or manager who suspects that your employees are scheduling too many meetings. You know that if they’re spending hours upon hours in conference room B then then you’re not getting optimal output out of your talented team. On the other hand, hate them as we may, sometimes meetings are essential.

So how do you nudge your employees away from excessive meetings while still allowing that, in certain select situations, everyone needs to get together to talk?

Arbitrary rules about meeting length or procedure may have their place, but the truth is the situation is fluid and it’s hard to design guidelines that will fit all circumstances, especially as your company grows. But perhaps you don’t have to.

Brian Bailey, who was part of the founding time of Gowalla, has a suggestion that will please fans of the free market. Set a budget for meetings and let supply and demand dictate exactly how each employee uses that allotted time.

Or, to put it more simply, make your employees pay for meetings.

just when you thought the world couldn't get any more horrorshow

This assumes that the cost is associated with arranging the meeting, but it would be interesting if there was a cost for attending as well. “Sorry I had to decline your meeting request, but I only have two left for the quarter and I’m saving them.”

Haha. "Sorry I had to decline but, you know, artificial scarcity."

Who doesn't love the email that promises an update on "organizational changes"?

fuck me dead i still hate meetings

'ok tom, you're gonna sit over there from now on, and me and sally and betty will all move our desks along this wall…'

Big meeting with our GLOBAL section head from the UK tomorrow at 10am where we all find out if we're getting laid off. WOOHOO!

Yesterday I heard my supervisor casually talking with a colleague about whether they'd prefer the severance or the current shitshow. Things are pretty open.

There's really somethin' special about the entire department being laid off by a German who says "We are trying to make zings more efficient."

Oh my god, I wish every day for the offer of a severance package. There would not even be a moment's hesitation. There's a leveraged buyout on the horizon, and I would expect that efficiency experts and fat-cutting are right around the corner. I endeavor to make myself appear wholly dispensable when that day comes.

I get 24 weeks. I doubt that's long enough.

Ugh, I'm sorry to hear that, brother. On the bright side, employers have never been hungrier. I'm getting unsolicited recruiter calls semi-regularly, which NEVER happened before.

Mandatory meeting on a friday with hundreds of people

Ugh

better get there early

for the danish

It’s not even done yet but i coulda condensed this 2hr meeting to 30-45mins

sounds like you should get together with coworkers and discuss that

We’re agile but not that agile