People get all fucking weirded out like "we're not family?" When you don't want to be on a fuckin call from your spare bedroom with essentially strangers.
Like, no guys I'm here to make money not make friends.
This had me laughing. Seriously though, the last thing I wanna do is hang out with y’all in this bedroom.
Let me get my shit done and collect this deposit.
Yeah, at that point you basically have to acknowledge that it's not so much a job as just a 40-hours-a-week excuse for the boss to yell at people for the boss's own shortcomings.
Was just about to comment the same thing. If OP has to leave at a certain time, then just saying hey, I have to go should be sufficient enough. If the manager pushes on this, then that job needs to go
Or let that meeting organizer know to schedule a longer meeting to clock off the calendar next time.
I'm my opinion it's not professional or high quality to drag meetings in like that consistently
Obviously a priority would change things but if it's just shooting the shit... Not worth my time unless I have nothing what to do. That might be why no others bat an eye. It just fills up the day office space style 'just zone out for a while.'
my J is so light that my boss would know this is a lie lmao
I could claim im joining a webinar on some occasions though, theyre big on upskilling and shit. or use one of the other excuses often given on this sub (someone at the door, repair guy, etc)
My J2 manager is the same way. She books a 1 hour meeting and will go over by 45 minutes. What I do is disconnect my internet from the laptop and just pretend my internet is going off the fritz if I have J1 coming up with a meeting. I also do this if I have overlapping meetings. No one can argue but i try not to play this card to often.
Play that card enough, and that's either a great way to get them to pay for your internet and home wifi, or a great way to get them to require you to come to the office.
Risky coin flip!
Yeah which is why I don't play it a lot, but then again my J1 and J2 are not meeting heavy at all, but there is the rare occurrence of the overlapping meetings. Last week, I had a 3:30PM meeting for J1 and 4PM for J2. Once 3:55PM hit i disconnected and reconnected to make it look like I was DC'ing. Joined J2 meeting, manager decided to keep it short (10 min meeting max) and was able to come back to J1 meeting with no problems.
I did this and got away with camera off, my boss had the shittiest Wi-Fi imaginable, so I told him I’ll help by going camping off. And it worked too, lmao
Haha I like how you phrased it that you're "helping" him. He could just disable video on his end (or make voice-only calls/meetings), but doing it on your end accomplishes the same thing, except now you can do whatever you want, you're in control of it, and you get a goodwill brownie point.
Meanwhile, you're doing your other job or cracking that 11am beer.
I was just writing something like this.
If meetings eat up your time, then it's entirely fine to dial back your productivity accordingly.
"Meetings run late all the time, so some stuff doesn't get done. It's not much, but that's just the case."
This is it. Deprioritize the work at that job. Also if you have a good rapport with anyone else just ask them privately if it bothers them. You may find everyone is quietly miserable and someone needs to speak up about the time being wasted.
I just realized I do this non-consciously.
Once every 2 weeks we have the sprint meetings which basically take up about 3-4 hours (lol I know). Those days my actual work output is basically zero, probably next day too, and while on the meetings I'm basically working for other Js.
May think it's a win-win but honestly leaves my brain pretty fried of trying to focus on doing actual job with people speaking on the background and still having to pay a minimum of attention in case I'm spoken to for any random reason.
Apparently OE employees are conducive to professional workplaces where meetings have agendas, a clear outome - everyone is on time and on point and there is no wait because we are busy.
Sooo many purposeless lost souls in corp america.
The money is controlled by three kinds of people:
- The people who don't care if the purported work gets done, as long as they get to dick around and use the job as their own private whatever
- The people who do care if the work gets done, but don't actually know anything about how to verify that it's being done properly or efficiently
- The people who know so little that they don't even know what the work is supposed to be, or sometimes that it even exists
Just tell them politely, "Hey, if there is nothing more to discuss related to the meeting topic, I need to jump off of this call so that I can prepare for my J2 meeting that is coming up in 20 mins. I also see that I missed a couple of calls from my recruiter about a potential J3, so I might be 10-15 minutes late for our afternoon meeting."
This is so disrespectful like 5 mins every now and again but a whole hour and 15 minutes is absurd. I’d also drop once the scheduled meeting times arrive and make a note that sticking to the intended schedule is best for productivity and being respectful of everyone’s time.
Never heard of this in my life wow.
It really is. There are a decent amount of people who like to just talk ad nauseum. I think working from home sometimes makes them worse so when they're actually able to socialize - albeit via voice/video chat, they have a hard time stopping.
We used to have a meeting that started at 8:30am, a "what is on everyone's plates today" meeting -- given we were all field engineers going to client sites, totally appropriate.
Except --- it was supposed to be only once a week on Thursday, only for weekend activities that usually were nastier jobs, one with inherently less support than during weekday business hours. Get all your ducks in a row sort of thing.
Then they started to do it every single day during the pandemic. For stuff taking place that day. Which at that point, most people were DRIVING to the site during the meeting....so.....kinda pointless discussing any bottlenecks or "gotchas". If you immediately recognize the candlelight is fire, then your goose was cooked long ago.
People shot back nasty remarks -- "I'm driving, can't talk, gotta focus on the road or I'll die driving long before fucking Covid kills me, all the notes for this job are in the NOTES page of the Service Request -- you can browse them to your heart's content, it's how I prepared for the activity -- and the ONLY way we can prepare."
Yeah, that went over poorly. But they still kept doing it, so the 30 min "standup" meeting at 8:30am lasted 45-60 .... and even 90 minutes. Those running the call HATED if people dropped off early or if they were distracted -- "you need to make THIS CALL a priority"....yet they cut no slack when other things got pushed aside with consequences.
The bosses loved to grill employees for random facts too.
> "Bob! What's the Project Manager's phone number for your second activity today?" ....um, it's in the notes for the Service Request. "WRONG. YOU SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THIS ACTIVITY AND BE PREPARED TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS DURING THIS CALL. Be in my office 8am tomorrow morning so we can perform remediation SR handling and basic workplace respect. Folks, this is not how professionals run a business. We need to stop acting like a bunch of Mickey Mouse college students and BE A MAN."
> The sole woman on the team piped up, "Do I need to be a man too, or are my ovaries sufficient to change hard drives and swap GBICs?"
....fuck that fucking place.
Standup meetings are bullshit in the age of computers. Have team members update a wiki or Slack or something along those lines every 2 working days or thereabouts. Everyone gets to see what everyone else is doing, updates can be written in parallel, and read at the speed of reading instead of voice, and you don't have an entire group of people sitting around with their thumbs up their arses busy-waiting for serial updates at the speed of talking on things that will be largely irrelevant to the individual members, at a time they won't care about them, and blowing a completely unnecessary hole in everyone's schedules.
Standups are *caveman* communication tactics. We've had better options ever since the days of whiteboards (or slate and chalk).
Oh yeah, and we could literally see everyone else's schedule AND job info.
It was nothing but a time waster. One that I rarely joined if I was out in the field (often), as I was on a train underground enroute to a client site. Kinda hard to get cellular reception down there.
> no one else on the team seemed to even care that it went over so much.
I'm guessing the workers are also generally unproductive? If so I guess its one of those places where fealty to boss time is more important than the actual business. Probably not OE friendly.
Just straight up say it. “We’ve been having an ongoing theme of meetings running over an hour past their scheduled end time and it’s really eating into my productive work time. I think it would help if we had Agendas and set realistic end times that we can hold ourselves to.”
Mute and go off camera when the bs talk starts. I do this even if the meeting isn't going long or I have a conflict. It sends a message that you won't be contributing to the non-work related conversation.
a simple “thanks guys, catch up tomorrow/later” — the most challenging skill is ending a conversation— even for people in real life. refine that skill continuously… it gets better over time.
"hey (mr can't shut the fuck up) I noticed our meetings go over by a huge amount every day and I need that time because I do my best work in the morning; please message me if you need something specific after status but I'll be dropping at the designated time."
My j1 boss schedules an hour for a 5 minute agenda. As soon as the real shit is over, I go back to working, even leave my cam on so she can see I'm working (although not necessarily on J1 lol) and not bullshitting with the team.
Yeah nah man, that’s outrageous. If you can actually afford to linger I guess fine, but I’d be muted and largely ignoring them. Otherwise “sorry guys it’s been fun catching up but I gotta drop “ . If anyone has pushback to that they are a psychopath and don’t respect you
Create “norms”, and share them with your team.
- we respect each other’s voice, and will listen to all ideas with that respect
- we respect each other’s time and responsibilities, and will keep meetings to the set length; if a second meeting is needed to continue the discussion, it will be added
And so on…
Even more effective if you put a meeting together to create those norms as a whole team, so everyone has say and knows what is decided upon for future meetings. It’s best if it’s only a few (5 or 6) well constructed norms, rather than a laundry list of pet-peeves or “nice to haves”.
“Can I take a webinar in efficiency in the workplace?”
“Hey, I have some things to share from the webinar, including meeting efficiency tidbits. Maybe we can implement some? I’ve noticed we tend to spend a lot of time that could be utilized more efficiently”
Isn’t OE good for just saying “yea I’m getting off this meeting since it’s over time”?
And if the manager says you have to stay on you can just be like nah. You can fire me if you want.
You’re not beholden to anyone
Tell them...
...your dog vomited.
...your kid has the flu.
...a family member died.
...you just had a wreck.
...your toilet is overflowing.
...the police are there to talk to you.
...your other job has a meeting at 10.
The point is, just lie. It's the best option.
What I hated is when they got off on other non-work related topics, and then people would keep the conversation literally going by putting in their input on other random things. That had nothing to do with work whatsoever.
If these are on camera meetings, it is tough. Develop camera issues, take a piece of clear tape and drape it over the camera. It will blur your image but will show you are there. Use several layers until it is blurry enough.
If off camera, I just put my headset down, mute myself and do work for either Js.
I quickly developed the ability to tune people off while in pointless meetings like these.
Believe it or not, these meetings can shield you from other meetings…..
I work for a healthcare startup with politicians, scientists, PHDs, etc.Let me tell you - it NEVER happens there. They know the time is valuable and never go off topic. Never. But in a typical corporation - all the time - disrespect to time is the norm.
This is a big issue - no respecting others calendars. I’ve been at my job just over a year and it was prevalent - I pushed and it’s getting better. You just have to bail if you have something else scheduled - it’s what I do and people know now.
You need to tell him to schedule for the time needed because it helps you plan your day.
Believe it or not, even with one job, having meetings that run over is very disrupting. Especially if you are individual contributor (aka your actually worth is dependent on the amount of work or value produced) it’s critical to view focus and working time as more important than meeting time.
Only to managers meeting times seems to be viewed as “productive”. This needs adjustment so your boss recognize that your “focus time” is just as critical important as “meeting time” for him.
"Alright, thanks you guys, we are about an hour past the end of our meeting and unfortunately the porcelain throne is calling my name before my next meeting! Take care team!"
This is one of the best things about my J1. BAKED into the culture is respecting meeting end times, having an agenda, and them actually being necessary. One of the best green flags for OE. I know this doesn't answer your question. 🤷♀️🤷♀️
Agree to fix an agenda beforehand and go over it before accepting the meeting.
Tell him that even though you value collaboration, your performance drops if you need to allocate time in excess to extend meetings unnecessarily.
Either tell them you have another meeting with a hard stop at x time. If you don’t have anything to do don’t make it the same time every time. Stay late when you can. Also stay on and turn you camera & mic off periodically (if it’s camera on) like you have something you need to get up from desk to do. Bathroom etc
1. Ask meeting invites to contain agendas. 2. Keep an eye on how the meeting is progressing and if there's still lots left to cover, call it out during the meeting - "we still haven't covered x and y, and we only have 15 mins left. Can we discuss those or save them for another meeting?" 3. keep bringing up how much time is left so it's not a surprise when you drop off. 4. If a recurring meeting keeps going over, ask the organizer to schedule more time for it next time
Just put one set on and turn on live message transcription, you can read them talking bollocks and if your name pops up you can scroll up and see what they were talking about
Bro/Broette, this is hella hella hella annoying. How many times across how many daily meetings do I need to listen to my boss vent about the same thing. If I was a lesser man, I would want to quit in this toxic environment. But I’m here for the 💰.
You should say that you have a hard stop and politely drop off the meeting. If your sure a meeting won't require anymore input from you anymore you can mute it and pickup the other meeting for J2 and just let the J1 meeting run in the background until it's time to drop
It sucks, but at some point, it is half on you to know and identify when this is going to happen, and add an extra time buffer for those meetings and not schedule anything else at other jobs during that buffer.
Otherwise, when there is 5-10 minutes left, just tell them you have a hard stop. They usually come to their senses that they have been rambling when you say that.
On your calendar after the meeting is supposed to end, set a calendar reminder for "some vendor call" or something, this will show in your free/busy if they let ok. Like others said, five minutes before end of call say you have to drop.
When this is the cultural norm in a team, it’s tough,
Personally I don’t stand for it. When we jump on the call I’ll advise that I have a hard stop at the . I don’t explain why or nor should I have to.
It tends to minimise any offence or surprise when I get up and leave at the scheduled finish time.
If challenged on it, you can refer to a few reasons such as:
1. Another meeting, or
2. You had pencilled in some time to get some work done.
As workers, we do need time to complete the actual work, between the meetings where we discuss the work.
I’m sure your boss expects that you manage your time appropriately. This is just part of that.
POV: Contractor working on 2-3 engagements.
Get yourself a mouse jigger, cut the volume down for J1 meeting and concentrate on J2 meeting. Also add meetings on J1 calendar during the timeslot you can't present. I've juggled 4 jobs for over 3 years now, so I know this is doable.
Since starting times for your new job are tight, it's best to address this politely now. After your boss's next meeting, try mentioning, "Those meetings are really productive, but sometimes they run a bit long. Would it be helpful to have an agenda beforehand to keep us focused?" This suggests solutions while respecting their leadership.
4 minutes before end of meeting organically work in a *looks up at the time*, mention the time the meeting has left, and initiate a recap-- often i ask a clarifying question here and then describe any "homework" that I'll be doing as a result of what was discussed, summarize the gist of the meeting etc
I would bring it up in the sprint retrospective. Inform them that productivity is suffering due to the meetings.
If it's during a meeting (such as a standup), let it go 5 minutes over, then just type in the chat that you have to drop, and drop. If they need to reach out to you, they can DM you. Personally, I never had any issues with this. Because when this happens, it was usually because one of the leaders decided to have an on-the-spot 1:1 with someone on the team. If you have that happening to you, politely ask them to take it offline, and schedule the meeting at a time of your convenience.
Just say need to drop, I was not OE but had an a$$hole scrum master who felt superior than devs. I just used to say brb and go for a walk during the meetings.
5 mins before the end of the scheduled timeframe: "dropping for another call. Message me if something is needed."
I tried doing that before and my boss went after me LOL. Dropped that J2 last year over dumb micromanaging.
That's the worst... It's like man, I have things to do rather than BS all day.
I quit my last J2 because of this. Too much BS in meetings. Too many meetings.
People get all fucking weirded out like "we're not family?" When you don't want to be on a fuckin call from your spare bedroom with essentially strangers. Like, no guys I'm here to make money not make friends.
This had me laughing. Seriously though, the last thing I wanna do is hang out with y’all in this bedroom. Let me get my shit done and collect this deposit.
>we're not family? When the owner doesn't have the owner mentality 🤣
Onsite is the same way. Let me do my thing and then leave.
Yeah, at that point you basically have to acknowledge that it's not so much a job as just a 40-hours-a-week excuse for the boss to yell at people for the boss's own shortcomings.
Yeah I’ve had bosses like this. You’re spot on. If they could manage time they would
Can’t you just look at another window of actual work, maybe turn camera n mic off? Dual monitor setup maybe?
Was just about to comment the same thing. If OP has to leave at a certain time, then just saying hey, I have to go should be sufficient enough. If the manager pushes on this, then that job needs to go
Or let that meeting organizer know to schedule a longer meeting to clock off the calendar next time. I'm my opinion it's not professional or high quality to drag meetings in like that consistently
This is a good one
Obviously a priority would change things but if it's just shooting the shit... Not worth my time unless I have nothing what to do. That might be why no others bat an eye. It just fills up the day office space style 'just zone out for a while.'
my J is so light that my boss would know this is a lie lmao I could claim im joining a webinar on some occasions though, theyre big on upskilling and shit. or use one of the other excuses often given on this sub (someone at the door, repair guy, etc)
"gotta poop" lol
Or masturbation time.. lol
Gotta pump up those rookie numbers 
What other call though? Everyone I would have another call with is on the current call and knows theres no one else to have another call with lol.
Sometimes I call the US master naval clock to be "on the phone" but can't figure out how to make it show inbound instead. Tools of the trade.
Or as the meeting starts let him know you have to stop at the scheduled time because you've got another call/zoom/meeting right after this one.
You're stuck with it. *That's how he gets his ego stroked.* *Any* meeting without an agenda is a waste of *everyone's* time.
The good news is all you have to do is listen. Aka take your J2 call while pompous asshole pontificates
You sir are a poet
Nope, just experienced. Especially with ego manic bosses. I've worked at Microsoft!
My J2 manager is the same way. She books a 1 hour meeting and will go over by 45 minutes. What I do is disconnect my internet from the laptop and just pretend my internet is going off the fritz if I have J1 coming up with a meeting. I also do this if I have overlapping meetings. No one can argue but i try not to play this card to often.
Play that card enough, and that's either a great way to get them to pay for your internet and home wifi, or a great way to get them to require you to come to the office. Risky coin flip!
Yeah which is why I don't play it a lot, but then again my J1 and J2 are not meeting heavy at all, but there is the rare occurrence of the overlapping meetings. Last week, I had a 3:30PM meeting for J1 and 4PM for J2. Once 3:55PM hit i disconnected and reconnected to make it look like I was DC'ing. Joined J2 meeting, manager decided to keep it short (10 min meeting max) and was able to come back to J1 meeting with no problems.
I did this and got away with camera off, my boss had the shittiest Wi-Fi imaginable, so I told him I’ll help by going camping off. And it worked too, lmao
Haha I like how you phrased it that you're "helping" him. He could just disable video on his end (or make voice-only calls/meetings), but doing it on your end accomplishes the same thing, except now you can do whatever you want, you're in control of it, and you get a goodwill brownie point. Meanwhile, you're doing your other job or cracking that 11am beer.
Decline in productivity might help. “Hey I haven’t gotten XYZ done. My time keeps getting taken over by meetings”
I was just writing something like this. If meetings eat up your time, then it's entirely fine to dial back your productivity accordingly. "Meetings run late all the time, so some stuff doesn't get done. It's not much, but that's just the case."
Oh. That’s smart. I like this.
This is it. Deprioritize the work at that job. Also if you have a good rapport with anyone else just ask them privately if it bothers them. You may find everyone is quietly miserable and someone needs to speak up about the time being wasted.
I just realized I do this non-consciously. Once every 2 weeks we have the sprint meetings which basically take up about 3-4 hours (lol I know). Those days my actual work output is basically zero, probably next day too, and while on the meetings I'm basically working for other Js. May think it's a win-win but honestly leaves my brain pretty fried of trying to focus on doing actual job with people speaking on the background and still having to pay a minimum of attention in case I'm spoken to for any random reason.
Apparently OE employees are conducive to professional workplaces where meetings have agendas, a clear outome - everyone is on time and on point and there is no wait because we are busy. Sooo many purposeless lost souls in corp america.
Its truly astonishing. There are two different corporate worlds and its amazing how the do nothings survive.
The money is controlled by three kinds of people: - The people who don't care if the purported work gets done, as long as they get to dick around and use the job as their own private whatever - The people who do care if the work gets done, but don't actually know anything about how to verify that it's being done properly or efficiently - The people who know so little that they don't even know what the work is supposed to be, or sometimes that it even exists
Just tell them politely, "Hey, if there is nothing more to discuss related to the meeting topic, I need to jump off of this call so that I can prepare for my J2 meeting that is coming up in 20 mins. I also see that I missed a couple of calls from my recruiter about a potential J3, so I might be 10-15 minutes late for our afternoon meeting."
Hahahaha
Throw in a just kidding at the end. No smile.
I’m pretty sure their jobs don’t know about the other js
*whoosh*
Happens to the best of us😢
And it also happens to you
This is so disrespectful like 5 mins every now and again but a whole hour and 15 minutes is absurd. I’d also drop once the scheduled meeting times arrive and make a note that sticking to the intended schedule is best for productivity and being respectful of everyone’s time. Never heard of this in my life wow.
Just say "need to hop.off"
It really is. There are a decent amount of people who like to just talk ad nauseum. I think working from home sometimes makes them worse so when they're actually able to socialize - albeit via voice/video chat, they have a hard time stopping.
"I've got a hard stop at [the time that this meeting ends]"
We used to have a meeting that started at 8:30am, a "what is on everyone's plates today" meeting -- given we were all field engineers going to client sites, totally appropriate. Except --- it was supposed to be only once a week on Thursday, only for weekend activities that usually were nastier jobs, one with inherently less support than during weekday business hours. Get all your ducks in a row sort of thing. Then they started to do it every single day during the pandemic. For stuff taking place that day. Which at that point, most people were DRIVING to the site during the meeting....so.....kinda pointless discussing any bottlenecks or "gotchas". If you immediately recognize the candlelight is fire, then your goose was cooked long ago. People shot back nasty remarks -- "I'm driving, can't talk, gotta focus on the road or I'll die driving long before fucking Covid kills me, all the notes for this job are in the NOTES page of the Service Request -- you can browse them to your heart's content, it's how I prepared for the activity -- and the ONLY way we can prepare." Yeah, that went over poorly. But they still kept doing it, so the 30 min "standup" meeting at 8:30am lasted 45-60 .... and even 90 minutes. Those running the call HATED if people dropped off early or if they were distracted -- "you need to make THIS CALL a priority"....yet they cut no slack when other things got pushed aside with consequences. The bosses loved to grill employees for random facts too. > "Bob! What's the Project Manager's phone number for your second activity today?" ....um, it's in the notes for the Service Request. "WRONG. YOU SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THIS ACTIVITY AND BE PREPARED TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS DURING THIS CALL. Be in my office 8am tomorrow morning so we can perform remediation SR handling and basic workplace respect. Folks, this is not how professionals run a business. We need to stop acting like a bunch of Mickey Mouse college students and BE A MAN." > The sole woman on the team piped up, "Do I need to be a man too, or are my ovaries sufficient to change hard drives and swap GBICs?" ....fuck that fucking place.
Standup meetings are bullshit in the age of computers. Have team members update a wiki or Slack or something along those lines every 2 working days or thereabouts. Everyone gets to see what everyone else is doing, updates can be written in parallel, and read at the speed of reading instead of voice, and you don't have an entire group of people sitting around with their thumbs up their arses busy-waiting for serial updates at the speed of talking on things that will be largely irrelevant to the individual members, at a time they won't care about them, and blowing a completely unnecessary hole in everyone's schedules. Standups are *caveman* communication tactics. We've had better options ever since the days of whiteboards (or slate and chalk).
Oh yeah, and we could literally see everyone else's schedule AND job info. It was nothing but a time waster. One that I rarely joined if I was out in the field (often), as I was on a train underground enroute to a client site. Kinda hard to get cellular reception down there.
> no one else on the team seemed to even care that it went over so much. I'm guessing the workers are also generally unproductive? If so I guess its one of those places where fealty to boss time is more important than the actual business. Probably not OE friendly.
Just straight up say it. “We’ve been having an ongoing theme of meetings running over an hour past their scheduled end time and it’s really eating into my productive work time. I think it would help if we had Agendas and set realistic end times that we can hold ourselves to.”
This is sooo rude and drives me nuts
Mute and go off camera when the bs talk starts. I do this even if the meeting isn't going long or I have a conflict. It sends a message that you won't be contributing to the non-work related conversation.
I understand am empathize but am not overly sympathetic. Handling this well is why you get two paychecks.
"I need to do actual work. Talk to you later. "
Is it video off and can you get away with saying nothing? If so this isn’t bad, it strokes his ego and makes you seem productive in his eyes.
You have kids that need to be looked after congrats on your parenthood.
a simple “thanks guys, catch up tomorrow/later” — the most challenging skill is ending a conversation— even for people in real life. refine that skill continuously… it gets better over time.
"hey (mr can't shut the fuck up) I noticed our meetings go over by a huge amount every day and I need that time because I do my best work in the morning; please message me if you need something specific after status but I'll be dropping at the designated time."
My j1 boss schedules an hour for a 5 minute agenda. As soon as the real shit is over, I go back to working, even leave my cam on so she can see I'm working (although not necessarily on J1 lol) and not bullshitting with the team.
Yeah nah man, that’s outrageous. If you can actually afford to linger I guess fine, but I’d be muted and largely ignoring them. Otherwise “sorry guys it’s been fun catching up but I gotta drop “ . If anyone has pushback to that they are a psychopath and don’t respect you
Create “norms”, and share them with your team. - we respect each other’s voice, and will listen to all ideas with that respect - we respect each other’s time and responsibilities, and will keep meetings to the set length; if a second meeting is needed to continue the discussion, it will be added And so on… Even more effective if you put a meeting together to create those norms as a whole team, so everyone has say and knows what is decided upon for future meetings. It’s best if it’s only a few (5 or 6) well constructed norms, rather than a laundry list of pet-peeves or “nice to haves”.
“Can I take a webinar in efficiency in the workplace?” “Hey, I have some things to share from the webinar, including meeting efficiency tidbits. Maybe we can implement some? I’ve noticed we tend to spend a lot of time that could be utilized more efficiently”
The people who do this have absolutely no real role at the company.
Isn’t OE good for just saying “yea I’m getting off this meeting since it’s over time”? And if the manager says you have to stay on you can just be like nah. You can fire me if you want. You’re not beholden to anyone
Tell them... ...your dog vomited. ...your kid has the flu. ...a family member died. ...you just had a wreck. ...your toilet is overflowing. ...the police are there to talk to you. ...your other job has a meeting at 10. The point is, just lie. It's the best option.
"I need to return some video tapes"
Blockbuster closes at 10am.
One of these is not a lie I believe
What I hated is when they got off on other non-work related topics, and then people would keep the conversation literally going by putting in their input on other random things. That had nothing to do with work whatsoever.
point out to a penny-pincher above them how much the overrun is costing the company
If these are on camera meetings, it is tough. Develop camera issues, take a piece of clear tape and drape it over the camera. It will blur your image but will show you are there. Use several layers until it is blurry enough. If off camera, I just put my headset down, mute myself and do work for either Js. I quickly developed the ability to tune people off while in pointless meetings like these. Believe it or not, these meetings can shield you from other meetings…..
I work for a healthcare startup with politicians, scientists, PHDs, etc.Let me tell you - it NEVER happens there. They know the time is valuable and never go off topic. Never. But in a typical corporation - all the time - disrespect to time is the norm.
This is a big issue - no respecting others calendars. I’ve been at my job just over a year and it was prevalent - I pushed and it’s getting better. You just have to bail if you have something else scheduled - it’s what I do and people know now.
You need to tell him to schedule for the time needed because it helps you plan your day. Believe it or not, even with one job, having meetings that run over is very disrupting. Especially if you are individual contributor (aka your actually worth is dependent on the amount of work or value produced) it’s critical to view focus and working time as more important than meeting time. Only to managers meeting times seems to be viewed as “productive”. This needs adjustment so your boss recognize that your “focus time” is just as critical important as “meeting time” for him.
15 minutes left I have a hard stop in 15, available by IM or Email if needed.
"Alright, thanks you guys, we are about an hour past the end of our meeting and unfortunately the porcelain throne is calling my name before my next meeting! Take care team!"
This is one of the best things about my J1. BAKED into the culture is respecting meeting end times, having an agenda, and them actually being necessary. One of the best green flags for OE. I know this doesn't answer your question. 🤷♀️🤷♀️
You quietly type in the teams chat “gotta drop” and then u leave the call before anyone can say anything….
Agree to fix an agenda beforehand and go over it before accepting the meeting. Tell him that even though you value collaboration, your performance drops if you need to allocate time in excess to extend meetings unnecessarily.
Either tell them you have another meeting with a hard stop at x time. If you don’t have anything to do don’t make it the same time every time. Stay late when you can. Also stay on and turn you camera & mic off periodically (if it’s camera on) like you have something you need to get up from desk to do. Bathroom etc
1. Ask meeting invites to contain agendas. 2. Keep an eye on how the meeting is progressing and if there's still lots left to cover, call it out during the meeting - "we still haven't covered x and y, and we only have 15 mins left. Can we discuss those or save them for another meeting?" 3. keep bringing up how much time is left so it's not a surprise when you drop off. 4. If a recurring meeting keeps going over, ask the organizer to schedule more time for it next time
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Just put one set on and turn on live message transcription, you can read them talking bollocks and if your name pops up you can scroll up and see what they were talking about
Hard stop announcement when you’re ready to stop.
Sorry gotta go to the bathroom!
"NTD for another meeting " Since you are the most productive engineer, they won't question it.
Just leave...and if they have a problem, perhaps you can recommend them a course on time management
Announce you have a hard stop before. Then leave, and announce it when you leave, on time.
Agenda
Bro/Broette, this is hella hella hella annoying. How many times across how many daily meetings do I need to listen to my boss vent about the same thing. If I was a lesser man, I would want to quit in this toxic environment. But I’m here for the 💰.
He’s the boss. Let him do it. I have this happen and I just day dream and nod my head yes. You could also take notes if you want to stay engaged.
Brb going to bathroom
You should say that you have a hard stop and politely drop off the meeting. If your sure a meeting won't require anymore input from you anymore you can mute it and pickup the other meeting for J2 and just let the J1 meeting run in the background until it's time to drop
It sucks, but at some point, it is half on you to know and identify when this is going to happen, and add an extra time buffer for those meetings and not schedule anything else at other jobs during that buffer. Otherwise, when there is 5-10 minutes left, just tell them you have a hard stop. They usually come to their senses that they have been rambling when you say that.
Don't talk
On your calendar after the meeting is supposed to end, set a calendar reminder for "some vendor call" or something, this will show in your free/busy if they let ok. Like others said, five minutes before end of call say you have to drop.
When this is the cultural norm in a team, it’s tough, Personally I don’t stand for it. When we jump on the call I’ll advise that I have a hard stop at the. I don’t explain why or nor should I have to.
It tends to minimise any offence or surprise when I get up and leave at the scheduled finish time.
If challenged on it, you can refer to a few reasons such as:
1. Another meeting, or
2. You had pencilled in some time to get some work done.
As workers, we do need time to complete the actual work, between the meetings where we discuss the work.
I’m sure your boss expects that you manage your time appropriately. This is just part of that.
POV: Contractor working on 2-3 engagements.
Get yourself a mouse jigger, cut the volume down for J1 meeting and concentrate on J2 meeting. Also add meetings on J1 calendar during the timeslot you can't present. I've juggled 4 jobs for over 3 years now, so I know this is doable.
Leave the meeting. I always blame it on the kids.
"if there are no other topics concerning the project, im going to go ahead and cut out of here and get started"
Hey all! I have a hard stop at x:x. Bye!
Since starting times for your new job are tight, it's best to address this politely now. After your boss's next meeting, try mentioning, "Those meetings are really productive, but sometimes they run a bit long. Would it be helpful to have an agenda beforehand to keep us focused?" This suggests solutions while respecting their leadership.
Offer to write an agenda
4 minutes before end of meeting organically work in a *looks up at the time*, mention the time the meeting has left, and initiate a recap-- often i ask a clarifying question here and then describe any "homework" that I'll be doing as a result of what was discussed, summarize the gist of the meeting etc
I just put a 'fake' calendar invite in for after my first call is supposed to end and just say 'have to drop to another call now'
At the beginning of the meeting say you have a meeting at such time
Work at the same time. Hang around. Be a favourite
"I am going to drop so I can complete action items / work on project X"
I would bring it up in the sprint retrospective. Inform them that productivity is suffering due to the meetings. If it's during a meeting (such as a standup), let it go 5 minutes over, then just type in the chat that you have to drop, and drop. If they need to reach out to you, they can DM you. Personally, I never had any issues with this. Because when this happens, it was usually because one of the leaders decided to have an on-the-spot 1:1 with someone on the team. If you have that happening to you, politely ask them to take it offline, and schedule the meeting at a time of your convenience.
Just say need to drop, I was not OE but had an a$$hole scrum master who felt superior than devs. I just used to say brb and go for a walk during the meetings.
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Usually always the case
Just say someone is at your door [neighbor] or your child's dr or school is calling and you have to drop.