Nice one
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When I started my career I quickly became convinced that meetings are the opposite of work. Now a large part of my career is hosting meetings.
I feel/felt similarly but I am now calling for meetings because it seems to be the easiest way to get my peers and superiors to do their fucking job so that I'm not stuck in limbo waiting for their parts to be finished. It seems like they only respond to slack mentions / emails / task assignments at random which leaves important, unanswered requests/questions just sitting there.
Sorry, this past year I've been working with another department for a project that, due to aforementioned woes, has run about 6-12 months more than it needs to.
I'm in the public sector and everyone is very busy and pulled in many directions so I kind of get it... but I want to be done with this thing.
You don't need to set meetings. You need to set deadlines.
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You don't need to set meetings. You need to set deadlines.
I've tried deadlines. I've asked for things to be done before our next meeting with the vendor we're working with. Hell, almost everything I need done is clearly conveyed as "I cannot proceed to move your project forward until you perform X task that I don't have the rights to perform or make a decision regarding your department's policy on X." In fact, I've shown up at the meetings with them and the vendor and literally told them the situation - they do everything that's piled up in like 5-10 minutes and are apologetic. Then two days later I need another small thing and it begins again. So now I call for a meeting to "go over the project days the next vendor meeting." I really just have a list of shit I can't work on for the next vendor meeting because ya'll don't respond to all my requests otherwise.
Also remember, some of these are directed at my superiors - like the boss of the department I'm working with. It's their project so it's not like I'm getting in trouble or missing my deadlines. It just murders my flow state and frustrates me to no end when it can take days or weeks to get a response.
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Meetings are the viable alternative to work. Meetings that you don't need to contribute to are even better. Take a break. Catch some zees.
yeah what the fuck; when you're asked to do nothing on company time, you take it!
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Nah, fuck this lickspittle corpo speak!
"What is the purpose of this meeting and why do I need to be included?" is a perfectly polite sentence appropriate in any work environment consisting of mature and distinguished adults.
Do not enslave yourself to the machine, because the people running it will treat you like a slave.
consisting of mature and distinguished adults
That part can actually be problematic in many places in my experience.
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Email recap never comes. Miss out on key decision points. Attend next meeting. Nothing is agreed just talk for the sake of talking. Objections disregarded. Side meeting happens without you. Key points agreed with management in your absence. You're just a cog in a giant hamster wheel. Not even the hamster. Cry at night.
Some meetings, I wish I'd bought a steamdeck.
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Some meetings, I wish I'd bought a steamdeck.
Meeting summary:
- Synergy promoted by Gerald
- Fourth quarter prediction estimate forecasts brainstormed by Jeremy.
- Coffee situation update from Mark.
- Level 4 agility in KCD reached by GreatAlbatross
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Direct Corporate speak would be.
"Do you need me in this meeting?"
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I would argue that isn't corpospeak.
It is just normal speech.
Which would essentially be a faux pas for anyone other than C suite to do, to drop the dialect.
Only those that are very powerful/respected within the org can get away with dropping the dialect, there has to be a power disparity.
Like, a VP could say that in an internal check up meeting on some team or project.
But they could not say that in a quarterly earnings report in front of investors, it would be a faux pas to drop the dialect because the power/respect differential is less.
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Corpospeak [...] Like a sociopath.
And this is why LLMs are so well suited for the task! People get genuinely excited by the prospect of using AI to read/reply email... because they don't mean actual thoughtful email written with intent, maybe even emotions or even reasoning. No... no they mean corpospeak that is entirely pointless, empty of meaning and definitely written for a human by human, but rather for a cog, to another lifeless cog in the corporation.
This is why people are investing tons of money and expending tons of CO2.
What a fucking farce of a species we are.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Bullshit corpospeak tasks is pretty much the only time I use LLMs. You want us to come up with a paragraph long department motto? Could someone ask ChatGPT and put all of our names under it so none of us waste time from our lives on such a retarded task.
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When I started my career I quickly became convinced that meetings are the opposite of work. Now a large part of my career is hosting meetings.
My biggest piece of advice to junior staff is: if you're not provided an agenda prior to a meeting, your attendance is not required. RSVP with Yes if it sounds interesting/beneficial and you have the time, otherwise Nope (or Tentative) your way out of it.
The obvious caveat is if that meeting is called by someone with role power over you. In which case: as they clearly don't respect your time, it's on you to (politely) ask them to provide an agenda. It may also indirectly train them to be less shit.
Meeting host here too
Agenda : defective thingamajig from supplier- agenda
Hello everu one we suspect that some mcguffins have been shipped with defectives turbo-encubalators. We have 24h to decide if we need to informed government agency
Inventory people - please identify origine of the turbo-encubalators and deliveries
Engineers -please make risk assessment form, we strongly suspect defective product are in service.Providing agenda is only useful if people fucking read it and inform themselves on the subject before coming in. Hi everybody why am I here? - you were supposed to evaluate the safety risk for customer using this defective component we discovered. - oh
Why me? -you are the engineer that designed the part
Can't the supplier do the investigation, I have to make a report to my boss to identify where we can cut support - agenda
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I'm aligned with your perspective, and I appreciate the clarity you've brought to this facet of the conversation. From a tactical standpoint, I want to loop in the stakeholders to ensure they are also in sync with the continued usage of buzzwords.
If you run into any blockers, please circle back.
Cheers!
Uh... Circle back dontt have the implied threat of -please escalate- that is regularly used in my
I think there's a manager war going on. -
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Corpospeak. Never a clearer way to be sure that someone or something doesn’t give a fuck about you as a human being.
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#Corpo-Pro-Tips
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What do I need prepare for my contribution in this meeting? Nothing. Ok I'll watch the recoding.
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Eh, useless meetings are great for timesheet filler while playing Pokemon Go.
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Eh, useless meetings are great for timesheet filler while playing Pokemon Go.
Sometimes my wife says she doesn't like so much downtime at work. I understand her frustration, but I don't empathize.
Pay me to slack off, that's the life.
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You'd be promoted to 'hated manager' soon
No way! Manglement isn't part of the union
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Meeting host here too
Agenda : defective thingamajig from supplier- agenda
Hello everu one we suspect that some mcguffins have been shipped with defectives turbo-encubalators. We have 24h to decide if we need to informed government agency
Inventory people - please identify origine of the turbo-encubalators and deliveries
Engineers -please make risk assessment form, we strongly suspect defective product are in service.Providing agenda is only useful if people fucking read it and inform themselves on the subject before coming in. Hi everybody why am I here? - you were supposed to evaluate the safety risk for customer using this defective component we discovered. - oh
Why me? -you are the engineer that designed the part
Can't the supplier do the investigation, I have to make a report to my boss to identify where we can cut supportAgreed.
I didn't mention that I also spend time after every meeting I host putting together a summary of what was discussed along with a bullet point list of deliverables, who agreed to work on them, and due dates and then send it to all attendees, invitees, and stakeholders.
It deals with the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme problem and "magnanimous work dodgers" - those who promise the world in meetings but then seemingly disappear off the planet.
It probably should be noted that many of the meetings I host are recurring, often weekly or fortnightly, so it's easy to find a rhythm (and identify the problem children).
- agenda
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Nah, fuck this lickspittle corpo speak!
"What is the purpose of this meeting and why do I need to be included?" is a perfectly polite sentence appropriate in any work environment consisting of mature and distinguished adults.
Do not enslave yourself to the machine, because the people running it will treat you like a slave.
That is absolutely not something to say if the meeting is pulled together by management on high. Peers? Sure you can say stuff like that, but to someone you may not know or have little interaction with that can be a death knell for your reputation.
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That is absolutely not something to say if the meeting is pulled together by management on high. Peers? Sure you can say stuff like that, but to someone you may not know or have little interaction with that can be a death knell for your reputation.
The trick is to be so reliable that no one would conceive of getting rid of you even if you come off a little assholish sometimes. I started on the help desk at my last job (fairly large company with around ~25k employees and within a year or two I was the go to for a few of the c-levels when they had issues. I pissed off middle management types occasionally when I couldn't do something they wanted right away because I needed more information or whatever and had to wait on something. Anytime they tried to start shit with me it never took long for a bigger fish to get involved and have my back because they were familiar with my work and knew I wasn't just fucking around.
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I had a situation like this where I'd like to be involved in the meeting that I was requested and they thought I was required to be in. I'm a just barely above entry level employee and was told by my supervisor that I should not be attending the meetings anyhow the request is coming from project managers.
Finally get pinged in a meeting chat asking where I was and told them I was informed I should not be attending these moving forward. The project manager asked if this input came from a director that is 5 levels above me. I told them no, it came from my supervisor, if you need me, I will attend the meeting however I'm not sure if my input would be the information you are looking for.
2 months later, still getting required meeting invites but told by my supervisor to not accept it.
