Nice one
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Do whatever you want, mate. Decline the meeting?
I think OP's screenshot is tactful and effective. It's similar to my approach. Which starts:
"Thanks for the invitation, what's on the agenda?"
Then I decide to accept or politely decline and ask for minutes.
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"What is the purpose of this meeting and why do I need to be included" is a perfectly polite series of words to use. The wording matters far less than the tone of voice.
I vastly prefer clear and direct questions over the reply that sounds passive aggressive from the very beginning.
"why do I need to be included" sounds a bit harsh and could be met with "because I said so". instead maybe try something along the lines of "how will this meeting benefit my work?" or "how might I contribute?"
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do you need my presence here
Sounds like you were summoned by ouija board.
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The original way the first person asked was polite, if intoned gently.
The recommended response is corpospeak.
Corpospeak is never polite.
It just pretends to be.
Like a sociopath.
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I work on the floor in a pretty specialized role, so I can always just use the excuse of having to attend to any given machine coincidentally whenever they want to have a meeting I don't feel like attending.
None of the managers really understand what we do, so they don't challenge the excuses ever.
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"why do I need to be included" sounds a bit harsh and could be met with "because I said so". instead maybe try something along the lines of "how will this meeting benefit my work?" or "how might I contribute?"
"Please see the agenda for our topics."
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Also in the public sector and when I started, project managers were required to include everyone under the sun for pointless update meetings every two weeks for the PM to read out the reports everyone gave them so nobody missed anything. By the time they were done everyone wanted to bail, including me. They were meetings that could be an email, and if there were issues then additional meetings were scheduled.
Over time I have been promoted up through PM and now get to define the best practices for projects including meetings. My meetings are productive and people actually want to show up as they are discussions where work might be canceled or put off so people don't get overloaded. I make sure everyone is included without putting anyone on the spot. The departments we work with to create web apps like us more since we started giving reasons for saying no instead of working devs to death in overtime because PMs were not allowed to say no.
I do have one project that is an albatross I can't kill because of the sunk cost fallacy, but at least it is one small project that gets raised every few months to get put on the backburner while the largest and most complex project is now running smoothly. Other PMs have also improved their interactions when they were given examples in how to more clearly communicate their challenges, although a few don't want to give up the 'do everything asked' approach.
We have also had 5 developers who left for the private sector come back over the last 10 years because of the work culture. The grass wasn't greener, but they did come back with new skills and a better appreciation for the improved communication and overtime is almost entirely voluntary!
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I hate corpo bs speak. Makes me wish I was German or something.
Oh, unfortunately we have that here, too.
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The original way the first person asked was polite, if intoned gently.
The recommended response is corpospeak.
Corpospeak is never polite.
It just pretends to be.
Like a sociopath.
True but that seems to be what she was actually asking for. Her question would be too straightforward, she wanted to get out of the meeting without even hinting at that
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I work on the floor in a pretty specialized role, so I can always just use the excuse of having to attend to any given machine coincidentally whenever they want to have a meeting I don't feel like attending.
None of the managers really understand what we do, so they don't challenge the excuses ever.
You'd be promoted to 'hated manager' soon
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The original way the first person asked was polite, if intoned gently.
The recommended response is corpospeak.
Corpospeak is never polite.
It just pretends to be.
Like a sociopath.
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.
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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.
All things considered our species is doing relatively well. Having the ability to assign purpose and use tools does cause us to get stuck in a stupid rut all too often, though.
I can't fathom why a person would willingly use corpospeak. I can't imagine anyone actually likes to speak that way.
I would invite the reader to always call it out when it occurs, and call for all involved parties to speak plain.
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It's not my fault, but it is definitely my problem if I'm in a position to help people and decide not to. Make no mistake, I raise holy hell while I'm doing it, but the lack of workers doesn't lessen the amount of work that needs to get done. Maybe it's just naivete, but I'm idealistic enough to believe that helping students is the most important thing I can do, so I only say yes to things that are directly helping students, faculty, and staff (admin and their busy work can fuck right off with their bloated salaries and support staff)
Never do more than what is in your contract.
It is not like the company is going to pay you more than what is written in there. So why should you compensate when they clearly wouldn't?
It is not your job to get everything done. But it is their job to make sure there are enough people for the work available.
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Yeah I'll tell that to HR when I'm getting laid off again, I'm sure they will totally get it and reconsider
wrote on last edited by [email protected]If HR can't understand that, then it isn't a decent work environment to begin with.
You can always try to explain it by calculating the cost of you sitting uselessly in meetings. Your hourly wage X amount of hours in meetings. I'm sure they will take your side.
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True but that seems to be what she was actually asking for. Her question would be too straightforward, she wanted to get out of the meeting without even hinting at that
The corpospeak way to ask for how to say something in corpospeak would be more like...
I want to say/ask "...", what would be an appropriate way to phrase this in a professional setting?
But yes, phrasing corpospeak is almost always designed such that someone not well versed in it would believe that what is being said is not extremely direct, is not extremely clear, is somewhat ambiguous, a bit more verbose than is necesarry to be concise.
However, if you have worked in a lot of corpojobs... you fairly rapidly learn what phrases actually mean. It just requires some familiarity with the specific situational context, and the way corpo business structure/culture works in general.
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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.
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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.
I often find that misappropriating an out of context Paul Rudd quote arguably condoning sexual harassment works perfectly to describe the level of effort one should put in;
"Work 60% of the time, Alllll the time"
Any more than 60% effort and it becomes a drain, any less and management will look to replace. 60% effort is the sweet spot for surviving corporate life rather than succumbing to it.
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The corpospeak way to ask for how to say something in corpospeak would be more like...
I want to say/ask "...", what would be an appropriate way to phrase this in a professional setting?
But yes, phrasing corpospeak is almost always designed such that someone not well versed in it would believe that what is being said is not extremely direct, is not extremely clear, is somewhat ambiguous, a bit more verbose than is necesarry to be concise.
However, if you have worked in a lot of corpojobs... you fairly rapidly learn what phrases actually mean. It just requires some familiarity with the specific situational context, and the way corpo business structure/culture works in general.
Direct Corporate speak would be.
"Do you need me in this meeting?"
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Y'all are invited to optional meetings??? Lol
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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.