3.30pm untitled meeting on a Friday always means bad news...
Don’t be spooky
111–120 of 228 posts
Re: Don’t be spooky
#112Once too often I've filled someone in on why we need to talk before we actually talk, only for them to use the email to cause grief before the actual meeting.
I did also once have a manager who chronically used "we need to talk" for every conversation out the usual routine and got everyone stressed out for no good reason.
Best thing to do is to not work in ane enviornment where things are so toxic to begin with.
Re: Don’t be spooky
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some degree of mistrust - or should I say, fear - is normal when communicating with your manager/supervisor, because there's a power imbalance in that relationship. Your manager has the power to significantly complicate or even derail your whole life. They're also themselves in a similar relationship with the person above them in the org chart. So no matter how much you trust them, there's always the possibility they…
Exactly. What this article leaves out is the correct opening to the story. "A person who can arbitrarily make your life hell, including by ending your job right now, tells you 'let’s talk when you get a minute.'" I think the standard American corporate system of power is kinda ridiculous. But it is what it is, and whenever I'm a manager in that kind of system I try hard to remember that everything I say has that pref…
The American system is designed to keep the power balance by making it easy to get another job.
Yes, there's some economic power difference - and sometimes it is out of balance. The idea that your boss has control over you is silly; your boss has the control over you that you give them in exchange for compensation, and you can always just quit - I wish people would do so more, because many of the worst attributes of the modern workplace are because people don't just quit.
Re: Don’t be spooky
#114I started work one day to find a message (with no prior context) from my manager saying “if you had to choose one other person on the team to keep working with, who would it be”. I panicked thinking there was about to be a slew of redundancies and messaged back saying I don’t feel comfortable answering that and that I was worried why I was be asked. Turns out it was just some random thought on her mind and thought I had over reacted. She never really seemed to understand it from my perspective.
Re: Don’t be spooky
#115Great advice and this extends to being a public figure and branding. Create a void and others will fill it with whatever they like, and that may be negative. Be communicative as a brand or individual and you get to choose what the space is filled with before others can fill it. And if they choose to express an opinion, there is already a well established foundation of perception there that they have to compete with.
Re: Don’t be spooky
#116Tons of comments here agreeing that this kind of vague messaging is to be avoided (and I'll toss my comment in there as also being in agreement). But....clearly there are people out there who use this kind of communicaton, some of them doubtlessly reading this thread. So my question is: those who do say vagaries like "let's talk when you have a minute* - why? What is your intention?
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Re: Don’t be spooky
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
What difference does a Friday have vs a Monday if the person isn’t comming back to the office? Maybe your remembering giving as news on a Friday so it gets lost by the media over the weekend?
It's about not bringing a gun into work and "going postal" (named after a situation with a post office employee)
Why would that be a more likely situation if you’re escorted out of the building on a Friday than it would be on a Tuesday?
Re: Don’t be spooky
#118Early in my career I got a Monday morning meeting invite on a Friday afternoon just after I left the office. The meeting was called “The future of “ Entire weekend was a write off. I was so anxious. And yep. They shut down the unit (but I got to keep my job). As a result this is forefront in my mind as a manager. One thing that works great is whenever I ask questions about something, anything, I also say “this is on…
Some weird behavior at my employer perhaps. We had several rounds of layoffs during my tenure and they were always announced at an all-hands meeting at 9 AM, announced the same morning.
I still get nervous any time there’s a meeting called for 9. At least they had the good sense to not announce them for the next day.
Re: Don’t be spooky
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't there an unwritten rule about layoff timing that it's always on a Friday? Always do layoffs on Fridays so people have time on the weekend to calm down instead of going postal?
What difference does a Friday have vs a Monday if the person isn’t comming back to the office? Maybe your remembering giving as news on a Friday so it gets lost by the media over the weekend?
I'd consider it more of a respectful gesture to the person being laid off so that they have the weekend to take it all in so they're able to start their job search on Monday and make the most of the next week, should they be in a situation where they need to.
Re: Don’t be spooky
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m speculating. Perhaps this practice is common because it keeps the books clean on final payouts. Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.
> Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though. I'm not sure I'd count on an employee that's being laid off to really put in the effort to finish up his projects ;)
That’s the point, you don’t tell them until Friday.