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AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

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Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#381

Post by spauldo »

freshpots wrote: post #360
stoneyhrm1 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like a true project manager that every engineer hates.

Are you an actual engineer with a degree and subsequent accreditation through a professional body? or an "engineer" by role? Those mean very different things depending on country, quality of education and skills or...how many Microsoft Points you have.

This drives me up the wall so much. I had a boss that used to introduce me to customers as an engineer, and I'd correct him on the spot. And now that I'm looking for another job (not because I pissed off the boss), I keep having to search through "engineer" roles because people can't get their terms right.

I work with engineers - actual electrical and chemical engineers that design processes and controls - and I make the software side of their ideas happen. They can't do their job without me, and vice-versa. But I'm a SCADA integrator, not an engineer, dammit.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#382

Post by bravetraveler »

tauwauwau wrote: post #276
dangus wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that people who talk like that aren’t management material. “I noped out of the management track” = “nobody was considering me for the management track”

I pray for souls who are considered to be management material.

Promoted to their incompetence. The Peter Principle or as I prefer: "growth mindset meets reality"

This thread is insane. Plenty of people have turned down managerial opportunities. The inevitable path for any IC is this offer. Countless have told stories of their regret for either path.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#383

Post by account42 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #239
jon-wood wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the years I've moved away from thinking of the daily standup as being a way to update everyone on what we're doing. The value in it is having a daily time when everyone on the team sees each other's faces and has a brief conversation. Sometimes it'll be a quick hello, other times we'll talk for half an hour about nothing in particular, but that's valuable on a remote team where it's all to easy to forget that ev…

That's what happy hours and optional team activities are for. After hours gaming groups, book clubs, hobby groups, etc do this much better.

No thanks, I have my own hobbies and friends. Activities that primarily benefit work, including team building exercises, should be during paid company time.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#384

Post by guappa »

tstrimple wrote: post #341
varispeed wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised by the downvotes, honestly. Inclusivity isn't about asking everyone to conform to neurotypical norms - it's about creating space for different ways of working and communicating. If even mentioning that feels unwelcome, that says something worth reflecting on.

I think the issue it that you're speaking to an ideal that doesn't tend to stand up in reality. The reality is if people stop seeing your face in meetings people are less likely to think about you. This may feel good to the stereotypical introvert who just wants to get things done and be left alone. But it can be a career killer. This is very apparent in hybrid companies where folks in the office with incidental face…

In my company the career killer is being an immigrant lately.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#386

Post by Neywiny »

pj_mukh wrote: post #16
jawns wrote: post #4

I bet there are a bunch of people in upper management who hear about this phenomenon and think that employees are skipping meetings to slack off (appearing to do work but they're actually playing Mario Kart). In reality, it's more likely that they're being judged on their attendance of BS meetings, but if they attend the BS meetings, they won't be able to make the BS deadlines they're responsible for hitting. So they…

Having had been on both sides of this coin, I agree a lot of managers mis-manage meetings. But then there's those engineers who don't show up to meetings and then a month later come to you with a "I don't know how we're deciding on some of these critical product features" and I don't know how to tell them its because they skipped some meetings where they could've been part of that discussion.

I've even had one coworker, higher level than me, get repeatedly praised for how they multitask so much. But I've had them countless times distracted during meetings, and then they get irate some time later. "I wasn't consulted" "nobody told me" "nobody asked me permission" "I don't remember that meeting." If I'm in a meeting and say "my plan is to kick the computer until it works", don't come to me 2 months later and say it was a stupid plan, and worse get upset that you weren't asked. The point of the meeting is to have a forum for everybody to weigh in if needed. Not just to charge the program for an hour while you okay candy crush or listen in on another meeting.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#387

Post by gunsle »

spauldo wrote: post #381
freshpots wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an actual engineer with a degree and subsequent accreditation through a professional body? or an "engineer" by role? Those mean very different things depending on country, quality of education and skills or...how many Microsoft Points you have.

This drives me up the wall so much. I had a boss that used to introduce me to customers as an engineer, and I'd correct him on the spot. And now that I'm looking for another job (not because I pissed off the boss), I keep having to search through "engineer" roles because people can't get their terms right. I work with engineers - actual electrical and chemical engineers that design processes and controls - and I make…

Weird hill to die on

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#388

Post by gunsle »

Shorel wrote: post #252
PeterStuer wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are "low information density" because that is not the point of the meeting. Meetings are first and foremost about relationship management. You do not get to management and certainly not climb the management hierarchy if you do not at least implicitly feel this. The actual meeting topic, while it can be relevant, is secondary. You establish and reinforce the pecking order, sense allegiance and subversion, or, fee…

For me, they are the corporate parasite people. They add no value, except for themselves.

They are in 95% of situations. Most managers and product people are just insecure about the fact that they know next to nothing technically about the products they manage, and instead of getting out of the way of the people who do, they feel the need to constantly insert themselves in the process, directly lowering project efficiency, to justify their roles existing at all. “Managing (internal) relationships” provides no value to the company’s clients whatsoever, it only exists to reinforce a company’s culture or prop up someone whose job is probably not that important in the grand scheme of things.

A client buying your product couldn’t give two fucks whether your manager asked you an ice breaker that ate 10 minutes of a 30 minutes meeting. And managers that don’t understand this are self interested parasites, or just completely inept. Most of the management I’ve worked with have been a combination of the two.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#389

Post by gunsle »

esafak wrote: post #347
CuriouslyC wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what happy hours and optional team activities are for. After hours gaming groups, book clubs, hobby groups, etc do this much better.

You don't have those things when working remotely. You need to foster social relations at work too; after-work socializing is not a substitute for a collaborative work atmosphere.

You don’t “need” to foster social relations at work. They will naturally arise as people work together. This idea that we need to turn the workplace into a big “family” is nonsensical corporate propaganda pushed by HR departments primarily staffed by women. I promise, most men don’t give a single fuck about “fostering social relationships” at work. The guys I have respected and became the most friendly with at work have been the ones I’m in the trenches with, designing, building, etc. I don’t need to know what Susan in HR’s kid did over the weekend, it’s legitimately useless information to my entire life.

I’ve got ~90 years on this planet at best. I’m not interested in wasting 1/5th of my working career in meetings, listening to people I don’t even know, telling me personal details about their lives I will not retain for more than 5 seconds. To me, it’s genuinely insulting to my time to waste it with these pointless fake displays of familiarity instead of getting to the work at hand and ending the meeting early.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#390

Post by sitkack »

phil21 wrote: post #297
fnordpiglet wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homework before hand is an anti pattern IMO. It assumes people aren’t busy in the rest of their day and the meeting scheduler is inflating the toll of the meeting with a hidden prep tax. This is how people end up with 12 hour days. Bezos forbade pre-meeting homework at Amazon for this reason. He was having a hard time keeping up with everything and the meetings were basically people recriminating each other for not b…

All bezos did was explicitly make the homework a required part of calling a meeting. Correctly putting the majority of the prep work on the person calling the meeting to begin with. Then they simply moved the implied 20-30 minute prep time everyone should be doing anyways into the meeting block itself. If a meeting isn’t important enough to prep materials or an agenda for the meeting should be canceled. My theory is…

I know a guy that can run those meetings.

He meets with all the stake holders, determines their desired outcomes, makes sure they are all prepped.

Starts the meeting, sets the goals and the ground rules.

As soon as the meeting exit criteria are met (either another meeting, more homework or a decision has been made) the meeting is over. Done.

Most meetings with this guy lasted 12-17 minutes.

His job was toilsome, but he saved everyone else. I am getting teary eyed just thinking about it.

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