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Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

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Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#151

Post by reddalo »

buzer wrote: post #101
gwd wrote: post #85

> When 2:50 rolled around and your meeting was supposed to end, do you think people actually ended the meeting? Noooooo. Absolutely not! At U of M, they solved this problem by having classes officially start 10 minutes after the time they were advertised as. That is, a class listed as being 10-11am was actually 10:10-11am; nobody showed up until 10:10. Sure, technically it's the same thing, but there's a pretty massi…

In Finland the universities (and I believe in many other European universities have/had this as well) there was "academic quarter" which meant that if something was scheduled for 10am it would actually start at 10:15am. IIRC if they used precise time (10:00) then it would actually start at that time. I've heard it dates back to when people didn't have easy access to precise time. It would allow students to hear the h…

I confirm, we have it in Italian universities (it's called "quarto d'ora accademico" in Italian).

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#152

Post by avg_dev »

tbh i don't feel like the people who scheduled a 10 min meeting did anything wrong. the room is marked as free during that time; they know they will be done in 10 mins; it's a shared resource... what's the point of a schedule for a shared resource if people don't respect it?

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#153

Post by rurp »

gwbas1c wrote: post #14

If I was in the room, I'd be relieved. I always found that meetings at large companies dragged on unless there was a forcing factor (like a doorknock) that got someone to bring it to an end.

I found myself more on the side of the meeting crashers, even though the article paints them as the villains. I've been in vastly more hour long meetings that were longer than necessary than ones that were too short.

In meeting-heavy orgs it is really annoying to have meetings led by people who regularly run up to or beyond the final minute of the time slot. Those extra few minutes practically never produce anything worthwhile enough to compensate for the rushing between meetings and having to choose between being more late to the next one or taking care of a quick bathroom/water/snack break.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#154

Post by caminante »

remram wrote: post #18

This is not "malicious compliance", this is more like "pedantic enforcement". "Malicious compliance" would be if the same team booked a 50min meeting then a 10min meeting in the same room.

It's a clickbait keyword. This wouldn't be a genre if all the stories were this tame.

If anything, the company saved money with optimizing meeting room capacity and the CEO's desire to give breaks was enforced.

The team pushing back against leaving at 50m was the only "malicious" party, and they weren't compliant.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#155

Post by Detrytus »

steveBK123 wrote: post #32
dugmartin wrote: post #31

In the late 90s there was a manager where I worked at the time where you actually felt relieved she they scheduled a meeting for one reason: she scheduled meetings to be 50 minutes long and no matter what she would end them promptly at 50 minutes and then she would stand up and leave the room. I once saw her, politely but firmly, tell a senior exec a few rungs up the ladder from her that time was up when he was in mi…

I've not seen management with a spine like that in a long time.

To be honest, just getting up and leaving is a bad way to end a meeting on time. You should be conscious of the time you have left, and start steering the meeting towards conclusion at 5-10 minutes mark.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#156

Post by genewitch »

jxjxn wrote: post #116
buildsjets wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view people who show up too early as rude, as do many others.

I don't get why you are getting downvoted If an interviewee is half an hour early to a meeting that is rude if they actually expect to start now instead of the scheduled time

What does being early have to do with the other? Just because I don't know trafficor other unknowns, and leave my house early, and go into the building to get some water or something; that does not mean I expect anything except the appointment to be on time.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#157

Post by dogleash »

xivzgrev wrote: post #73

what the engineers did seems fair to me. The rule is 50 minutes, they booked right after, so yea the meeting room is theirs. The author of this story seems to be just adjusting. Like "really, we mean 60 minutes?" New rule is, book for 60 if you need 60. Leave it at 50 if not. at the same time, do you really need a meeting room for a standup?

> at the same time, do you really need a meeting room for a standup?

We're stuck in the office, the least you could do is not subject everyone within earshot to your meetings.

I have struggled very hard to not fill this comment with profanity and insults.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#158

Post by kabdib »

gwbas1c wrote: post #14

If I was in the room, I'd be relieved. I always found that meetings at large companies dragged on unless there was a forcing factor (like a doorknock) that got someone to bring it to an end.

i was at a startup where meetings were stifling. i had code to write, but i was stuck in HOURS long meetings half the week while marketing and sales types droned on and on about stuff that was meaningless unless we had a product to sell. uh, guys? we have code to write

walking back from lunch with my cow-orkers one day, i realized we were passing a clock store. i went inside and bought a not-too-expensive cuckoo clock and installed it on the wall of our single large conference room

it would make whirring noises every 15 minutes. a few clicking sounds before the hour, and then CUCKOO, CUCKOO as many times as necessary. the marketing and sales folks did NOT like it, but:

- meetings got shorter and there were fewer of them

- the CEO of the company loved that clock. if i forgot to wind it, he or our admin did :-)

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#159

Post by apercu »

jxjxn wrote: post #116
buildsjets wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view people who show up too early as rude, as do many others.

I don't get why you are getting downvoted If an interviewee is half an hour early to a meeting that is rude if they actually expect to start now instead of the scheduled time

That's a tough one. I lived in Toronto for many years and traffic and public transportation are unpredictably - it could take me an hour or it could take me three hours. Sure, if I was early a there was coffee shop near by that's an option. So I like to have a little compassion for people, especially working people.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#160

Post by reaperducer »

steveBK123 wrote: post #29
diggan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggestion: Have an agenda, have rules to religiously follow the agendas and help each other follow the agenda. Once completed, meeting over.

This works great except 95% of the places I've been with bad meeting culture, it comes from the top. Long winded execs enjoying open ended meetings without any structure to constrain them. Which is to say, the kind of shops with micromanaging management who keep themselves busy with meetings with their own team.

Long winded execs enjoying open ended meetings without any structure to constrain them.

I've been through too many of these. They like to sit at the head of the table and bask in the glow of their underlings like they're king for an hour.

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