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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

#251

Post by lazyasciiart »

leviathant wrote: post #98
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.

I started replying "No agenda, no attenda" after being in a few too many meetings where things dragged on, or where I clearly was not needed. Didn't matter if I was telling this to someone at the same level as me, or someone at the head of the department: the humor in the wording lessens the sting of the implied "stop being disorganized" message. I made it clear that if there was not a clear agenda in the meeting inv…

I tried this once and my manager and skip level explained to me that sometimes it's necessary to make people get together in case anyone wanted to talk about something, not every meeting needs an agenda. Unsurprisingly, I was not a good fit for that team.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#252

Post by immibis »

scotty79 wrote: post #189
buzer wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In Poland "academic quarter" has a sense that if the teacher didn't show up and it's 15 minues past, the students can leave. They still need to show up for the class at 00 every time and are scolded to varying degree if they showed up after the teacher started which they do right after they arrive.

At my university in New Zealand they didn't take attendance for lectures. You attended the lectures so you could learn stuff so you could pass the exams. It's surprising that isn't considered normal.

(There's some nuance to that statement as science courses tende to have labs - I don't remember why first-year physics was a requirement for software engineering, but it was - mathematics courses tended to have weekly assignments, and at least one software course had a very unusual style of putting us in a room one whole day per week for a semester to work on group projects.)

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#253

Post by paulcole »

bumby wrote: post #205
dunham wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Michigan State, I had a math prof (Wade Ramey) who would lock the door after class started. If you were late, you couldn't attend. He also insisted students purchase a stapler and staple their homework. And he would give negative points on assignments. You could say "I don't know how to do X" for a step in a proof (0 pts), but if you put in something wrong, you would get negative points on that part. He was a good…

> And he would give negative points on assignments. I remember reading (maybe from Nate Silver) of a professor who would use this technique to teach about uncertainty. You could weigh your overall grade with a proclamation about how certain you were about the answer. Right answers with high certainty could really amp up your grade, but conversely if you claimed 100% certainty on a question you got wrong, you’d fail t…

This is the best/most fun way to bet on the Oscars.

You pick the winner and then assign 1-25 (or whatever) points to it (using each number for only one category) and if you get it right you get that number of points.

It basically prevents ties. It lets you make risky picks without falling out of the running. The downside is a shocking number of people won't be able to follow the rule and end up with 22 used twice or whatever.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#254

Post by filmor »

AdhemarVandamme wrote: post #236
spookie wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tempore is in ablative case, and in english there isn't a good substitute. This means it isn't a static set time event, it has some leeway so to speak. German has the ablative case, so I think it works out for them.

I don’t see why the grammatical cases of Latin and German matter in the interpretation of these abbreviations. The Latin prepositions cum (with) and sine (without) are always followed by the ablative case. German has grammatical cases too, but no ablative. The German propositions mit (with) and ohne (without) are followed by the accusative case. So c.t. = cum tempore = mit Zeit = with time (or with some delay), and s…

"mit" is followed by dative in German. In Latin, ablative and dative are very close and which is very close, a lot of forms are indistinguishable.

That doesn't change anything else you said, though :)

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#255

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

RHSeeger wrote: post #143
stkni wrote: post #119

Think I'm with Larry on this one. Someone should chair the meeting and there should be some expected outcome (decision) from it within the alotted time. If we're 45 mins in and no closer to an answer it's time to assign some investigative actions and regroup? Malicious compliance in this context is good, because it creates an environment where meetings end and everyone gets to pee?

Not all meetings have decisions to be made. Some are just discussions of a topic; generally to make sure everyone is on the same page.

> generally to make sure everyone is on the same page

If everyone is on the same page then there should be a 'page' resulting from the meeting; something to look back at to represent what everyone agreed on. Those are the 'decisions' being made.

The worst meetings are ones where people share ideas, nod their head in agreement, then write nothing down. Inevitably this leads to an identical meeting later down the road, after people have forgotten key details and the game of telephone has distorted others. Then later it leads to upset people when they find, often close to delivery time, that their understanding conflicts with others on the team.

If there's no desire to have updated plans or documentation after the meeting has concluded, then I question the true intent of the meeting. Was it because the person calling the meeting felt out of the loop? Why was that allowed to happen in the first place? Why were the requirements and the team's progress not easy to observe at a glance?

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#256

Post by [deleted] »

bumby wrote: post #246
gnfargbl wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had. No. How could he? Instead, I'm pointing out the value of empathy, tolerance and flexibility.

I’m all for empathy, tolerance, and flexibility (to a reasonable degree). I also don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a professor to act on an assumption of illness when the person actually experiencing the symptoms does not hold that assumption. Your perspective makes it seem like the prof is privy to information about your health that you don’t have.

[deleted]

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#257

Post by shakna »

bumby wrote: post #227
gnfargbl wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a medical condition (autoimmune hypothyroid, extreme edition) which I wasn't aware of, but was suffering from severely, during my University years. Waking up was extremely difficult for me and as a result I was often late. At the time I couldn't understand why I seemingly had a problem that nobody else did, and presumed I just lacked self control. Nope, I just needed (a lot) of medication. Your Prof Ramsey wou…

You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had. If you want to hold him accountable for his (unfair?) rules, you need to first hold yourself accountable for getting the disease diagnosed.

The world we live in, with the people we live with, require accomodations every single day.

Not locking a door allows the students who were delayed on the road by a car accident, as much as the disabled student who took five minutes longer than expected after falling down some stairs.

Every single person makes mistakes at times. If those are not absorbed by flexibility, then they go on to affect everyone else connected to the punished.

If the professor is delayed due to a tire puncture, should they lose their tenure?

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#258

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

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 used to love pomodoro style meetings... it became a test of will and stamina at some point.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#259

Post by coolcase »

That's not malicious compliance. That's malicious to non-compliance!

Obviously the solution is to have buffer where rooms can't be booked rather like hotel checkout and check-in times. I also think psychologically that a 9:10am start and 10am end would make people stick to their slot better.

I'm glad I work remote and this is a distant memory:

> Meetings continue until the participants of the next meeting are clawing on your door like a pack of zombies.

This made me laugh!

By the way I can't think of how you can do malicious compliance here. You can annoy your boss by refusing a meeting if you have nothing to say... but while annoying this is the point of the edict.

Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room

#260

Post by shakna »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #120
Tomte wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifteen minutes late used to be the academic standard in Germany (and other countries): it was noted by “c.t.” in the timetable, meaning “cum tempore”. When I studied it had already been mostly abolished. Sometimes starting times were explicitly marked “sine tempore”.

Those are strange annotations; it looks like at least one word is missing. They mean "with time" and "without time".

Cum can be translated as 'with', but due to cultural use, it can also be translated as 'in addition'.

Some younger Latin recipes use 'cum sal' as a one-liner at the end, to tell the chef to season to their taste, for example.

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