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 mid-pontification and close the folio thing she always brought to meetings and then exit the room.
Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
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Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#32In 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.
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#33Sounds more like a story of change management with people not changing their way.
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#34At MIT, lectures must follow MIT time; all lectures are expected to start 5 minutes after the hour, and end 5 minutes before. Funnily this means each lecture is about one microcentury long. Exams are the one exception, they start on the dot. https://oge.mit.edu/mit-time/
If anyone else is confused, a microcentury is apparently around 52.6 minutes long.
Microcentury sounds like somebody didn't reduce their fractions. I propose centiyear.
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#35I thought one of the reasons we call it a standup is because everyone just, stands up, and does a ytb. So you don't need a meeting room. Nice story.
what is a ytb?
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#36Earlier 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.
In my experience, most folks appreciate a gentle hint to stick to the agenda. I don’t hang out with “execs” though.
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#37The other form of malicious compliance is my preferred malicious compliance. If the meeting is for 15 minutes I leave at the 15 minute mark after excusing myself.
The problem with meetings always falls into one of two camps for me:
1. Some company leader is in the meeting and everyone sits tight while they waste time bikeshedding on whatever they read on LinkedIn today.
2. Two engineers are quarreling over the nuance of a status update.
I find meetings that should be short (stand ups) are better done over slack. Submit a quick update and then people can DM if needed. Then you’re not holding people hostage.
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#3810 minute standup , woof
I think they are supposed to be so short you don’t even sit, right?
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#39I saw a funny DefCon video on elevator hacking where one of the emcees tried to patronizingly lure the lecturers off-stage, with shots! This was presumably because they constantly take too long to get their AV set up and wanted to get a headstart.
The response was ice cold. "No, this is our time." (Go ahead and stop us.)
So it isn't the problem of the people booking the meetings, it's the problem of the people who formulate and implement the rules.
Re: Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
#40> Everybody in a meeting should give input or they shouldn’t be in the meeting At several companies I was at this rule would have removed the last slack time I had to fix, refactor and maintain systems. I actually asked a manager to add me to a monthly 2 hour 50+ people reoccurring meeting just so I could do some refactoring. I guess that is a form of Malicious compliance.
I think the better rule is to empower people to remove themselves from meetings they don't need to attend. Inviting anyone and everyone in case they might be needed is a real problem at most big companies I've worked for or with.