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Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

financialpost.com

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Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#41

Post by greedo »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #40
csw-001 wrote: post #13

This is interesting. For a while I had a client who drug their consultants and leadership into endless meetings, so we put a "cost of this meeting" calculation in the invite, notes, and handouts. It changed almost nothing. The problem was that the spending number was viewed as a cost of doing business. The difference between "expensing" a $500 meal and cutting a $500 meeting is that I get to eat the meal. I think for…

My coworkers are not my friends. I don't make friends at work, I maintain professional relationships. I connect with them on LinkedIn, I don't friend them on Facebook. We discuss work-related topics and we solve problems. I don't chit-chat with my coworkers about music videos or church or the weather. I don't get intimate with my coworkers or try to ask them out for drinks, or tell them how pretty their eyes look. I…

Not sure how you're coming to your conclusion about DEI being responsible for "non-intimacy and non-engagement."

If you can't make friends at work without being "nailed for insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment," you might want to take a good hard look in the mirror at how you behave with your friends.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#42

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

greedo wrote: post #41
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My coworkers are not my friends. I don't make friends at work, I maintain professional relationships. I connect with them on LinkedIn, I don't friend them on Facebook. We discuss work-related topics and we solve problems. I don't chit-chat with my coworkers about music videos or church or the weather. I don't get intimate with my coworkers or try to ask them out for drinks, or tell them how pretty their eyes look. I…

Not sure how you're coming to your conclusion about DEI being responsible for "non-intimacy and non-engagement." If you can't make friends at work without being "nailed for insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment," you might want to take a good hard look in the mirror at how you behave with your friends.

I chit-chat with my friends about music videos or church or the weather. I get intimate with my friends, and ask them out for drinks, and tell them how pretty their eyes look. I invite them over to hang out at the pool. I have strong, trusting, and healthy relationships with my friends.

I also have strong, trusting, and healthy relationships with my coworkers. I'm not quite sure what the fuck you're trying to insinuate, friend, but I'm not paid enough to care.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#43

Post by wenc »

jononomo wrote: post #35

I have always been bewildered by the anti-meeting sentiment in the tech community. There seems to be an assumption that meetings are bad. But obviously, meetings facilitate communication. You can waste a lot more time by not having a meeting and letting misunderstandings abound. Shopify employees are going to get paid for their time whether they're in a meeting or not, so this calculator should consider the cost savi…

Meetings are not a waste but they are costly to ICs because they interrupt our context, and recovering from context switch is expensive.

The unit of work for a manager is a meeting because they need to coordinate.

The IC is more of an execution role which requires sustained concentration.

If managers don’t understand this difference and call for meetings willynilly, they are actually costing the company productivity.

Regular syncs are important so that people are working on the right thing but people also need time to work.

http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#44

Post by [deleted] »

wenc wrote: post #43
jononomo wrote: post #35

I have always been bewildered by the anti-meeting sentiment in the tech community. There seems to be an assumption that meetings are bad. But obviously, meetings facilitate communication. You can waste a lot more time by not having a meeting and letting misunderstandings abound. Shopify employees are going to get paid for their time whether they're in a meeting or not, so this calculator should consider the cost savi…

Meetings are not a waste but they are costly to ICs because they interrupt our context, and recovering from context switch is expensive. The unit of work for a manager is a meeting because they need to coordinate. The IC is more of an execution role which requires sustained concentration. If managers don’t understand this difference and call for meetings willynilly, they are actually costing the company productivity.…

[deleted]

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#45

Post by pests »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #42
greedo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how you're coming to your conclusion about DEI being responsible for "non-intimacy and non-engagement." If you can't make friends at work without being "nailed for insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment," you might want to take a good hard look in the mirror at how you behave with your friends.

I chit-chat with my friends about music videos or church or the weather. I get intimate with my friends, and ask them out for drinks, and tell them how pretty their eyes look. I invite them over to hang out at the pool. I have strong, trusting, and healthy relationships with my friends. I also have strong, trusting, and healthy relationships with my coworkers. I'm not quite sure what the fuck you're trying to insinua…

My insinuation here is if you get "nailed for insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment" while hanging out with your friends...

You may be in fact be performing "insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment." while hanging out with friends.

Should you be nailed for those? Maybe. Should you be doing those? Maybe?

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#46

Post by mustafabisic1 »

josiahpeters wrote: post #25
mustafabisic1 wrote: post #4

The title makes it seem like a bad thing, but it makes total sense to me to want to cut unnecessary meetings down and use "different tactics" of getting there. I work in a company right now where we have 1 meeting at the start of the week and that's it (unless something comes up - it rarely does) It's a game-changer for my output and productivity.

Was this single meeting decision stumbled upon or iterated into or are you following a formalized system like EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) or something similar? I’m curious as to how that came about.

It's just like how the the new manager at this company likes to work. He said in a lot of his management philosophies he vowed to himself when he was entry level if he becomes a manager he'll do things differently.

And, kudos to him, he does.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#47

Post by mpalfrey »

I kind of agree with this. I used to work for a large enterprise software company and I often made the point that you'd have to jump through hoops to get approval to spend a couple of hundred EUR, but you could call a meeting with 30+ people in it no problem.

I interviewed at Shopify last year, I didn't end up accepting (I stayed at the unnamed software company) but I do agree with a lot of their processes (not so much since the layoffs they've had however).

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#48

Post by worstestes »

mustafabisic1 wrote: post #46
josiahpeters wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this single meeting decision stumbled upon or iterated into or are you following a formalized system like EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) or something similar? I’m curious as to how that came about.

It's just like how the the new manager at this company likes to work. He said in a lot of his management philosophies he vowed to himself when he was entry level if he becomes a manager he'll do things differently. And, kudos to him, he does.

How long is the meeting typically?

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#49

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

pests wrote: post #45
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chit-chat with my friends about music videos or church or the weather. I get intimate with my friends, and ask them out for drinks, and tell them how pretty their eyes look. I invite them over to hang out at the pool. I have strong, trusting, and healthy relationships with my friends. I also have strong, trusting, and healthy relationships with my coworkers. I'm not quite sure what the fuck you're trying to insinua…

My insinuation here is if you get "nailed for insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment" while hanging out with your friends... You may be in fact be performing "insubordination, loafing or sexual harassment." while hanging out with friends. Should you be nailed for those? Maybe. Should you be doing those? Maybe?

I do have single female friends with pretty eyes, and they're quite receptive to sincere compliments, so I feel sorry for you if that seems unfair. In fact, it would be unfair to my friends if I didn't flirt with them a little and increase those bonds of trust and intimacy.

Do you even know the definitions of "insubordination" or "loafing"? How could I possibly do those things in my leisure time outside of work with people who don't work with me?

Insubordination: "disobedience to lawful authority; specifically, an employee's failure or refusal to comply with a request or an assignment given by his/her supervisor."

Loaf: "(intransitive) To do nothing, to be idle."

I don't know what you think relationships with friends are like, but you sure have weird ideas if you actually think they would reprimand me for low productivity. Which one of your friends has been appointed lawful authority over you? Or is it a hereditary role, like "King of pests"? Lord of the Flies?

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#50

Post by erik_seaberg »

jononomo wrote: post #35

I have always been bewildered by the anti-meeting sentiment in the tech community. There seems to be an assumption that meetings are bad. But obviously, meetings facilitate communication. You can waste a lot more time by not having a meeting and letting misunderstandings abound. Shopify employees are going to get paid for their time whether they're in a meeting or not, so this calculator should consider the cost savi…

I’ve been to too many meetings where we decide something and then revisit it next year because we literally can’t remember how the meeting went. Sometimes many of the attendees have moved on now. Meetings need an agenda and a recording (video, minutes, whatever) to have value comparable to docs or email threads. Everyone we hire tomorrow will have missed every meeting, but docs are waiting for them.

Meetings are also noisy, so it’s hard to contribute if you need quiet to think.

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