Dumbest work meetings (1 Viewer)

napolimp

Well-Known Member
I once had a sales meeting where we were made to stand up for the whole meeting as supposedly that’s how the Japanese do it and it ‘concentrates the mind’.

Ah, that's one mystery solved. Explains why Sakamoto is playing so much better than everyone else, he's standing in training whilst the rest of the squad is sitting.
 

Covkid1968#

Well-Known Member
I create meetings on Teams with important names with just me invited. People don’t question it and it means I don’t get unexpected calls when I’m trying to do some fecking work or Xmas shopping in work time.
 

Sick Boy

Well-Known Member
I create meetings on Teams with important names with just me invited. People don’t question it and it means I don’t get unexpected calls when I’m trying to do some fecking work or Xmas shopping in work time.
I used to do that, it actually worked really well and cut down on bullshit from colleagues.
 

LastGarrison

Well-Known Member
This is a thing. The point is to limit the meeting time not concentrate the mind though.
It may work in subservient cultures but certainly doesn’t seem to be a ‘thing’ in the UK.

We just assumed she’d cracked up with stress.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
It may work in subservient cultures but certainly doesn’t seem to be a ‘thing’ in the UK.

We just assumed she’d cracked up with stress.

We have a meeting called “standup” every morning. It’s quite common in software. We don’t actually stand up, but that’s where the name comes from cos it’s only supposed to last ten mins max.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
Every single first INSET day after the summer holiday - biggest load of bollocks ever.
Mandatory 3 hour safeguarding briefing where the SLT safeguarding staff stand and read out KCSIE verbatim off a slide show. Well it should be 2 hours, but they spend one going ‘I know it’s boring guys, sorry’.
 

LastGarrison

Well-Known Member
We have a meeting called “standup” every morning. It’s quite common in software. We don’t actually stand up, but that’s where the name comes from cos it’s only supposed to last ten mins max.
I get the concept but surely that just comes down to poor time management?

Just tell them to ‘take it offline’ or whatever the corporate buzzwords for ‘shut the fuck up’ are for that week.
 

wingy

Well-Known Member
We have a meeting called “standup” every morning. It’s quite common in software. We don’t actually stand up, but that’s where the name comes from cos it’s only supposed to last ten mins max.
Basically getting on the soapbox then?
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
We have a meeting called “standup” every morning. It’s quite common in software. We don’t actually stand up, but that’s where the name comes from cos it’s only supposed to last ten mins max.

It's one of the agile working philosophies, we used to do them when I worked in one of the NHS digital orgs. Along with a lot of other half-baked adaptations of agile.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
I get the concept but surely that just comes down to poor time management?

Just tell them to ‘take it offline’ or whatever the corporate buzzwords for ‘shut the fuck up’ are for that week.

Yeah but we’re all autists who don’t like confrontation. I do frequently tell people to take stuff offline mind.

It’s like the “pizza rule” where you shouldn’t have more people in a meeting than you can feed with a pizza. It’s just another rule of thumb to try and tackle what always happens in meetings: there’s too many, too many people are invited, and they go off topic.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Agile is fine. The people who implement Agile however…
Agreed, it was the NHS in the public sector so a hybrid of agile and Prince and therefore utter nonsense. I don't work in development but a programme manager was trying to make me work in sprints (in a heavily regulated and governed environment)

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Agreed, it was the NHS in the public sector so a hybrid of agile and Prince and therefore utter nonsense. I don't work in development but a programme manager was trying to make me work in sprints (in a heavily regulated and governed environment)

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

Rule 1 of Agile is supposed to be “people over processes” yet no one actually remembers that bit for some reason.
 

rob9872

Well-Known Member
Yeah but we’re all autists who don’t like confrontation. I do frequently tell people to take stuff offline mind.

It’s like the “pizza rule” where you shouldn’t have more people in a meeting than you can feed with a pizza. It’s just another rule of thumb to try and tackle what always happens in meetings: there’s too many, too many people are invited, and they go off topic.
That's 1 then, because I'm not sharing!
 

napolimp

Well-Known Member
I've had my status set to 'Do not disturb' for 3 days

I have a colleague who phones me if I have my status set to "do not disturb" but no entries in my calendar, to say that they know I'm not in a meeting. Very weird.


The other meeting set-up which annoys me is the recurring monthly meeting on a specific initiative. Everyone has to attend whether there has been any progress or not. The exact same crap is discussed as the meeting a month earlier.
 

Macca1987

Well-Known Member
I have a colleague who phones me if I have my status set to "do not disturb" but no entries in my calendar, to say that they know I'm not in a meeting. Very weird.


The other meeting set-up which annoys me is the recurring monthly meeting on a specific initiative. Everyone has to attend whether there has been any progress or not. The exact same crap is discussed as the meeting a month earlier.
Similar, we have a 3 times a week project meeting, go over the same things and get nowhere, I say leave it at once a week and pass in any questions in teams prior to meeting
 

Nick

Administrator
I've been in a few (so called) pre-meetings to work out what we want the meeting agenda etc to look like. Basically a meeting to plan a meeting

I used to do a lot of work in "digital agencies" and things like that. I have no idea how they actually got any work done and had to sometimes tell them to just email me and tell me in bullet points what they want and I will have it done within 10 minutes. Couldn't be bothered with multiple meetings where people just used buzz words and chatted shit for hours.

Get to the point, I will sort it.
 

Mcbean

Well-Known Member
We had an Italian tosser who was so full
Of management clichés ( read shite ideas) - he would use Elevator pitches as a technique - 30 seconds for you to get over your point then shut up - some of the delegates would just talk gibberish for half the time 🤣 fortunately he was also so gobby with the senior guys they sacked him ( not early enough for me )
 

Otis

Well-Known Member
Where I used to work they had weekly management meetings, even if there was nothing to talk about and they would always last 2 hours, whatever.

Anyway, same meeting every week, even when not needed.

I do remember one meeting in particular though....

We had a mechanical engineer, who was called Keith Spencer. He was a no nonsense, speak your mind, Yorkshire man.

Anyway, one day they had this meeting and some bigwig came down from head office to join said meeting. From this meeting room you could actually see our the window to people walking into the building, heading for the reception area.

The meeting was going along as per usual this day, updating on maintenance work and outstanding issues and budget targets etc.

As it progressed, suddenly, a smartly dressed woman, in her 30's walked past the window on the way to the reception area.

It caught Keith's gaze as she breezed past and took one look at her and blurted out loudly "I'd fuck her".

Most were shocked and one or two laughed, but mainly it was an unerring silence.

Anyway, suddenly, piercing through the silence, the guy from head office piped up and said "I will have you know, that's my wife!"

Another pin drop silence. Lots of heads in hands and people looking at anywhere else around the room to hide the embarrassment.

Keith immediately comes back with "Oh, okay.....but I'd still fuck her!"

😂
 
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fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
I have a colleague who phones me if I have my status set to "do not disturb" but no entries in my calendar, to say that they know I'm not in a meeting. Very weird.


The other meeting set-up which annoys me is the recurring monthly meeting on a specific initiative. Everyone has to attend whether there has been any progress or not. The exact same crap is discussed as the meeting a month earlier.
Some people work in such unproductive pointless jobs that attending meetings is the essence of what they do. They can't understand that somebody without a meeting in their diary might be otherwise doing something.
Where I used to work they had weekly management meetings, even if there was nothing to talk about and they would always last 2 hours, whatever.

Anyway, same meeting every week, even when not needed.

I do remember one meeting in particular though....

We had a mechanical engineer, who was called Keith Spencer. He was a no nonsense, speak your mind, Yorkshire man.

Anyway, one day they had this meeting and some bigwig came down from head office to join said meeting. From this meeting room you could actually see our the window to people walking into the building, heading for the reception area.

The meeting was going along as per usual this day, updating on maintenance work and outstanding issues and budget targets etc.

As it progressed, suddenly, a smartly dressed woman, in her 30's walked past the window on the way to the reception area.

It caught Keith's gaze as she breezed past and took one look at her and blurted out loudly "I'd fuck her".

Most were shocked and one or two laughed, but mainly it was an unerring silence.

Anyway, suddenly, piercing through the silence, the guy from head office piped up and said "I will have you know, that's my wife!"

Another pin drop silence. Lots of heads in hands and people looking at anywhere else around the room to hide the embarrassment.

Keith immediately comes back with "Oh, okay.....but I'd still fuck her!"

😂
Sounds like the man in my avatar. I say what I like and I like what I bloody well say. No offence!
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Just had another hour added to my meeting load. “Insights session” where someone will go through a load of pointless graphs about how we are performing. Surely your job as a manager is to parse that shit and just tell us what’s changing and why?
 

Fysnkysc

Well-Known Member
I have a daily meeting with my team every single day. All we talk about is what we got up to last night, then we have a follow on meeting about work progress if anyone needs help ect, followed by a mental health expert every single day.

Takes up 2 hours of my day instantly it's stupid.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Not a meeting but just been asked to refresh two and a half hours of training that I did nine months ago on ground breaking topics like “what’s a good password?” And “how to survive a terrorist attack”
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Did you know if a gunman comes into your place of work you should hide? Obviously you didn’t. You haven’t done the training.
 

Otis

Well-Known Member
Not a meeting but just been asked to refresh two and a half hours of training that I did nine months ago on ground breaking topics like “what’s a good password?” And “how to survive a terrorist attack”
Surely you need a good password if you want to survive a terrorist attack, unless your not having a good password caused the terrorist attack in the first place.
 

Saddlebrains

Well-Known Member
Not meeting related but work related


Yonks back i did small stint working for some shitty call centre in town. First day, the usual introductions, where youre from where youve worked etc, and names

No word of a lie, there was a little Sri Lankan man in the group, and his name was on the screen as the next man to introduce himself

His name

Pushma Poohbakhin

I couldn't help but laugh,had to leave the room 😂😂😂
 

Nick

Administrator
It's one of the agile working philosophies, we used to do them when I worked in one of the NHS digital orgs. Along with a lot of other half-baked adaptations of agile.

Yeah, then a sprint.

My issue was always I was "sprinting" when I had to stop to stand up.
 

OffenhamSkyBlue

Well-Known Member
A certain leading university in the area (Warwick, seeing as you asked) have a HUMUNGOUS HR department (they call it the People Group. FFS!). Every Monday at 2pm, they have a "Huddle", where everyone has to stand around in the open plan office while the Director of HR spouts bollocks about what has or has not been going on! UTTER waste of everyone's time!
I rarely saw actually how big the People Group was, but they would have occasional "team building" days (for which, read "utter wastes of time") which dragged in the HR functions from every department across the University (no, having one massive central HR team capable of achieving fuck-all wasn't enough, seemingly) - no word of a lie, there were two hundred people there! And people talk about the NHS being over-staffed with pointless twats!
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Not a meeting but just been asked to refresh two and a half hours of training that I did nine months ago on ground breaking topics like “what’s a good password?” And “how to survive a terrorist attack”
The world of surviving a terrorist attack moves quickly

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Just had another hour added to my meeting load. “Insights session” where someone will go through a load of pointless graphs about how we are performing. Surely your job as a manager is to parse that shit and just tell us what’s changing and why?
What's the other agile thing you do like a reflection process, can't remember what it was called. What went well and what didn't or something.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk
 

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