Ask HN: Help, I am stuck in another pointless weekly meeting

[throwfast1]

what can I do to help either make these meetings useful?

spend 15-20 minutes discussing things not related to work whatsoever before anything of value has been said.

[croo]

15-20 minutes per week of pointless non-value chit-chat talk on a meeting with coworkers is time well spent. Don't forget to ask them about something you remember about them from last week.

[afarrell]

That time is better spent over lunch explicitly relaxing rather than in a meeting which people trade off against other things.

3 minutes is fine and re-enforces a relationship. but when it rolls on into 15-20 for a regular meeting among folks who already know each other, then it sets people up for not working efficiently and thereby not getting home on time.

[itamarst]

Negotiate your way out of it, e.g. "can I just present my stuff at the beginning" or if you're really good at it, negotiate it out of existence.

Long form explanation of how to say "no" to your boss, of which this is just an instance: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/08/16/how-to-say-no/

[sloaken]

Two tactics:

Passive - Bring something with you to the meeting. Work items to work on while you wait, or a book etc. I am a fan of printing off technical stuff and keeping it on hand when bored. Looking busy is a good tactic to avoid the 'good idea fairy'

Aggressive - start launching into the topic. This can meet resistance 'oh hold on we are waiting for xyzzy to show up', response: I have too much work to do, call me at x1234 when you are ready to start.

Story time: I had a boss who would tried to establish a social bond with his people. He was not a techie, so there was none of that to build on. So he did the typical 'lets talk sports' because that was the only thing he knew. As such we would waste time at the weekly team meting for 15 to 20 mins. Only one guy would really engage with him. He was surprised when we all said how much we hated the wasteful weekly meeting.

What he should have done, to accomplish the social binding and understanding of what we were doing was to met each of us and talk individually. Oh well.

[phakding]

Use it as a break from work. Browse internet, meditate etc. Being bored is not a bad thing.

[jf22]

It's ok to be social and bond with your co-workers.

Work doesn't have to be about non-stop value delivery.

[thedevindevops]

Identify who invited you, confirm that your presence is actually required. Two important questions, what decisions will you be needed to weigh in on, and what information do they need from you.

You can ask these under the umbrella of 'meeting notes' and often you can just brief the person who invited you with the relevant facts better yet give them something to shuffle at the meeting - printed notes.

That should get you out of them.

[borplk]

If your bosses are generally aware and happy with the state of affairs twiddle your thumbs, look at your phone, zone out and get paid for every minute of it.

Some companies are more efficient than others.

Trust me it's not a battle worth fighting.

[agentofoblivion]

Stop going. I’ve used this strategy a lot, and no one seems to care. You’re likely overestimating the amount people are thinking about your presence.

For the first time or two, have a response ready, like “oh I just had to make progress on blah, did I miss anything important?” After awhile, if anyone asks, you can say that you don’t feel like you add enough value to justify the time spent. Your boss can always correct you and ask that you come again, but that at least gets him to evaluate if it’s important.

[taprun]

Ask if the person who leads it can rotate. Lead by example and demonstrate that meetings can be well run and as short as needed.

[ishwarn]

Speak up?

It's likely that you're not the only person that feels this way. Speak up, ask the person that runs point on the meeting to have an agenda prepared to share before the start of every meeting. If the discussion wanders away from what the group finds valuable or from the agenda, establish a way to call it out and bring everyone back to the agenda.

[gesman]

Prepare to be productive regardless of what happening around you.

Think about riding bus for 30 minutes. Can you be productive in there? Do the same during meeting.

[icedchai]

That's easy. Just stop showing up. Make them come to you.

[naveen99]

Show up 15-20 minutes late