You Know You're In A Real Meeting When...
Monday, August 01, 2005 | 11:45 pm
I have covered some of the sadnesses of leaving the failing Old Company for a new Company, and let's face it, most of it was due to lifestyle changes (mates, soccer, walking to work) — and the horror at learning I having to track my time).
But today was my first day proper at the new place (outside of one week of training), and it immediately highlighted other more positive differences. So for the amusement of old work mates, here's my cathartic version of "spot the differences". Today's topic is meetings.
Clues:
(1) Friday afternoon, I was invited by Outlook invite to attend a Monday 8:15am phone-conference to review an upcoming project.
(2) We started at 8:15am, and attendees included two senior managers and the COO, and two more employees via phone.
(3) Even though everyone has a laptop, none were in the room. Just handouts.
(4) The meeting was led by the senior manager, who considers this project a priority, and moved a 9am meeting to ensure we reached agreement on all points.
Answers
(1a) The meeting was planned, rather than inviting people in 15 minutes after meeting start.
(1b) "Outlook invite" implies that there was some semblance of an agenda.
(2a) Snr managers turn up early, not after lunch.
(2b) Meeting started on time.
(2c) Distance management is not an impossible challenge.
(3) This means that at no point did anyone stop to watch movie trailers, read old emails, or visit other companies websites under the delusion that the next Amazon.com could be created with 2 programmers, a web designer, and 72 hours to spare.
(4) The words "led", "priority" and "senior manager" were used in the same sentence, without the words "aimlessly", "to distraction", or "to hell" appearing.
Yeah, it's a job not recreation. But I suppose if it has to be a real job at a real company, then it's a bonus to find a real company that seems to have it's head screwed on.
6 Comments:
You beat me to this Juz, although I have shared some of this in previous entries.
Spot on about bringing laptops to meetings. I almost grabbed mine for my first meeting out of habit.
My new employer, too, requires tracking of time. Horror indeed. But then, I suppose that's another indication of a real company.
Laptops in meetings are a big no-no, so I'm not surprised Decipher encouraged it or failed to enforce it given what I've read and heard about "management" there. My wife hated the one or two jerks who would bring laptops to meetings at Accenture. They were always goofing off.
Tracking time might seem tedious and arbitrary, but it's a useful tool, especially in large companies. It'll become second nature to estimate how much of your time was spent working of which tasks or projects.
Juz, how are the bathrooms there? Do they have real sinks?
At my new company, the bathrooms actually look like bathrooms you'd see in an office building. The only thing that distressed me was the lack of reading materials.
automatic paper towel dispensers are real nice too
To answer you Mkae, I can no longer see my own arse while sitting on the toilet without considerable calisthenics.
Not that an all-mirrored bathroom didn't have some appeal outside work hours.
Mind you, it seems that not refilling the coffee pot after taking the last cup is a universal problem...
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