Jump to content

For those that work


Square Wheels

Recommended Posts

The boss lives to be on calls and I am called in when needed, but no more than a few hours a week.  I wear a bunch of hats, HR, investor / sharholder relations / AP / AR / office manager.  I have to bounce from task to task all day long and the CEO will often just drop things on me that have to happen right then, like have to draft new stock offering documents today, right in the middle of trying to sort out why our accounting software is excluding some payments to contractors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meetings were the things I missed least when I retired. Having a good agenda and sticking to it helps, but some folks just want to hear themselves talk, and that gets old in a hurry. If I had got to a point where I was spending 1/2 my time in meetings, I'd have retired or looked for another job.  I've also quit some of my volunteer duties due to having to attend meetings.

  • Heart 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had one job where we had so many meetings that we had a pre-meeting meeting to get ready for one of the monthly meetings. At least 5 meetings a week.

The next job we averaged about 1.25 meetings a week and the weekly meeting usually only took about 30 minutes tops. The one monthly meeting took about an hour.

My current job has a lot of meetings but I've basically excused myself from them. I hate our customer and my bosses are afraid that I'll tell him off one day. I want to retire and often think that getting fired might be fun. Or at least a new experience as I've never been fired in 50 years of working.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not many. My boss was supposed to meet with me ever other week for one hour. I think did that twice in three years and both were 5 minutes. Our current boss likes to cancel meetings. I like him. His emails are rarely more than one or two lines.

If people are professional, they show up and do their job.

  • Heart 1
  • Awesome 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, but I am the principal, so I call most of them. The only group I don't meet with on a regular basis is the cafeteria workers. Most of these are about 30-40 minutes.

  • Monday - Marketing person, grades 1-2 teachers, technology department
  • Tuesday - Special area teachers, Inclusion team
  • Wednesday - meeting with my boss (this is a big one and last about two hours)
  • Thursday - Junior High teachers, grades 3-4 teachers, grades 5-6 teachers
  • Friday - Kindergarten teachers, aides, tutors

Meetings that are once a month include school board, PTA, treasurer, principal meetings. Faculty meetings are generally once every two to three weeks. 

 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Forum Administrator said:

Yes, but I am the principal, so I call most of them. The only group I don't meet with on a regular basis is the cafeteria workers. Most of these are about 30-40 minutes.

  • Monday - Marketing person, grades 1-2 teachers, technology department
  • Tuesday - Special area teachers, Inclusion team
  • Wednesday - meeting with my boss (this is a big one and last about two hours)
  • Thursday - Junior High teachers, grades 3-4 teachers, grades 5-6 teachers
  • Friday - Kindergarten teachers, aides, tutors

Meetings that are once a month include school board, PTA, treasurer, principal meetings. Faculty meetings are generally once every two to three weeks. 

 

That is way too many meetings. You should cancel most of them.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had one job that I was required to go to meetings. It was my dream job except for the meetings. I had to drive all over getting to these meetings. Never could figure out why they wanted me there. I had one Monday morning meeting that was ok. I would meet with the director every Monday morning and discuss what was going on that week. We had good coffee and sometimes I needed it if he decided to talk too much.

My last job had a lot of unnecessary meetings but they were all either before work or after work and we got paid an hour and a half’s pay and the meetings only lasted about a half hour. We were required to attend but didn’t have to participate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Square Wheels said:

Do you have a lot of meetings?

Regardless of my efforts to minimize meetings or reduce their length, I spend at least 1/2 my work week in meetings.

On Monday's park walk with Jake, I met a current teacher in the school system from which I retired in 2006. She said meetings, etc. are worse than ever.

When I retired from teaching in 2006 the number of meeting was becoming greater and greater, for all teachers and especially as I held higher and higher positions. Our school system is a countywide one, 36th largest in the USA, and I not only had many meetings at our school north of Annapolis, I had to attend science meetings at the system's science building south of Annapolis and at the Board of Ed in Annapolis where, among other things, I was charged with co-writing the semester exams for Physics for our 12 high schools.

Many of the meetings were not only worthless but harmful: new, awful systems of teaching were introduced then canceled soon after, specific teaching methods were canceled then later reintroduced - like a ridiculous, temporary ban on listing vocabulary words on the walls.  Sure, chemistry students shouldn't need to know the difference between a beaker and a flask, right?

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have a staff meeting every Monday morning. Lasts about 30 minutes most weeks. Just a chance to see what is on everyone’s plates and the boss to get things off his chest. Usually nothing too awful. 
Once in a great while we have to have other meetings, but they try to keep them to a minimum. 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a Tuesday dept meeting with our VP and a Thurs conf call with the corporate real estate team.

I have a fairly small team so I talk to them all every few days, some every day. I try to have a group meeting quarterly.  I attend various meeting for one reason or another about once a week.  I also walk our campus’ weekly and just talk to people. Not necessarily a meeting but I get good intel that way.

So on average 3 meetings a week, two standing and then whatever comes up.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, dennis said:

That is way too many meetings. You should cancel most of them.

I would love to, but what I realized is that it is very easy to get out of touch with what is happening in the classrooms if I don't.  For the most part, the teachers don't hate it. They have 30 minutes of my undivided attention to discuss what they want to discuss or ask questions about what we are doing.  The small groups make it a lot easier to do things like look at testing data or work on our school goals.  The ones that can away are the  non-teacher meetings.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Square Wheels said:

Do you have a lot of meetings?

Regardless of my efforts to minimize meetings or reduce their length, I spend at least 1/2 my work week in meetings.

They come in waves.  I try to minimize them, but the folks who like to fill their calendars with "work" (excuses not to work) love when we have them.

Some weeks, it is a few hours, some weeks it is several hours, and some weeks, it is many hours.  It all depends what's on the radar, and what upper management has decided is most important right now.

For me, a meeting can be one-on-one to iron some stuff out, or it can be ten folks in the room with only two or three needing to be there.  If I am running the meeting, I tend to "forget" to invite the dead weight, and I ALWAYS have a formal agenda and/or a discrete goal for a meeting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not normally in my position. I have a recurring meeting every other week pertaining to design/process changes. Otherwise I call or go to various other meetings here & there for all sorts of reasons. Conference calls also, but not much. The last few conference calls I was apart of were at 9 PM, because we was talking with a customer's factory in Singapore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Square Wheels said:

Do you have a lot of meetings?

Regardless of my efforts to minimize meetings or reduce their length, I spend at least 1/2 my work week in meetings.

We have a few set scheduled meetings.  We use a strict meeting guideline from a management system we implemented here a couple years ago.  Weekly we have a 90 minute leadership team meeting and a 60 minute Operations meeting.  Every other week there is a 60 minute accounting meeting and a 60 minute sales meeting - all using the Level 10 format.  These meetings, and the meeting pulse it created, has transformed our company and how we work.  These meeting are productive and vital.  The things we have learned about conducting good meetings has bleed over into other ad hoc meeting that come up.

 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

We have a few set scheduled meetings.  We use a strict meeting guideline from a management system we implemented here a couple years ago.  Weekly we have a 90 minute leadership team meeting and a 60 minute Operations meeting.  Every other week there is a 60 minute accounting meeting and a 60 minute sales meeting - all using the Level 10 format.  These meetings, and the meeting pulse it created, has transformed our company and how we work.  These meeting are productive and vital.  The things we have learned about conducting good meetings has bleed over into other ad hoc meeting that come up.

 

Solid points and I use much of this when having meetings.  I remember an event years ago when we had a group meeting and I was one of the Junior managers. After an hour of rambling and no clear agenda one of the senior managers slammed her hand on the table in disgust and said goddammit, why are we here!?!?!  I was thinking the same...  From that point forward my meetings have  start & end times, an agenda and a take away. 

I always got lots of compliments on my booster meetings as I didn’t allow any socializing during meetings and kept folks on task.  You can talk about Johnny’s homework or the upcoming prom after the meeting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Forum Administrator said:

Yes, but I am the principal, so I call most of them. The only group I don't meet with on a regular basis is the cafeteria workers. Most of these are about 30-40 minutes.

  • Monday - Marketing person, grades 1-2 teachers, technology department
  • Tuesday - Special area teachers, Inclusion team
  • Wednesday - meeting with my boss (this is a big one and last about two hours)
  • Thursday - Junior High teachers, grades 3-4 teachers, grades 5-6 teachers
  • Friday - Kindergarten teachers, aides, tutors

Meetings that are once a month include school board, PTA, treasurer, principal meetings. Faculty meetings are generally once every two to three weeks. 

 

Which meeting was this taken at and what was the show of hands for?

Image result for huge hot tub full of people

  • Heart 1
  • Awesome 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I worked.......long time ago........they would hold company wide meetings to explain how the company was doing.  Things like order numbers, sales, projections, cash flow would be projected on a screen while a manager read the slide to us.

:humping:

I stopped going and nobody missed me enough to drag me back.  It was amazing how much work I could get done while the managers were busy in their meeting.  Too bad the factory floor workers couldn't escape too.

  • Awesome 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Forum Administrator said:

Yes, but I am the principal, so I call most of them. The only group I don't meet with on a regular basis is the cafeteria workers. Most of these are about 30-40 minutes.

  • Monday - Marketing person, grades 1-2 teachers, technology department
  • Tuesday - Special area teachers, Inclusion team
  • Wednesday - meeting with my boss (this is a big one and last about two hours)
  • Thursday - Junior High teachers, grades 3-4 teachers, grades 5-6 teachers
  • Friday - Kindergarten teachers, aides, tutors

Meetings that are once a month include school board, PTA, treasurer, principal meetings. Faculty meetings are generally once every two to three weeks. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Forum Administrator said:

I would love to, but what I realized is that it is very easy to get out of touch with what is happening in the classrooms if I don't.  For the most part, the teachers don't hate it. They have 30 minutes of my undivided attention to discuss what they want to discuss or ask questions about what we are doing.  The small groups make it a lot easier to do things like look at testing data or work on our school goals.  The ones that can away are the  non-teacher meetings.  

Until today, I thought Forum Adminstrator was either a @jsharr or @Randomguy sock puppet.  :scratchhead:

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Zephyr said:

 

Until today, I thought Forum Adminstrator was either a @jsharr or @Randomguy sock puppet.  :scratchhead:

And that is what you get for thinking!  I had Square Wheels kill all of my puppets and for quite a while now, I have been just jsharr, but not to worry, I let the voices in my head tell me what to post as me on a frequent basis.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

stopped going and nobody missed me enough to drag me back.  It was amazing how much work I could get done while the managers were busy in their meeting.  Too bad the factory floor workers couldn't escape too

I started skipping out on fire safety training. I got away with it for years but although management never missed me some of the guys must have because they had less people every year until they made an announcement that they had someone out at the fire checking off names and everyone had to put out the fire. I could have taught that class the number of times I took it. It really should have been a class for the new guys only or take the class five times and you’re done. I put out so many fires back in the early days I was probably better at it than the instructors. I would venture a guess that none of them had ever put out a press fire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Teleconferences are better because you can multi task if the meeting gets boring and doesn’t require much input from you. Thankfully desktop computers don’t have webcams but now conference rooms do. Adding video is awful. Really bad. Leonard Pinth-Garnell bad. 
 

Oops!  I answered the wrong question/thread, but it is still semi-relevant and semi- coherent. 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

Teleconferences are better because you can multi task if the meeting gets boring and doesn’t require much input from you. Thankfully desktop computers don’t have webcams but now conference rooms do. Adding video is awful. Really bad. Leonard Pinth-Garnell bad. 
 

Oops!  I answered the wrong question/thread, but it is still semi-relevant and semi- coherent. 

This. I average 2-3 teleconferences a day. Usually 30-45 minutes each. Usually can manage to surf through Twitter or here during the calls. I hate when my boss asks my opinion and I almost start telling her what RG is up to. 

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Geez, don't get me started.  :wub:

Actually prior to my present department, on average it was only approx. 3 meetings per month. (Different dept. but same employer)

Now I average 16-20 meetings per month.  In this 2nd different dept. (but same employer), there's 2 hr. weekly team meeting and throughout the week, I may have project/client meeting either 1-2. Could be by Skype or in person. Then there's bimonthly meetings with cross-departmental meetings involving 35 different departments.  2 different bimonthly meetings that alternate.

Some other meetings that our team is part of a larger divisional, business unit meeting.  I'm not even a supervisor in my present job. True, I have a job that is internal client focused to other business units/depts.

For sure, in our dept., you must demonstrate team collaboration skills.  Otherwise you wouldn't survive.. to hoard your skills/knowledge. For some of these meetings, I must prepare and present to groups / client. So I can't sleep through.  I am part of  a central corporate function whereas in  previous dept., I was only looking after needs in business unit.

Then there is a required meeting with my boss individually every 6 weeks. :hapydance:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I enjoy the bimonthly large cross-departmental, organizational wide meetings.  We have operational people from all depts.:  law, hr, transit, waste and recycling, transportation, water utilities, recreation, parks, 911, fire department, etc.  The depts......that are necessary for any municipality.  The breadth of experiences, responsiblities and varied perspectives is kinda cool. I do  enjoy working public sector...especially opportunity to learn.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/7/2020 at 9:16 AM, Forum Administrator said:

I would love to, but what I realized is that it is very easy to get out of touch with what is happening in the classrooms if I don't.  For the most part, the teachers don't hate it. They have 30 minutes of my undivided attention to discuss what they want to discuss or ask questions about what we are doing.  The small groups make it a lot easier to do things like look at testing data or work on our school goals.  The ones that can away are the  non-teacher meetings.  

Agreed meeting with teachers are valuable and teachers typically like to be heard in small groups. Much more valuable to them than faculty meetings.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

Maybe the fire safety meetings should have had more of an emphasis on “fire prevention”?

Everybody knew what was causing the fires. It was two things, one was they didn’t want to spend the money to get the equipment and pay the manpower to clean up the accumulated buildup of mill scale and oil and die lube that coated everything. And secondly the manager of the die shop would not back down on his insistence that we use a synthetic die lube (which happened to be flammable) . They eventually fired the die shop manager and went back to graphite die lube. Bought industrial floor scrubbers and posted a full time job to run the scrubbers. They put routine maintenance of the presses on a schedule and included steam cleaning the entire press line in the schedule. This didn’t happen all at once but over time they figured it out. The last ten years I worked there they might have had one fire. The first ten years they probably averaged one a month that was big enough to put the press line down for several days.

  • Heart 1
  • Awesome 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...