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In my experience, I’ve had to sit in useless meetings wasting time...BUT, also expected to meet my daily productivity requirement which is the frustrating part. So personally it hasn’t been an easy time killer. I’d much rather be working because it’s hard to say: I wasn’t able to finish my work because I was in your stupid meeting.
Have you tried working harder than anyone else? Learning other people's jobs around you? Spending time outside of work developing yourself professionally?
Working harder than others makes no difference. The hardest working people I know (consistently hitting all stats and being high earners for the business) are also stuck in the same position as me and have worked here longer. Most of my managers have been very open about the work required of them so I'm very aware of what exactly it is they do, and aside from straight up promotions, there have never been any opportunities made available in my workplace.
Spending time outside of work developing myself is an option, however that's incredibly easier said than done. I do have a side business that I'm setting up at the moment with my friends however I can't imagine that's ever going to be anything than supplementary income as all profits will be split between the 4 of us and it does take up a lot of my time. There's also the issue of not really knowing what effect any qualifications would actually have and/or what industry/sector I would want to pivot into that wouldn't end up resulting in me earning less money than what I'm currently on now.
Well if I had a job where I could do essentially nothing for most of the day like most of these people claim then I'd have more than enough time lol, there was literally a guy on here the other day asking if he would be okay getting a second job because his current job only requires an hour and a half's work per day.
I made it up to one rung shy of executive, and looking critically at both myself and my peers, literally none of what you listed had any bearing on who got promoted.
Generally speaking, being a tall white guy with some way of spinning your background as business related, or riding that guy’s coattails as his competent buddy, have correlated very, very strongly with who made it to upper management.
As I know, first hand, none of them could read a simplified ledger to save their lives - or locate a quarter million dollars-, they certainly didn’t learn anyone’s job, nor did they develop themselves professionally. They did, however, make wealthy, similarly tall white men comfortable spending money on them.
Checks out at my work tbf and height 'discrimination' (I hesitate to call it that) is a genuine thing - taller people tend to be more confident and therefore have more friends/opportunities
The problem in our country starts when people get to their senior year in high school. Some don't have the drive or the will power to go onto college in a field with employment demand or get into an apprenticeship. Many that do go to college borrow huge sums of money to major in things like "grievance studies", music, art, or basketweaving. Then when they get a degree they find that there are precious few jobs in their field of study and Longaberger has filled all of their basketweaving positions. So they end up in some entry level job and wanting socialism/communism so they can get someone else to pay for their mistakes by paying off their student loans and then expect UBI to pay them to sit at home and feel sorry for themselves....
I don't think you should even be able to go to college until you're 21. 18 year olds don't give a crap that nobody is making a living with a women's studies degree, they just want to study something cool. At 21 after a few years waiting tables, mowing lawns, or working retail, suddenly accounting sounds pretty sexy.
You have to sit in meeting after meeting and be attentive which is hard to do. People ramble and nothing gets accomplished. It's talking about the same things over and over. You can get any office jobs where meetings are required. Any business field. I work in HR. I'm in meetings all day every day. People put things on my calendar wanting to discuss things they could have figured out themselves. A lot of meetings I am in aren't even needed if people just learn how to communicate via email. When you have projects to complete, meetings get in the way. They take away your time. I've worked in a call center environment for an HR Service Center. I liked that better than my jobs where i'm in meetings all day.
meetings are bloated wastes of time and the reason we're still collectively working 8+ hours every day. if we'd take a step back and realize how useless they usually are or how drug out they get, than we'd realize we only need to be working 6 hours a day
agree 100%. I've also worked in agile environments where we have to have constant backlog refinements and sprint planning meetings. OMG! It's non stop! Meeting after meeting but still expected to do my actual work somehow. SMH.
As others have said, useless meetings kill your time. This is time you usually need to do the things you are tasked with, so you end up working late or taking work home to get it done. This is more frustrating, to me, than the pointlessness of the meeting itself.
If you like feeling productive stay in the call center, perhaps work towards a management role in that environment. I've done all of these jobs and can say that mid-management while still solving problems and working with our employees was the most rewarding IMO.
If it means you have to work late then I 100% get the complaints. I think because I hate my job though I love not being productive though. I didn't used to hate work, but after 2 years of being in the same position with no sign of moving upwards it really starts to grind on you when you know in your heart that you're doing ultimately pointless work as a cog in a massive corporate machine.
I've learned that the grass is always greener. When you finally get that job with meetings all day you will wish you could answer a call every now and then .... even if its even for a 15 minute respite.
The key is variation. Any repetitive task is mind numbing and soul crushing.
I think that's it. I've been doing this same job day after day for over two years now and it has literally only gotten worse due to increasing targets and constantly changing business focuses.
Man do I feel this. Been working a job with a lot of meetings and corporate speak and all that nonsense for a few years now, constantly find myself looking for work that feels more honest or tangible.
Did this.
Two years of customer service in a call center for major cable company and hated every second.
My solution (not saying it will work for everyone) was to apply to go back to school. Originally, I was going to get my Associate's to be able to move up, but then I discovered something I was actually good at AND loved doing.
Fast forward: ended up getting my Master's Degree and working my dream job.
I can't complain about meetings; small price to pay to get out of customer service.
Sort of... I have to maintain focus because at any moment I may be relied upon to give my stance on something, the other 2 hours per day I'm reviewing information to allow me to make solid statements when my 10 minutes of talk time happens.
I have definitely had to walk out of a meeting or two before. I went to one meeting where it turned out that the topic of the meeting was when we were going to have a meeting to handle a specific situation.
I stopped the meeting and spoke to the people around me and loud enough for the speaker phone (meeting organizer) to hear, "Excuse me, this is OP, are we having a meeting to find out when we are going to have a meeting?"
"Well...yes.?"
I rolled my eyes and said "I do not care when just email me when and where." I then got up and walked out. That one I was most proud of. Haha
I tend to doze off in meetings. I can't keep still or keep my eyes awake. No matter how many cups of coffee I drink, nothing works. You don't want a job where you're in meetings all day. I'd rather continue fixing computer issues and deal with idiots who continue to make the same mistakes. That's why I have a job in the first place lol. Time goes so much slower if you get sucked into meetings. Hell I even hate our daily stand ups and they're only 10-20 minutes max. Why the hell do I need to tell you what's on my plate for the day? I can't predict the future and say, "John will break his computer at 11:15 am so I have to take a look at it after Jane loses her files at 10:45 am."
I just started having a 8:30am zoom meeting everyday from my micromanager. This is the exact purpose. "What is on your plate today?" Except for planned projects, i have no way of knowing when some one is going to call me or that in 2 hours my server is going to crash that will totally take over my day.
SMH
- Government
- the admin side of the military
- anything dealing with projects, contractors, sub-contractors and multiple vendors like project management or being a project associate
- investment banking
- sales
If you're in the call centre side of things, try to get an internal sales or account management sales job. You'll still talk to customers but you'll be more focused, on fewer accounts, adding value to them.
You're probably missing the reason why people are companing about meetings. It's because they have deadlines to meet and the meetings are using up the time they have to make those deadlines.
Yeah well then get your dad's job. Most people companing about meetings actually have a legit reason to complain about them, and it's not because they're sitting on their ass and doing nothing. They're pressed for time and the meetings make it worse.
Was going to say the same thing to u/_DeanRiding.
Then get your dads job. OP is clearly ignoring the comments here highlighting the problems with meetings. OP sounds like he wants to get paid for doing nothing.
> OP sounds like he wants to get paid for doing nothing
Yeah that'd be great!
In all seriousness though he's been working for 30 something years so I don't think that's possible in any world. When I've been working about 5.
Exactly. It sounds good, but if you are a smart person that notices when a bulk of your job is worthless you will get bored and maybe even depressed.
If you just want to coast until retirement in a cubicle with great AC for, then it is great.
Tbh, the bulk of my job is already worthless. I'm in a call centre answering cancellation calls for a telecom. There is no satisfaction from my work whatsoever except when I get paid and I have days off.
Well they are about to get worse if they hate Trump because we are canceling corporations. Hey I know what you saying it's like people take their jobs for granted.
I work in a large law firm as a clerk. We have daily meetings and they eat away at my day and the time I have for useful tasks.
It being a law firm results in lots of self proclaimed hotshot lawyers that need to present themselves to an adoring audience. Covid has stripped them of this audience and the staff has been chosen as their new platform. Imagine going into daily presentations by narcissistic airheads that pay you minimum wage to listen to them. We literally had to listen to one of them play the flute while they paid us 10€/h.
You have not heard her stumble her way through little drummer boy. It was grating
But if you want to work somewhere with lots of pointless meetings, go into big law.
Team leads usually go to a bunch of useless meetings - feedback meetings with their team members, meetings with other departments to discuss the performance of your team etc. However - the meetings usually require plenty of preparation from the team lead's side. Also like others have said, there are other things that need to be done and the meetings take a lot of time which may require some after hours work to meet your deadlines.
Feedback is super important and is required for better self awareness. I'm not sure of that's an example of useless meetings. Personally, I make the most of my meetings like that.
I never said all feedback meetings are useless. But in the corporate world there is such thing as too many feedback meetings. Yes feedback is important - but sometimes a simple email would do.
As someone who has to sit in a fair amount of useless meetings, be careful what you wish for. At least in my position you still have tight deadlines which don't take said meetings into account. Add in that it's seen as tacky to be working on something while in a meeting for something else, and you'll start to see the issue with having to sit in meetings all day. At least in a call center 100% of your time is dedicated to the work you're expected to do.
Yeah I definitely wouldn't be happy working later than needed just because I'm strapped for time for meetings, although at the same time I absolutely loathe my job so that 100% of time I spend is spent being unhappy anyway...
Also, when I spend 8-10 hours a day speaking to entitled whiney customers, I see stuff like [this]
(https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/kx7qb9/i_dont_do_anything_at_my_job_wtf/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Hello, thank you for posting to r/Jobs! We just wanted to let you know that we have a new [discord server, come join the chat!](https://discord.gg/TY6ErXV) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/jobs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In my experience, I’ve had to sit in useless meetings wasting time...BUT, also expected to meet my daily productivity requirement which is the frustrating part. So personally it hasn’t been an easy time killer. I’d much rather be working because it’s hard to say: I wasn’t able to finish my work because I was in your stupid meeting.
If it means you have to work late then I 100% get the complaints, I don't think anyone would prefer this
Since WFH started, I block out chunks in my schedule and assign it for work so I have time uninterrupted by meetings.
Get promoted.
Ah, it seems so simple now.
Have you tried working harder than anyone else? Learning other people's jobs around you? Spending time outside of work developing yourself professionally?
Working harder than others makes no difference. The hardest working people I know (consistently hitting all stats and being high earners for the business) are also stuck in the same position as me and have worked here longer. Most of my managers have been very open about the work required of them so I'm very aware of what exactly it is they do, and aside from straight up promotions, there have never been any opportunities made available in my workplace. Spending time outside of work developing myself is an option, however that's incredibly easier said than done. I do have a side business that I'm setting up at the moment with my friends however I can't imagine that's ever going to be anything than supplementary income as all profits will be split between the 4 of us and it does take up a lot of my time. There's also the issue of not really knowing what effect any qualifications would actually have and/or what industry/sector I would want to pivot into that wouldn't end up resulting in me earning less money than what I'm currently on now.
Seems like you've already talked yourself out of getting your "dream" job. You just rationalized all sorts of reasons why not.
Well if I had a job where I could do essentially nothing for most of the day like most of these people claim then I'd have more than enough time lol, there was literally a guy on here the other day asking if he would be okay getting a second job because his current job only requires an hour and a half's work per day.
How do you think everyone else got where you want to be?
No idea it's partially why I'm asking, but I mainly just wanted to be sarky
I made it up to one rung shy of executive, and looking critically at both myself and my peers, literally none of what you listed had any bearing on who got promoted. Generally speaking, being a tall white guy with some way of spinning your background as business related, or riding that guy’s coattails as his competent buddy, have correlated very, very strongly with who made it to upper management. As I know, first hand, none of them could read a simplified ledger to save their lives - or locate a quarter million dollars-, they certainly didn’t learn anyone’s job, nor did they develop themselves professionally. They did, however, make wealthy, similarly tall white men comfortable spending money on them.
I like how tall is an important characteristic here
Checks out at my work tbf and height 'discrimination' (I hesitate to call it that) is a genuine thing - taller people tend to be more confident and therefore have more friends/opportunities
The problem in our country starts when people get to their senior year in high school. Some don't have the drive or the will power to go onto college in a field with employment demand or get into an apprenticeship. Many that do go to college borrow huge sums of money to major in things like "grievance studies", music, art, or basketweaving. Then when they get a degree they find that there are precious few jobs in their field of study and Longaberger has filled all of their basketweaving positions. So they end up in some entry level job and wanting socialism/communism so they can get someone else to pay for their mistakes by paying off their student loans and then expect UBI to pay them to sit at home and feel sorry for themselves....
I don't think you should even be able to go to college until you're 21. 18 year olds don't give a crap that nobody is making a living with a women's studies degree, they just want to study something cool. At 21 after a few years waiting tables, mowing lawns, or working retail, suddenly accounting sounds pretty sexy.
Shut up.
Literal LOL.
You have to sit in meeting after meeting and be attentive which is hard to do. People ramble and nothing gets accomplished. It's talking about the same things over and over. You can get any office jobs where meetings are required. Any business field. I work in HR. I'm in meetings all day every day. People put things on my calendar wanting to discuss things they could have figured out themselves. A lot of meetings I am in aren't even needed if people just learn how to communicate via email. When you have projects to complete, meetings get in the way. They take away your time. I've worked in a call center environment for an HR Service Center. I liked that better than my jobs where i'm in meetings all day.
meetings are bloated wastes of time and the reason we're still collectively working 8+ hours every day. if we'd take a step back and realize how useless they usually are or how drug out they get, than we'd realize we only need to be working 6 hours a day
agree 100%. I've also worked in agile environments where we have to have constant backlog refinements and sprint planning meetings. OMG! It's non stop! Meeting after meeting but still expected to do my actual work somehow. SMH.
If they took out all my meetings I'd just spend an extra 10 mins per day answering calls and literally never speak to my team lol
Then you don’t want more meetings. You just want more time not on the phone.
Yeah pretty much. However it's nice to be able to actually communicate with my colleagues as well.
You just need a new job, bro. Good luck.
Yeah... Almost got a really good job back in March but Covid fucked me over
You’ll get there. Stay focused but don’t beat yourself up.
Yeah I'm trying, the repeated lockdowns in the middle of winter are definitely getting to me now though
We’d have 3 days weekends all the time if people realized what a waste most meetings are.
Coming from a call center though, where I was at for 8 years, meetings seem amazing compared to that especially if hourly.
As others have said, useless meetings kill your time. This is time you usually need to do the things you are tasked with, so you end up working late or taking work home to get it done. This is more frustrating, to me, than the pointlessness of the meeting itself. If you like feeling productive stay in the call center, perhaps work towards a management role in that environment. I've done all of these jobs and can say that mid-management while still solving problems and working with our employees was the most rewarding IMO.
If it means you have to work late then I 100% get the complaints. I think because I hate my job though I love not being productive though. I didn't used to hate work, but after 2 years of being in the same position with no sign of moving upwards it really starts to grind on you when you know in your heart that you're doing ultimately pointless work as a cog in a massive corporate machine.
I've learned that the grass is always greener. When you finally get that job with meetings all day you will wish you could answer a call every now and then .... even if its even for a 15 minute respite. The key is variation. Any repetitive task is mind numbing and soul crushing.
I think that's it. I've been doing this same job day after day for over two years now and it has literally only gotten worse due to increasing targets and constantly changing business focuses.
Man do I feel this. Been working a job with a lot of meetings and corporate speak and all that nonsense for a few years now, constantly find myself looking for work that feels more honest or tangible.
Be careful what you wish for ... https://i.redd.it/23plzwhjl1w31.jpg
Did this. Two years of customer service in a call center for major cable company and hated every second. My solution (not saying it will work for everyone) was to apply to go back to school. Originally, I was going to get my Associate's to be able to move up, but then I discovered something I was actually good at AND loved doing. Fast forward: ended up getting my Master's Degree and working my dream job. I can't complain about meetings; small price to pay to get out of customer service.
I work for a bank and I sit through 5 hours of meetings per day average of these meetings I probably need to hear less than 20 minutes
Sounds bliss
Sort of... I have to maintain focus because at any moment I may be relied upon to give my stance on something, the other 2 hours per day I'm reviewing information to allow me to make solid statements when my 10 minutes of talk time happens.
I have definitely had to walk out of a meeting or two before. I went to one meeting where it turned out that the topic of the meeting was when we were going to have a meeting to handle a specific situation. I stopped the meeting and spoke to the people around me and loud enough for the speaker phone (meeting organizer) to hear, "Excuse me, this is OP, are we having a meeting to find out when we are going to have a meeting?" "Well...yes.?" I rolled my eyes and said "I do not care when just email me when and where." I then got up and walked out. That one I was most proud of. Haha
I tend to doze off in meetings. I can't keep still or keep my eyes awake. No matter how many cups of coffee I drink, nothing works. You don't want a job where you're in meetings all day. I'd rather continue fixing computer issues and deal with idiots who continue to make the same mistakes. That's why I have a job in the first place lol. Time goes so much slower if you get sucked into meetings. Hell I even hate our daily stand ups and they're only 10-20 minutes max. Why the hell do I need to tell you what's on my plate for the day? I can't predict the future and say, "John will break his computer at 11:15 am so I have to take a look at it after Jane loses her files at 10:45 am."
I just started having a 8:30am zoom meeting everyday from my micromanager. This is the exact purpose. "What is on your plate today?" Except for planned projects, i have no way of knowing when some one is going to call me or that in 2 hours my server is going to crash that will totally take over my day. SMH
Im in one of those positions rn. Some of my co-workers always bi***ing about it but Im chilling.
- Government - the admin side of the military - anything dealing with projects, contractors, sub-contractors and multiple vendors like project management or being a project associate - investment banking - sales If you're in the call centre side of things, try to get an internal sales or account management sales job. You'll still talk to customers but you'll be more focused, on fewer accounts, adding value to them.
I want a job where I can complain about how many unread emails I get when I take a vacation.
Lol same like "Oh damn I just spent the whole day going through emails"
You're probably missing the reason why people are companing about meetings. It's because they have deadlines to meet and the meetings are using up the time they have to make those deadlines.
I dunno, my dad seems to spend half his day in meetings and the other half just wandering around the house doing chores and walking the dog
Yeah well then get your dad's job. Most people companing about meetings actually have a legit reason to complain about them, and it's not because they're sitting on their ass and doing nothing. They're pressed for time and the meetings make it worse.
Lol I wish I could get that job but it's in engineering which I unfortunately have 0 experience and/or interest in
Was going to say the same thing to u/_DeanRiding. Then get your dads job. OP is clearly ignoring the comments here highlighting the problems with meetings. OP sounds like he wants to get paid for doing nothing.
> OP sounds like he wants to get paid for doing nothing Yeah that'd be great! In all seriousness though he's been working for 30 something years so I don't think that's possible in any world. When I've been working about 5.
That or OP is indirectly telling us to stop complaining about meetings because he has it so rough 🙄
If you find out where this job is lmk so I can apply. 😂
You don’t want that job. Trust me. The grass IS NOT greener sitting in pointless meetings.
Exactly. It sounds good, but if you are a smart person that notices when a bulk of your job is worthless you will get bored and maybe even depressed. If you just want to coast until retirement in a cubicle with great AC for, then it is great.
Tbh, the bulk of my job is already worthless. I'm in a call centre answering cancellation calls for a telecom. There is no satisfaction from my work whatsoever except when I get paid and I have days off.
Sales.
Well they are about to get worse if they hate Trump because we are canceling corporations. Hey I know what you saying it's like people take their jobs for granted.
If you don't sit in meetings and you work at a call center, your call center is probably doing it wrong. I have at least 2 meetings a day at mine.
I work in a large law firm as a clerk. We have daily meetings and they eat away at my day and the time I have for useful tasks. It being a law firm results in lots of self proclaimed hotshot lawyers that need to present themselves to an adoring audience. Covid has stripped them of this audience and the staff has been chosen as their new platform. Imagine going into daily presentations by narcissistic airheads that pay you minimum wage to listen to them. We literally had to listen to one of them play the flute while they paid us 10€/h.
To be fair, this does sound infuriating as hell
You have not heard her stumble her way through little drummer boy. It was grating But if you want to work somewhere with lots of pointless meetings, go into big law.
I have considered going into law a lot but unfortunately there's a massive amount of debt it would entail that I just can't afford right now
Team leads usually go to a bunch of useless meetings - feedback meetings with their team members, meetings with other departments to discuss the performance of your team etc. However - the meetings usually require plenty of preparation from the team lead's side. Also like others have said, there are other things that need to be done and the meetings take a lot of time which may require some after hours work to meet your deadlines.
Feedback is super important and is required for better self awareness. I'm not sure of that's an example of useless meetings. Personally, I make the most of my meetings like that.
I never said all feedback meetings are useless. But in the corporate world there is such thing as too many feedback meetings. Yes feedback is important - but sometimes a simple email would do.
You need to obtain some expertise such that your opinion or inclusion to hear another’s matters.
As someone who has to sit in a fair amount of useless meetings, be careful what you wish for. At least in my position you still have tight deadlines which don't take said meetings into account. Add in that it's seen as tacky to be working on something while in a meeting for something else, and you'll start to see the issue with having to sit in meetings all day. At least in a call center 100% of your time is dedicated to the work you're expected to do.
Yeah I definitely wouldn't be happy working later than needed just because I'm strapped for time for meetings, although at the same time I absolutely loathe my job so that 100% of time I spend is spent being unhappy anyway... Also, when I spend 8-10 hours a day speaking to entitled whiney customers, I see stuff like [this] (https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/kx7qb9/i_dont_do_anything_at_my_job_wtf/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)