How Meetings Harm Well-Being

[GreatGazoo]

Anyone working in an organisation knows it: meetings follow one after another at a frantic pace. On average, managers spend 23 hours a week in meetings. Much of what happens in them is considered to be of low value, or even entirely counterproductive. The paradox is that bad meetings generate even more meetings… in an attempt to repair the damage caused by previous ones.

https://theconversation.com/why-meetings-can-harm-employee-well-being-270899

The harm comes from time wasting, feeling unheard and burn out.

In my experience, these are some red flags that a meeting will go badly:

1. No agenda or pre-reading is circulated before the start
2. Person calling the meeting loves having an audience, and they
3. Have adopted that leader role because they "don't like non-leadership roles"
4. Meeting is scheduled during a common meal time, eg Noon or 5PM, yet features no food
5. Attendance is not mandatory and or not limited to stake holders.

Got any meeting nightmares to share?

[sop]

1. I worked at a big company where seemingly the only thing some managers did to justify their existence was hold meetings.

Everyone had to stop working at a moment's notice, re-arrange their schedules and waste hours attending these nonsensical meetings where nothing was ever accomplished. Then there were the dreaded "break-out groups" following these absurd meetings, to further discuss whatever bullshit topic was on the agenda that day. A generally accepted rule was the more ineffective and incompetent the manager, the more meetings he/she would hold.

[CrispyQ]

2. Ha ha. I was an executive assistant for many years & on my first day at a new job,

another assistant gave me a tour of the building. It was large & there were 13 meeting rooms & I mistakenly thought, "Scheduling meetings at this company will be a cinch." Wrong!!! They were THE WORST business ever, for meetings. If I had a dollar for every time my boss came back & said, "Well that was a waste of time," I'd have a righteous party! And yes, often times one meeting would result in three more having to be scheduled. It was crazed.

[GreatGazoo]

4. I worked in many office jobs for a while and got those revealing first-day tours too

Developed a theory that you could tell almost everything you needed to know when they showed you the break room:

Break room is large, comfortable and full of happy employees = wake up. You are dreaming.

Break room has signs on everything -- "Food will be removed from fridge after 2 days" "Don't heat fish in the microwave"
Female names written in large Sharpie letters on wrapped food = male execs were likely to eat it anyway.
Brand new preprinted sign, prominently place declaring that 'yes they DO hire and promote regardless of race, gender, age' etc. = no they don't or they were recently sued for discrimination

Break room contains copy machine, lasers printers and other hot noisy gear = no place to hide or relax even for a minute

Break room non-existent = employees eat at their desks and are sad and burned out

[Marthe48]

3. Demotivational posters

I found this site years ago, when I was still working. Some of the posters are hilarious

https://despair.com/collections/demotivators

[3catwoman3]

5. My most miserable rotation in nursing school was the psych rotation. Meetings, meetings, meetings.

This was 1973. I was assigned to the unit that allowed some patients to leave during the day for work. There were meetings all day long - doctor-nurse team mtg, nurse team mtg, nurse-patient team mtg, doctor-nurse-patient team mtg. There never seemed to be an agenda, and these meetings were boring as hell.

One funny story from one of the doctor-nurse-patient mtgs. An older woman was complaining about how unfairly she had been treated by a department store which had refused to let her return a girdle she had worn. She went on and on and on about this at the meeting, and kept talking about how she had "...Luxed it out" before attempting the return. One of the young residents was sure he was on to some valuable clue to her distress because of the term "Lux." He didn't realize that Lux was the name of a brand of laundry detergent, and that all the woman was saying was that she had washed the girdle.

[LogDog75]

6. Had a micromanager

I was stationed in England in the late 80s in the medical clinic. My tour was for two years and in the second year we had a new clinic administrator, a Major, was a micromanager who had a mandatory meeting of the support officers every Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays that lasted at least two hours. As an NCO, I sometimes had to sit in for the OIC when he was on leave or unavailable. The Major's meetings were insufferable in that he wanted to know every detail that was happening in each section including who was on leave and when they'd return. At the end of my second year I went back to the States. About a year later, I was able to take leave and I went back to visit friends in England. I was able to fly on a hop, to and from, with a reserve unit who were spending their two weeks duty at the base I came from. I learned the Major changed his meeting to five days a week lasting three hours. I'm glad I got out of there when I did.

[GreatGazoo]

7. wow!

"five days a week lasting three hours"