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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but do you actually work in a real life company ?

Nobody is coming 15 minutes early to a meeting. That's unheard of in all of the enterprises I've worked.

And with there being more and more meetings often you are literally running from one room to another.

I work for a very large organisation. I book rooms 15-30 minutes before my meetings start time and depending on what it is rock up then or 15 minutes early. I use the time to set up, manage any glitches, and then make any last minute preparations such as preparing handout material, water, etc... Sometimes I get 5 minutes of rest and that's nice too a busy schedule. Then people start rocking up and you build rapport with them until it's start time.

Coming prepared has saved me far more time that rocking up just on time and then trying to set it up only for windows to update. People also learn that my meetings matter because they have a purpose and we get right on it, saving up on people showing late etc...

Investing those 15 minutes of my time really goes a long way for everyone else which benefits me too.

You're lucky. In my building, you're lucky if you can find an available slot long enough to accommodate your meeting. Finding a slot long enough to book 15 minutes before would be near unheard of.

Then there's the perception thing. 20 people twiddling their thumbs while a meeting is set up is totally acceptable, but a single person monopolising a meeting room just to mess about with a laptop? Rude.

We're pretty impressed with our surface hub. As others have said, it "just works". The twin cameras are pretty good at picking up who's speaking and following them if they move around, and even though it's really not doing anything spectacular, it does it well and has that all-important "fancy new technology" feel that exec's love.

I don't work for any large company but MS hit the right spot because people don't seem to want to solve the problem themselves but just keep wasting time forever.

So here is some career advice, go be that person. You know the one who shows up early and sets up the conference equipment, be the one who publishes an agenda for their meetings and actually takes notes to send out as a recap. You will be amazed at how far the signal you are sending g will reach

Also dont make it a habit of just fixing the A/V _after_ the meeting has started, all that signals is your are a good proxy for IT help. If you know a colleague doesn't prepare show up early to help but dont continually swoop to the rescue

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