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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

Pointless meetings have multiplied for me in the remote world as they are no longer constrained by conference rooms. Also since it’s so much easier to get away with multitasking, you have engineers who are ostensibly in meetings all day still checking in code like everything’s fine.

I think the ability to maintain a convincing presence in all-day Zoom while still getting your work done is the new meta-game for engineering. And I hate it.

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I’ve been doing fully remote teams for years and one thing that took about 2 years to get used to is how to utilize meetings differently than in person.

Some of the biggest disadvantages of remote work is that it is harder to “just grab someone”, social isolation, and communication isolation (ie- people not talking to each other.) Meetings can partially solve all those issues and get used as such. However, because they are such a useful tool they get over used and I had to figure out how to say no to meetings, how to end meetings early if they’ve accomplished their purpose, encourage people to leave meetings if it turns out they aren’t needed and how get better at ad hoc remote communication without pulling together a meeting.

It took a while but I think I’m actually spending less time in BS meetings then before because there is much less pressure to stay or preserve a meeting no one had to walk to or book a conference room for.

One of my pet hates is meetings without an agenda, or that don't stick to the agenda.

If you're done with the agenda, then the meeting is finished and everyone can leave. If that happens after 5 minutes, then that's good.

I have been in meetings where the organiser has said "well, we've finished, but we've got this room for an hour, so let's just hang out for the rest of the time". That can be tough to respond to. Just saying "Sorry, but no, I've got work to do" can be offensive (though it shouldn't be).

Then how about: "Thanks, I'd love to hang out but I have something I'd like to finish"

Frankly I think people not being immediately reachable is the big percentage gain of remote work. That's it. They've finally got the space to go and get on with the actual job.

And management hate that.

Many meetings only require a low level of attention. 90% is 1 or a few stakeholders discussing things, and the rest are there for occasional input. In a good chunk of my meetings I find myself actually tuning out too much, where I miss some important nuances because it was buried in the rest of the shit.

In an office you are forced to pay attention (laptops away…). It’s a new skill to balance between paying attention to irrelevant shit and missing the important details

Well I find this really good. Maybe because I am younger and used to multitasking. But before pandemic just sitting in person meetings and trying to focus for 2 hours to not let my mind wander was really exhausting. Not since everything is remote I can also do some work while 2 hour meetings are being done. And afterwards I don't feel as tired as I did when we had physical meetings

Multitasking is just rapid attention change, and it can be jarring going from rapid changes in focus to lower stimulation and longer term focus, but both frames of mind are valuable, situationally. You might get more value multitasking but you might also bring a lot more value to some meetings by staying deeply focused, and I think that highly focused, high participation meetings are the ideal. Other communication can happen other ways. To help me with long & deep focus, I've found that reading novels or other long form writing helps me tame the impulse to bounce around so much, somewhat.

My solution has been to take nearly every meeting possible outside while on walks. It helps me focus where I would otherwise not be able to focus, and acts as a good way to get some additional exercise throughout the day.

Brilliant!

Don't you need reference materials and so forth?

Modern smart phones are computers which can for some (read: most) meetings be good enough. The multitasking features in android are helpful here, with things like split-screen and picture-in-picture.

If the meeting calls for it, I take it on a proper computer. Most meetings don't, in my experience. Just a lot of listening and maybe 5 minutes of talking.

I would love to do this, although I usually demo new features. Maybe I should pre-record them

That's the case in traditionaly organised meetings, where I work we pull people in and kick them out pretty quickly. Meetings are 2-5 people max, everyone is contributing, and you get told you can leave if the topic pivots to something that doesn't apply to you.

I've found that my remote work meetings neatly break down into 3 categories:

  - direct engagement -- 2-4 participants
  - broad forum -- 5-12 participants
  - fly-on-the-wall -- any number, but my contribution will be 0-4 sentences

Of these, the broad forum has the least clear attention level requirement. The usefulness of these meetings is determined by the skill of the moderator, to steer the conversation flow towards the primary subject and ensure the relevance to most attendees. Unfortunately, many colleagues are still reluctant to have their cameras on, which makes gauging the interest level very challenging for the moderator.

I can frequently take fly-on-the-wall meetings (and sometimes even broad forum) while out walking, which is a nice plus.

that's a good idea for fly-on-the-wall ones! Will think about that

nobody has ever had a laptop away at any company i’ve worked at in meetings

Urban Airship meeting rules. Don’t just mention them or be inspired by them. Just… use them as you see fit. Walk out on meetings, or decline them, if they don’t benefit you or your work. Don’t tolerate meetings that could have been an email (or equivalent communication). Don’t fill the time. Don’t repeat things that were already communicated.

Lots of egregious violations of #4 and #5 where I work. Leaving a meeting or not even showing up to one even if only to just "observe" comes off as passive aggressive.

"Don't repeat things that were already communicated": This sounds good, but it takes several repetitions for information to sink in with everyone everywhere I've worked. I don't know a way around this.

Spread this in your org, it's amazingly pragmatic and eye opening:

https://codahale.com/work-is-work/

>I think the ability to maintain a convincing presence in all-day Zoom while still getting your work done is the new meta-game for engineering. And I hate it.

The other side of this is just doing minimal work but being "available" which I've heard from plenty of friends & acquaintences

This is highly dependent on output expectations. I can see this being the case in large corps and FAANGs but not in many startups

My first few months WFH was like this so I hear you. Since then however I've been more proactive about declining attending meetings or dropping off if I am required, which has made a massive difference.

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