Hacker News Reader

Comment by odonnellryan | Hacker News Reader

For a short time I was "working two jobs" as part of a transition (everyone was aware) and I found it almost impossible to even manage one or two meetings a week at each job - conflicts were crazy.

What are you supposed to do when you have a conflict, if you're keeping things secret? "that time doesn't work for me" "uh, why? I just hired you. You have another meeting?"

View on HN

Do you speak in the meetings you are in? I have a lot of meetings, but my part usually involves joining the meeting and doing little else. I could plausibly see someone doing both at the same time.

Absolutely. Not for the entire meeting, but I try not to join meetings (at least long ones) where I'm not going to be participating.

Ah. Maybe you are more senior. I speak in maybe 1 in 10 meetings that are not standup. I have muted them. Taken naps during them. Most of the time I just carry on working.

Ah, that does suck. Yes I am a senior developer (or like to call myself that... I guess..)

That makes sense. I am just moderately experienced run of the mill worker dev. At every company I have been with, there have been meetings between team lead/senior dev and product manager and then there are 4-10 other devs just chilling while they have this conversation.

Or the even bigger architecture convos involving several team leads and all their subordinates chilling in the Zoom. Have had too many fellow devs joke about how half our value is as a visual entourage.

Could someone be in two visual entourages at once? Probably.

That sucks! I'm sure you're aware, but the wasted resources are insane.

Absolutely. The GP scenario is a prime example of a meeting that should be an email, or, really, more like a wiki page.

I can see how a lot of it would be theoretically valuable if people had 5 year careers at companies, but that is not what happens.

You are a very old hat at two years everywhere I have worked.

I am in Canada, and we don’t really get equity like Americans do, and even if we do, not a lot of it so many people have 1 year stints everywhere.

You can’t just take any two random jobs, you need the right two jobs. One that doesn’t require meetings preferably.

How many jobs are like that? All the jobs I have had, contractor or otherwise, require at least some meetings. I can't imagine a new hire who is making $150k/yr+ not being in a few meetings a week.

this happens when you ride along rather than drive the meetings and schedules. if you stay ahead you have control. it's when deadlines become an issue that other people start acting out of line with your predicted work windows.

Uh, I don't know man. I don't agree. People will always ask you to have a meeting at a time that conflicts with another meeting.

Just say to have it 30 mins later or whatever, problem solved. Come up with some excuse, or don't say anything at all. And then have the meeting and be as effective as possible during it. Cut bullshit meetings to a minimum. If you have more than 6 people in the meeting and you're not essential, don't attend. If you have meetings longer than 1h, try to go through the points as effectively as possible and underscore the conclusion dor each point until you get a resolution (important, so you don't get invited to _another_ meeting)

I am talking from experience here, not just out my ass. I can't imagine how it would be remotely sustainable with two full time jobs, nevermind more than that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com