Comment by tome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tome | Hacker News Reader

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I'm generally puzzled by the HN conventional wisdom against meetings, and I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings.

Am I really in such a small minority, or has HN turned into an echo chamber on this issue, where no one with a countervailing opinion dares to get a word in?

Having a meeting interrupt my work ranges from slightly irritating (if it comes during flow, but I can always easily get back into the groove later) to a welcome break from the intellectual stress of solo development work. I get to interact with my colleagues, learn about what they've been doing, and understand more about what the team needs and what our customers need.

Have I forgotten that I sold my soul to the devil to obtain a unique ability to focus, and regain focus after interruption? Or are there a double digit percentage of HN inhabitants who are just like me but not speaking up in this thread?

I don't know how I would understand my team mates as people, understand what they need from me and understand what other parts of the business need from me without meetings. Am I missing something here?

>I don't know how I would understand my team mates as people

This sounds overly dramatic considering most people are very different in a meeting setup. We didn't need meetings to do this for the majority of our species' existence. Just talk with them, basic empathy.

The way it sounds, you like some meetings because they fulfill X, but X can also be fulfilled in different ways without the downsides of meetings, be it specific meetings or in general. It's those downsides and knowing X can still be satisfied that drives many of us against meetings. Many times, meetings are also subpar or flat-out fail to achieve X because of other circumstances.

Yeah, the connection between understanding them as people and meetings per se is a bit tenuous, but to get to know them better I would have to interrupt them for a chat, or schedule a coffee break with them, or go to lunch with them, all of which seem as "interrupting to flow" as a scheduled meeting.

I don't mind the morning meeting, they can be useful to catch up with where the team is and who needs help, and who's working on a problem someone else solved last week/month/year.

The problem I have with them in practice is that they are usually (in my experience) turned into a management progress meeting where developers are made to answer for their progress on specific items, rather a round-robin "Here's what I'm doing". At that point collaboration and team communication is out of the window.

I'm on your side but that's because my team is small and any meeting I'm attending means my input is required. The daily standups are helpful in knowing what is the progress of the overall project and whether I should stop to help somewhere else, and also gives me a chance to talk with my colleagues. I suspect most of the people objecting here aren't attending discussion based meetings but heres-the-latest-news type of meetings.

I feel the same, the dayli meetings are super important for fast iteration. Sayinf you dont need those is implying there is no outside input that yould improve your work. Wich is only true when your task is so sepperated from everyone that you could effectively get your own one man team.

> I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings.

It's a self-selecting sample effect. No one responds to a survey when things are just ok.

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