Decline Invitations
taylor.town
taylor.town
Why is this article telling us to “evade Easter brunches” but also telling us to have “seasonal block parties” as an alternative? I get the impression it’s because the author doesn’t like one but does like the other. The article tells us to “decline invitations”; does that mean that the people the author invites to their seasonal block parties should decline? Is the author being unreasonable in inviting people to an event?
I think it’s good to be mindful of where you spend your time, but this article doesn’t really convey anything useful in this regard. It’s more a list of things the author likes and dislikes.
Yeah, definitely lots of personal preferences embedded in there haha
Personally, I find it easier to grok essays that focus on specifics. I can extract patterns out of examples, but it's harder to accurately do the reverse
I write in second-person because it's shorter, not because it's prescriptive. I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to soften things
I'm flattered that you think there are worse engineers than me :)
Besides, I've already been promoted far beyond my equilibrium level of incompetence.
> Decline invitations by default. When you’re essential to an event, its host will notify you.
> Play pranks and plan ruses!
Be a mysterious, opaque asshole.
Create more work for everyone you work with.
And when you do show up, make sure that nobody knows whether you're on the level or not.
Okay, that last one is uncharitable. Being memorable and fun is a valuable thing, and something I strive for, but as John Scalzi has pointed out, "the failure mode of 'clever' is 'asshole'."
It’s exhausting working with people that don’t show up to meetings. The rest of the team is all on the same page already and the special person needs everything explained to them individually because they never showed up to the meeting where the discussion happened. These people always seem to flame out of jobs while feeling they are too good for them.
Decline is an ok first-approximation default.
But not as the full-on maximization goal the author pushes. Doing that will severely limit you.
Other things to consider with meetings and gatherings:
Might I add value to others, either by bringing knowledge or being present to take on tasks?
Might be being seen as present & participating benefit you in the longer term?
What surprises (by definition, things you don't yet know about) might happen at the event?
Might hanging out with a friend or acquaintance be helpful for them?
Defaulting to not doing each of these things at one time or another has been cause for regret in my life. I'd advise at least asking that set of questions and others before actually not accepting an invitation.
Yeah, standup is a tax, but it's also a little bit important to see and be seen, and to know what is going on (unless you can convince your whole team to adopt this work style)
That's exactly the problem with implementing things like standup and retros.
You're confining information that would be shared asynchronously and in written form to a boring meeting nobody is interested in listening to.
I hate standups, I won't listen to your update, if I need something I'll ask in the team channel.
Before standups were a thing people just wrote when they finished something in a channel. They didn't waste an entire day and waited for a meeting to say it in an effort to appear busy.
Before retros were a thing people just wrote whatever problem they had in the room and people could discuss problems in real time. Now they waste an entire month and then write a passive aggressive post-it on a Miro board - which most likely will end up ignored because look at how many others action points we have.
People adapt to situations and they don't need formal processes to act correctly.
If they do need them, you should fire heads that can't think.
People over processes was Agile's mantra, why have we forgotten that? Nowadays "agile" is worse than waterfall: same load in processes and bureaucracy, none of the planning.
If you won't listen to my update, why should I read and respond to your question?
Please spend five minutes of your day actually working with your coworkers, instead of making extra work for them later on because you can't be bothered to sit still and listen for five minutes.
I think there is a different perspective that you are not considering: one hates to listen to your and other N people updates, every single day. And, most of it, is not new or not correlated to one's work.
> Please spend five minutes of your day actually working with your coworkers, instead of making extra work for them later on because you can't be bothered to sit still and listen for five minutes.
Again, there is another perspective: because one wants to give you enough attention, one wants to have a one-on-one communication, independently of the time-box or shallowness of stand-up meetings.
When I was junior, I used to think that (daily) stand-up meetings were an incredible idea. But on time, I realised they are busy work and do not represent, at all, "working with your coworkers", as you said. Actually, quite the contrary: it is shallow work, and that isn't as relevant as the deep work coworkers do in, for example, pair debugging sessions.
I think some people forget this when they go into their first professional office job, and revert back to primary school mentality: I have to go to this useless meeting! Boss says I need to be there, so what can I do?? This “all hands” is required. We forget we are grownups with agency and the ability to set boundaries and expectations with others.
A lot of junior employees feel they simply have to attend every stupid meeting that appears on their calendar. When asked, I advise them that if they don’t think there is anything to learn, and you don’t have anything to contribute, simply don’t go. Nobody is going to send you to the principal’s office. I show them my calendar where I am double and triple-booked every half hour of every day: I decline meetings constantly! It’s not a big deal.
I'll still try and point everyone in the right direction, but if the team really wants to chase their tail for a month? I'm still going home at 5, they'll figure it out eventually.
It's been very striking, the teams are executing much faster, we're building better things, the engineers seem happier and take more initiative, and the software is higher quality.
Yes, any decision in itself probably doesn't matter much, but an accumulated year of single decisions across the whole company matters greatly.
On the OP side we have a culture that is too inclusive whereas in your case it is a culture of not breing inclusive enough. Not inclusive enough as in not involving the correct people needed to evaluate a decision.
But the OP doesn't limit themselves to business, they Aldo mention brunches, birthdayd and other non work events.
From my cursiry reading, I think they are more interested in making the point that one shouldn't join random events just because they where invited but rather evaluate whether participation is meaningful first.
We continue to fix the seniority problems where we find them, though, so hopefully it'll all be working properly soon.
Seeing "grown ups" in contexts where they struggle and mess up and talking to them as equal and having ability to reject them if they want something you don't provide was very important.
Because often, that's exactly how people are being treated.
There's still a very strong trend in management philosophy that says that Manager Knows Best, and their direct reports just need to do whatever they say, Or Else. And any pushback against that is just going to be seen as insubordination—proof that that employee is a troublemaker who needs to be disciplined.
It's a self-perpetuating philosophy because of that, and it can be very hard to convince a manager who's deeply invested in the belief that he's a superior being compared to his subordinates that this philosophy is neither correct nor productive.
My criteria have worked out pretty well for me so far: 1. Do I need to contribute the the content or decision making of this meeting? 2. Is there anything important to my job that I can only learn by attending this meeting (as opposed to reading the notes/slides later)? If 1 OR 2, I try my best to attend. This has gotten me through about 25 years pretty well.
But at the same time, recognizing when the organization you are a part of is simply not a match for your needs is also important. If you need an article like this to help you navigate your current role... you are probably in the wrong job.
However, you can decide that people are not important and cut them out all together. But if you decide that someone is important you can't pick and choose.
I have a bone to pick with our “ticket estimations” meeting. It’s a waste of time, we don’t even use the estimations for any planning purposes. We just sit there, reading tickets out loud as a group, saying pseudo random numbers that inevitably average out to a 2, 3, or 4.
I’m convinced we’d have better estimations if we just nixed the meeting and sampled estimations from a normal distribution.
But then again. if you don't like the group, your job, go on a quest to find someone else to spend you time with. that is probably the best investment you can do.
The Japanese have a consensus-driven process that is basically fueled by meetings. If you don't attend meetings (often, as the chap sleeping in the corner), then your department won't have a say in the project.
It's quite often that a manager needs to be in Meeting A, but he wants his team to have a say in the project that is running Meeting B, so he grabs some random schlub from the engineering team to go to Meeting B, just to have a representative of the team there. Said schlub has no idea what's going on, so they catch up on some shut-eye. No one even gives it a second thought. Really surprised me, the first time I ran into it.
Taking this approach can free up your calendar, and it might even work out okay for you IF you are already indespensbile and you just produce so much value for your company that they'll put up with it.
For everyone else, you might end up with your calendar permanantly cleared.
As for the aspects relating to personal life, the author sounds like they could use some help.
>events where booze is the main attraction
I have a formula that's working pretty well for us.
My wife and I host a movie night every other week at our place, with a small WhatsApp group of friends who are free to both drop by unannounced and bring friends of their own unannounced. It's made clear from the outset that this is a zero-tolerance household: No alcohol, no drugs. We prep enough dinner for however many people might show up, which is around 7 people these days. We do not reveal the movie until the showing of, both to add a layer of mystery to the whole thing and just because people who are that picky about their movies are probably not a good fit for the rest of the visitors. A little selectivity goes a long way :)
I'm quite liking the crowd we are beginning to gather for this low-key event. Monetary costs to the guests range somewhere between "free" and "the bag of chips you decided to bring"; costs to us are usually under $40 total.
Everyone who has come by has enjoyed it, even if they decide once is enough and they have better things to do with their time (no offense!). The routineliness of the event has been a great way to quickly build a new friend group in a city neither of us have much history in.
Among our regulars, we seem to disproportionately attract friends who are either full time employed or taking their studies quite seriously, both of which are indicators of quite good things. It's likely we'll have to change the event once kids enter the picture, but I'm sure by that point we'll have a whole different world of socialization options open up to us.
Is this satire?
* Find them other mentors for particular problems. This isn't passing the buck, sometimes there are more appropriate mentors for their problems.
* Ask them if any of it can be done async
* Suggest less frequent 1:1s
* Batch 1:1s so its less disruptive to you.
* Its chaotic evil but Don't provide useful advice. They will eventually stop wasting their own time.