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Comment by Swenrekcah | Hacker News Reader

My experience is quite the opposite, 1:1s are the only meetings I regularly look forward to.

Please tell us more, because I'm in accordance with the other person. What do you talk about in your 1:1s? Are you driving the conversation or is the manager? What are the topics of conversation? How long does it usually last?

My manager always say that my 1:1 are the easiest for him. I've asked him what in the world the other people are talking about that don't make them as easy, but his response is so vague (to maintain confidentiality) as to be useless. Not that I really want a longer 1:1...

It's a 30 minute slot but usually runs a little over that. We first chat about how life is going for a short while, then topics anywhere from job satisfaction, personal or teamwide improvement potential, specific products or technical issues, performance inhibitors, anything that is on our minds with respect to the job at hand really.

That's pretty much what mine are. Some off-top-of-head rambling that sometimes reveals larger-scale stuff because the manager has other context, some "perf this year is likely to focus on X, please do that" reminders, some "getting exhausted by X, would prefer to not do it, what numbskull even came up with this".

It's for stuff that doesn't tend to come up in other ways, because there aren't jira tasks for mood. We skip about half of them when nothing in particular stands out for that week.

Just a random guy chiming in to say my favourite 1:1 was when Fallout 4 released and we spent the entire time talking about the game. We then made a pact that we'd save up our leave so we could take a week off when the next Elder Scrolls game was released....... I have so much leave saved up.

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