Skullwriter
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EDIT: Its Wednesday Frontpage, my Imgurians! Thank you very much! Hope you have a nice week! I do reviews as a hobby, this week I've reviewed the one, the only 'Andor'! Feel free to check it here https://youtu.be/1t_-AL3Fz8s and if you're interested in reading other reviews, I pile them up at https://hypeimmune.wordpress.com/
brokehackfourlane
or you could just avoid using corp talk bullshit
charondaboatman
“What’s the goal of the meeting and how do you think I can contribute to that?”
Kyzyl
Also on the opposite side of things - you DON'T get invited to meetings where you could have provided key input that would have saved time and effort. But you weren't invited. Oopsie.
southoffrance
When invited to a meeting I ask "Will I benefit? Can I contribute?". If the answer is no to both I don't go. Also, meetings with 10+ people are often a waste of time. The best meetings involve a small group of people, preferably 2.
characterdictionary
I wonder if managers think their managers are morons? 🤔
akefay
xypotion
Relatable.
goflyblind
mrmartini
I need to hire this woman to manage my ... well, everything.
yoyo42
They tried to get me to attend meetings I really didn't need to be at "in case it was useful". So I engaged my full-on "seeing problems in advance" mode and started pointing out all the issues that were likely to derail their half baked plans, (all accurately due to experience with their past half baked plans). After half a dozen meetings I stopped getting invited.
huffnpuff72
On the flip side, getting invited to meetings you won't get any tasks allocated from is a good way to get a little down time.
CodyOnJupiter
The right answer is to simply attend the meeting since it was already decided you need to be there. If you disagree, or if there's a trend of people running meetings in which the purpose of required attendees is not addressed, talk to the meeting lead in private after the meeting. Whatever the negatives of this, it's better than passive aggressively complaining about it to them during meeting.
nasukkin
Just remember though: if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.
Jose69Garcia
Why did you talent ass clowns invite me knowing full well I cannot contribute to this shit show
honeybadgersRus
This is the way~
thelat
⁸
kusuriya
"this meeting appears to not have an agenda attached, do you have one available? no? Well I don't feel I can be a value add to this meeting please feel free to circle back with an agenda"
TaiPan87
I tell all my employees to ask exactly that. I also try to model it myself. I ask, "Am I adding value here, or can you guys handle this?" and I just leave if I am not doing anything useful.
Then I go spend that meeting time on Imgur
quzar
Yea, but then the meeting organizer would have to admit they have no idea what the objective of the meeting is and are hoping that by casting a wide enough net someone might.
JoshAndBurn
Just multitask on another assignment and put both on your timesheet. (I love remote meetings)
OldnSpicey
My last position, I was in meetings 5 hours a day and nobody could figure out why nothing was getting done....Like fucking stop scheduling meetings so I can actually work.
Kotarisu
Good idea, let's schedule a meeting to discuss that (/s)
SF0X
Sage advice for managing office meeting communications.
Nanntuckett
Takes some times getting used to corporate-ese, but you can utilize it to get out of many meetings.
OnePostCloserToAHappierLIfe
Any recommendations to learn corporate-ese?
Nanntuckett
Honestly, it’s not very different from what you’d see in corporate law shows. Respectful language said with proper grammar is usually all it takes.
sometimesifeellikeanut
I thought I was being smart once in the corporate world. I got a meeting invite and it was one of those "could have been an email" meetings. So, I did just that ... I summed up everything that needed to be discussed and the answers into an email and sent it out, which should have negated the meeting. We instead went ahead and had the meeting where the organizer read my email and asked all participants to verbally confirm all details of my email.
SirRichfield
It's like debating with an idiot. They drag you down to their level an beat you with experience there.
SmoeAhsolse
Sometimes there are regulatory/policy/audit requirements for such things. Like you need to include meeting minutes (not just an email) showing that certain departments were consulted.
It's frequently overkill and stupid. I've had these meetings where we went in and were little more than "Does quality control have any concerns?" "No." "EHS?" "No." Then it ended and some people talked about fishing for longer than the actual meeting and the whole thing was maybe 10 minutes.
beaubrent
"a value add" ... Such stupid business speak
n0n53n53
I worked with someone who would ignore any meeting that didn't have an agenda attached, and if it did have an agenda and he wasn't part of it he would decline the meeting.
FishDimension
That's what I've been doing for years.
stronomer
All meetings need to have an objective, an agenda, and minutes. That should define participants and needed prep. If some of that is missing then the value of the meeting will be ... limited.
Kotarisu
Especially minutes or some form of reporting! Particularly when you have 3 shifts but all the "important" people do meetings only on 1st shift.
Skuggen
Or just ask plainly, because unless you're confident your managers are truly morons, that sort of thing will just sound insulting.
CitizenPrime
My managers are truly morons
DontKnowTheSource
I do "business speak" to piss my ceo off. He hates it
zigbigidorlu
As a moron manager, I don't get it.
GigglingWordBearer
I'm not saying all managers are idiots, but I am saying based on your criteria that I'd have used the above rather than direct language with most of the managers I've worked for.
zFUBARz
As a manager, Yeah... Granted I speak plainly and directly with my staff, but written is in "professional" language. They all know the paper trail has to read correctly to cover all of our butts, Especially since in our field, texts, emails, etc. can be subpoenaed for serious issues up to and including negligence and death.
adamlstf9
I kinda feel like the mildly insulting is the point. Like “hey dumbfuck, you invited everyone to a meeting so you’d feel important for twenty minutes, but some of us have actual real work to do.” Can’t write that in a corporate email, so…”let’s circle back” or whatever.
NoNameFred
Depends. I sometimes get emails or invites intended for someone else in the company (mostly the same email address, except I'm the OG and they're stuck with a "1" at the end) — and there is some stuff where our areas overlap, albeit from different ends of the process, so asking can be a good way to check "which of us do you ACTUALLY need?"
Sechran
If asking in writing where such business-speak is the norm, best to stick to the culture. CYA is the point, so if anyone asks why you weren't at stupidly unimportant meeting X, you have a corporate approved paper trail.
CaptainScarfish
I think a lot of what people call CYA and office politics is really just good communication skills. If a co-worker or superior expects that you're going to attend a meeting and you unilaterally decide to dip out or just not show up, that's just being a shitty communicator.
pgdave
This kind of wording works well when you're not dealing directly with your manager - you're dealing across different teams, or even with clients.
noot519308
Most managers are morons, most meetings don't need to happen. If you're asking that kind of question in the first place your job probably doesn't actually matter.
DoctorScoutBobTotoBarkingtonIII
But it is how managers show they are contributing.
I worked for a person who believed the Supervisors were best used spending 0% of their time interacting with their employees or their department and 100% of it meeting with people from other, non-related departments. It was fascinating and we became a pretty independent team which was not her goal because as a result of being unmanaged, we became unmanageable.
mksu
The people who get promoted where I work are the ones who talk like that.
ForceKinTim
My country head talks plainly, doesn't attend or call pointless meetings and the middle management follows his lead. We are the most efficient country in 2.5 continents and a regional center for our global corporate.
RocketKokket
This
CitizenPrime
“In leveraging holistic synergies to proactively architect scalable solutions, our organization remains committed to optimizing cross-functional alignment and driving impactful value propositions that empower stakeholders to seamlessly navigate an increasingly dynamic ecosystem, all while maintaining an agile mindset to pivot toward emergent opportunities in the competitive landscape.”
It sounds impressive… but says basically nothing
whyfighter
Oh man, I'm missing 'utilize' for my corpo buzzword bingo card!
Jaqdakloun
My boss insists on snacks for every meeting, so I'm required to be there even though 90% of the meetings have nothing to do with me.
Bajazeus
Because you’re a snack?
Jaqdakloun
Stahp!...because of the snacks
ricpaul
Took me a second... Thought process: Do you provide the snacks? Oh, no, you need to be there to enjoy the snacks...
myballshurt
Thankful I work in construction management "why the fuck do i have to go to this meeting?" Is commonly uttered to my boss. Plus my usual demeanor is not corporate friendly so sick ce I produce so much, I can get away with it.
yousersubzero13
Same. Unfortunately I'm on the spectrum and can remember almost everything verbatim.
RocketKokket
I worked in landscaping and construction in my 20s and then transitioned to corporate office bullshit and it’s hard. Sometimes the blue collar speech slips out and I insult some corporate stooge by being direct
myballshurt
Yea, fuck all that. Ill tone it down obviously in front of customers, clients, older people who aren't a trade. Otherwise, I am what/who i am.
RocketKokket
Most of the office lingo is just nonsense and adding three sentences to sound smart and professional and say the same god damn thing.
RocketKokket
Yeah like obviously be nice and respectful to clients and shit but i shouldn’t have to tip toe around fake lingo to talk to a coworker instead of just saying “this shits fucked we need to fix it” lol
WolfPacker
As a potential client of a landscaper, contractor, HVAC repair person, I so appreciate direct communication. If my shit’s fucked, tell me. 99.999998% of the time I’ll end up saying that myself.
KatInTheCorner
Few things exhaust me more than office speak. Might just because I'm autistic and it's essentially masking on nightmare mode, but it's all so....saccharine but weasley. Makes me itch.
SirRichfield
Being exhausted by corpo lang is just a sign that you're still sane and able minded.
revolutionofevolution
All politeness is fundamentally masking, and "office speak" is fundamentally about politeness. You can weaponize politeness to create plausible deniability like the OP, but this isn't really about being a weasel. When statements are implicitly offensive (e.g., "Do I need to be here?" implies a power dynamic and that the organizer did their job poorly), the masking shows "Hey, I know this could be offensive, but look at the cognitive labor I did for you to make it sound nicer." It has a purpose.
KatInTheCorner
I'm aware of all of that, it's always been very confusing to me. I just...am not bothered by direct speech in a way it seems like a lot of folks are.
I don't see how asking whether or not you need to be there is offensive, unless someone is deeply insecure.
revolutionofevolution
"Direct" speech has just as much subtext as indirect speech, which ND people can still miss. In this specific case, it implies that the decision on whether or not to attend rests with you, and that the person inviting should take time out of their day to convince you to attend. It's not just "Explain why I should attend." If someone say to you, "I'm more important than you are, and my time is more valuable than yours, so tell me why I should attend" would you not be offended?
KatInTheCorner
I would argue that "I'm more important than you are and my time is more valuable than yours" isn't direct speech. Those are opinions that actively antagonize someone. They aren't based in communicating directly, they are based in negative comparison and judgment.
zFUBARz
It's not pleasant, but if it's happening anyway try to use it to your advantage cause odds are you won't be able to actually change it much on your own.
KatInTheCorner
It's just odd to have to play this weird game because other people have decided saying what you mean is rude?
zFUBARz
Unfortunately it's because it often was rude. There's a reason things like boys being boys, and corporate work culture went so well together in years past (and increasingly moreso again it seems). You'd think it's just common sense, but some people (assholes) conflate saying what you mean with "are you some kind of fucking R* N*" and so on. And the rest of us are punished because of that sort of thing. Shit just last month one of my bosses in a meeting said our new head of public relations (1/2)
zFUBARz
And communication was "obviously great at her job! I mean just look at her. She looks incredible! Of course she can get doors open" which is true, she's a pretty lady, but also talented, skilled, and passionate about what we do. (Not for profit work) And that supervisor was a woman who'd been around for like 30 years. Sure she's speaking her mind, but it's also fucked up to diminish someone's hard work like that infront of 20 colleagues.
zFUBARz
To be clear. I don't enjoy it at all, and am actually very bad at it, and work to normalize communication in my own organization, buuuuuut, to do that, it works to act as an insider and to understand where it came from in the first place.