How much meetings do you have in a day?

I just joined a new company. A gaishike but the majority of my coworkers are Japanese. And boy do they love meetings.

My typical workday consists of 6 to 7 hours of meetings. Leaving me with no time to study the documents or do the corporate learning.

On top of that, I need to attend calls with US team late at night.

Don’t know if I will ever get used to it. Right now, i feel like I hate my life and the extra money is not worth it.

To the managers in this sub, how do you get things done when your day is full of meetings?

7 comments
  1. This is one of the reasons why I chose to stay on the individual contributor track lol. I think I only have 1~1.5 hours of meeting on an average day.

  2. My current company (already a lot less meetings than others) go like.

    Everyday team A meeting from 11:00 to 11:30.

    Everyday team B meeting 11:30 to 12:00 skip Tuesday

    Tuesday add meeting 11:30 to 12:30. All groups

    Wednesday add 16:00 to 17:00 special team

    Wednesday add 17:00 to 18:00 program

    Tuesday add 17:00 to 18:30 all team demo

    Friday add 15:00 to 16:30 all team demo

    Plus others that show up.

  3. Completely different line of work, but 2-3 hours a day nevertheless. A very minor portion of said meetings is useful and/or important.

  4. I’m a manager at a gaishikei as well. I get more meeting invites my schedule could physically fit. I just decline meetings that I decide aren’t important for me to attend. If I want some time to focus (or to watch the super bowl 💀💀) I block that time off my calendar. My manager and I will split meeting duties as well, with only one of us attending most generic meetings and info-sharing offline when needed (almost never needed).

    I also have late night US calls. Got one soon tonight at 12:30am! I use it as another excuse to decline low priority meetings.

    You’re new so I guess you don’t feel comfortable declining meetings yet. That’ll get better with time, hopefully

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like