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
instead of going to all the meetings yourself, just send someone else on your team?
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.
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.
And people give me shit for not wanting to be a manager 🤷♂️
Completely different line of work, but 2-3 hours a day nevertheless. A very minor portion of said meetings is useful and/or important.
Leave, get out. Life is elsewhere
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