Hi, welcome back to Eat Your Crest podcast. I'm Crystal.
I'm Jisoo. And I'm Jimmy.
So this week, we felt the urge to talk about work.
I feel like most people have to experience this at least a handful of times per week, and they can vary a lot from being really efficient, being really helpful, to sometimes just feeling like wasted time or not the best use of time.
So we wanted to take today to talk about meetings at work, how you deal with them, what have you found to work for you, and just in general your relationship with work meetings.
First question I have for everyone is how many meetings do you typically have how many meetings per day and then how many meetings per week dude meeting about meetings after a day of meetings i'm prepared honestly just to wait until the end say thank you i have probably around like four meetings per day i guess five if you count stand -up a stand -up is like you know it's like 15 minutes it's a baby meeting but yeah around like four meetings per day dang so you end up maybe with like 20 ish per week yeah times five dude that sounds like a lot because I was counting my meetings this week and I was like
this is kind of a meeting heavy week for me in my new company and I had 10 meetings and seeing you say you have of 20 is actually a lot oh my god this week is probably even worse too because our fiscal year ends this week you know june our physical year is weird i don't get the companies that end in the middle of summer but ours is ending so everyone's like pumping out more meetings more meetings everyone just wants to meet to ask like favors and stuff yeah i feel that i think in my My past job, it was similar where I would just dread meetings because every meeting would just birth more work.
The worst part is sometimes it's okay, because it'll be like an exchange, you know, like some decisions will be made.
So some loose ends are tied.
And then you have like a new project to start on or something like that.
But the times where those loose ends aren't tied.
So there's like ongoing decisions that are just like put off and then new projects are made.
I'm like I can't handle another meeting.
It's a perpetual cycle that just never ends.
Every single time is like, Jimmy, you want to take that action item?
You know, circle back around like next week?
No, I don't want to take any action items. I actually tend to not have too many meetings in my day to day.
On a chill week, I can get away with as little as six meetings for the whole week yeah so like maybe an average of one to two a day I think I've never had more than like 15 in a week other than like events lucky you oh my god are you more of like an individual contributor yeah because my work is in design and it's kind of isolated I don't have to like do as much of the business relations just like in terms of overall project management it's It's just like they've kind of already project managed most of this.
My part is just like, hey, can you do this like graphic or whatever?
So then my meeting time with the other people is pretty minimal or really quick.
Yeah, I guess that brings up the good point of depending on what your role is in a meeting, it can also feel very different.
For example, I said I had about 10 meetings a week.
A lot of them are like all hands.
some sort of like big group team meeting or something where I don't have to present I just can like sit and like listen to information versus in my past role I felt like a lot of my meetings I was leading so then preparing to lead a meeting has a lot of homework in itself of like you have to prep the agenda send it out a couple of days prior oftentimes if you're doing meetings with leadership you have to like present a deck and stuff not only that you have to like assign someone to take notes or you yourself might be taking notes.
And then afterwards, you send out like a recap.
So going from the meetings that I used to have in my old job, and then going to the meetings that I have now, even if they were the same number of meetings, I think it would just feel super different for me.
I think also there's an aspect of meetings, where it's up to you a little bit.
I think I could totally have more meetings in my day to day if I wanted to set up time with the people that I work with like hey can you chat really fast I need to like clarify this or ask a question but I guess I'm just so much more used to like pinging someone or even shooting an email because of that I also cut down on my meetings because sometimes people will ping me and they'll be like hey do you have time right now to hop on a call and I'm like okay I guess I'm usually the pinker in that situation honestly that probably explains why I have 20 meetings things honestly a big fan of like chit
chat you know well people that i like at least especially like one -on -one situations you could probably chit chat a lot more and gossip a little bit and stuff i'm usually the hey you want to hop on a call or hey i'm gonna put something in your calendar accept it you know you're like there's no decline button there's no decline button oh my god don't don't even dare hit like tentative or something I mean I think to an extent meetings like that are unavoidable sometimes it's just so much faster to hop on a quick call and like sort through something especially if it's like a more complex issue or if there's
like a lot of different moving pieces or something but for me I have this whole thing of like not wanting a meeting to go over over so I can like do the chit chat in the beginning and then after it hits like 210 or something I'll like cut it off and I'll be like okay anyways let's jump into the actual you're like agenda chit chat for five minutes yeah no more that's me I'm like that's enough it's like a checklist like okay first let's talk about love island honestly i do like the chit chat too it's but it's like sort of devious because i chit chat for the first like 15 minutes of a 30 minute and then
i'd be like okay let's get to work and then the work is you know fast paced like get done get done get done you know no ideation nothing just like this is what i need you to do and just do it you don't give them time to like refute your tasks tasks no that wastes time so inefficient it's an interesting split of a meeting block like you gotta warm them up you know you gotta make them feel good and then 15 minutes of just like okay you gotta do this this this like thank you honestly i see the benefits in that because sometimes when say you have a 30 minute meeting that only really needs like 10
15 if you finish early sometimes someone will start blabbing or rambling about the project and you're like okay no can we just end this meeting exactly I'd much rather spend 15 minutes talking about love island versus like you know 15 minutes being like oh like maybe this would be better you know no and I'm like more likely to do something for you if we talk about like even something as simple as the weather in the beginning like it just like humanizes you a little bit knowing like what what you're up to, or like your pets or any sort of like random topic that's outside of work.
But I will say, I make mental notes sometimes of people who always run over meetings.
Like, I'm not purposely trying to do it, but I'll remember, you know, and my mental log will like automatically get updated.
And I'm like, Damn, this person always goes over like, maybe I shouldn't schedule this other meeting right after.
Or like, I'll like know to book the meeting room longer or something are you cutting off the chit chat then with those people run a stricter ship for that one yeah can you please shut up about the weather like kind of related to what you do jisu i also take note of the people who i work with who are super busy who oftentimes come late to our meetings because they're like previous meeting was running running late or something like that so then it's always a joy to be like ah yes i have two more minutes until that person probably shows up so true they're always like consistent too about like they're
always late consistently late but they're also like in my case at least they're also like pretty consistent with how much time they're usually late you know like my manager enter three minutes on the dot every time three minutes yeah so I'll see the notification like you know the Microsoft Teams notification and I'm like okay great let me fill up my water let me go to the bathroom so then aside from like recurring people let's talk a little bit about recurring meetings like I'm sure you all have Jimmy mentioned earlier like stand -up sometimes or team meetings.
My first question is, do you ever feel like you have almost a specific persona or role in that meeting?
Because in my team meeting, I feel like I'm always the quiet, don't really talk too much, share very little person of the team.
And then we also have some that I've noticed that are like, one person who loves to give really long, thorough explanations.
Another person who who is like the note taker, and like the busy mom, that kind of stuff.
So what do you see in your meetings?
I feel so bad for this note taker person.
The note is the note taker?
That fucking sucks.
Wait, actually, I helped out with the note taking.
So my role is actually so much easier, year though but our note taker quietly took on the role herself and then she just like writes a couple bullet points for each person when they share their like weekly updates when it's her turn because she's talking I'll take her notes dude can I get this person's contact can I get like my company's headhunter to get her wait no we need her it's not fun being the note taker I was was like always the note taker in the small and big meetings my past drop and i started to feel like not like resentment but kind of resentment of like why is it always me and then
i would notice right because i would observe who the other note takers were and it was always women and i was like oh wow this is crazy it's so interesting that you guys have just like unspoken note takers for my immediate team for our uh monthly meetings we'll have like a meeting minutes person per quarter so we have like a wheel and we'll spin it and that yeah you know it's always like the nice like sarcastic like oh congrats on the role everyone chuckles i kind of like that it's a good system that is a pretty good system everyone's forced to be one you know that's why i feel bad for whoever
just got stuck stuck with that role it's been a wheel dude no taking aside sometimes the team meetings where you go around and share updates and you know how people always be like oh it doesn't have to be like a work update like you can share whatever like coming up with a story for that sometimes it's like an actual task on my agenda like i'm like oh come up with story for the team like what have i been up to wait same i definitely feel like the monday stand -ups were like oh you you know what'd you do for the weekend I have to dilute how much fun I had over the weekend every time you know I can't
go out right and be like oh yeah so Friday I partied all night Saturday oh yeah I also did that too and then Sunday I just watched television because I just I was incapacitated the entire day I can't do it dude I am the opposite of Jimmy people are like oh my god so So how was everyone's weekend?
And I was like, it was good.
I just stayed home.
Well, that's what I usually dilute to.
So they probably think I'm a crystal, you know?
Damn. Like, damn, this guy just doesn't really go out, huh?
Sometimes I'm like, I played golf over the weekend.
And they're like, whoa, you left the house?
I feel like this is when it pays off to have really specific and like niche hobbies that you can talk about because even if you say like the smallest thing even if you went like surfing for like 10 minutes you know it's like super cool but I feel like I'm always saying oh I just like hung out with some friends and then that's like it like that's the story like I cannot divulge any more than that yeah no questions please dude I actually dread the meetings though when I'm like I have nothing to to say this week like I have no updates for you all I'm like what do I say how do I skip this meeting
honestly I'm sad to admit this is like honestly a daily occurrence at this point where I don't have any updates so I'll just I'll like put it put the volume like super high on my computer so I'm like tuning in but then since I work from home my tv's like right there I usually always always have a show I'm binging and so I'll just be watching a show you know and then going back to your question my persona I'm the stay quiet the entire meeting and then at the very end unmute thank you and then just quickly leave same same yeah I agree I mean I feel like we're pretty young I think the people who speak
up a lot in meetings tend to be like more leadership or like executives or people who have been at the company for a long time but i will say when people our age or like people at a similar level as us really speak up in especially those big meetings raise your hand in like a 50 person meeting type of thing i'm like damn like you're pretty cool you're a boss dude but i also wonder sometimes i'm like i feel like i don't share that that much just like bits and pieces like crumbs of my personal life and I'm usually pretty quiet in meetings I wonder if I give off like mysterious or just like boring
I could totally see that I've known you for like what 12 13 years and I that's a hundred percent true i think you tear the line well christopher i think you really do i think wow thanks very mysterious person i feel like this is maybe the theme you know i'm like the opposite of you where i go from either i overshare or i just don't say anything at all in a meeting you know Either I'm the one driving it or I'm just not even in the car.
That is also fitting, actually.
For sure. Damn, I'm trying to think if I have a role or persona.
I mean, I think it's hard because I'm still getting settled into my new role in my new company.
But if I think back to my past job where I was more established, I think I drove a lot of the meetings.
and I would kind of come prepared and whatnot but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it you know what I mean like it wasn't something that I was happily doing I think it kind of felt like a mental burden on me to an extent so in my new job where I am kind of figuring out my role I'm trying to think what I prefer instead of like what I should be doing so you get to rebrand yeah so for now I'm nothing but soon I'll be something dude maybe you could be like the jokester oh oh hmm I have to like bring that out though you know like I have to like really pull it up I definitely have a jokester in one of my team
meetings oh it's not that fun do you feel like it's a mental burden and jimmy people just expect to have fun with me i hate it sometimes i don't want to be here you know how hard because like in the very beginning right i would talk a lot you know i was a jokester and stuff you know gradually i stopped really caring and i'm just like watching i keep saying love island but really it's it's very true right now before it was anime and i'm just like quiet because i just have my you know mic muted and i'm just like watching you know i'm not like engaged or anything and people miss the jokes you know
people miss the jokes like word for word my manager one time she noticed and she was like hey jimmy like i notice you're pretty quiet i'm like oh yeah you know i'm just i just want to let other people talk right i just want to let people you know share and stuff get their voices out there that's a good response yeah damn i'm not gonna lie like when the jokester is quiet during meetings i get worried i'm like is something going on in this person's personal life yeah you're like are they okay yeah like wellness check maybe one day i'll get there i think for now i'm the smile and nodder like i like
smile vigorously and i like not a lot same same nice smile nodder every team needs that you know yeah give me out my best facial expressions i also use like the emojis oh my god that's me too love the reacts a little thumbs up here and there you know oh yeah oh yeah the clapping one if i'm being honest i'm the i'm the react spammer oh it makes them feel good yeah like one clap is good but if you clap a lot then they're like oh my god i really did do a good job yeah that's true i also sometimes respond by typing because i don't want to unmute and then talk and then make it accidentally talk over
someone and then make it awkward and everyone's waiting for you to finish your thought just type and then everyone can read it and be like cool yeah when i said to my manager you know that i want other people to like share more that's actually kind of true you know and so i don't want to like interrupt someone i'll just like like put something in the chat and then once they finish their thought then usually people are like oh jimmy put something in the chat and they'll read it and be like oh yeah okay and then i'll give a thumbs up afterwards combo i will say though i've had times where i'm like
oh you know someone's talking i don't want to talk over them so i'll like put something in the chat and then the person talking will like stop because they see the chat come up and they're like oh jc said this and i'm like fuck like this is the exact opposite of what i was like oh god yeah we're like oh hold on let me see what it's definitely like a line i think i'm well settled into my new role of the chat emoji guy now you're the keyboard warrior now do you guys ever unmute just to laugh or no oh my god wait sometimes i do do it as well if there's a chorus of laughter and it's safe to unmute
and join it you'll only do it if you're like your laugh doesn't stand out i like how that implies there's like a time where it's not safe to laugh there's definitely like a group mentality you know because either someone bombs a joke or like they get a course of laughter first no one wants to be the guy who tells a joke no one laughs but also no one wants to be the person who's the only one laughing true and sometimes when you laugh or you know talk over someone it cuts the original audio off a little bit it's safer to just like react or know that they're done talking and then unmuting to laugh
a bit well what i'll do nowadays is like i'll like laugh really hard visually you know like obviously laughing like but i'll stay muted so that they can keep talking but i'm like encouraging them like look i'm laughing dude we're all just mimes mimes on the video give them a little visual wait i totally thumbs up you thumbs up yeah sometimes i'll start the meeting off like how's everyone feeling this week and like thumbs up stay muted wait that's so funny you won't even unmute and be like good i feel like that's like the standard yeah you're really the deep end chris i could tell you do it a lot
too because when you did that it looked pretty legit you even like had the right facial expression yeah it's practiced it's rehearsed well i guess aside from something like a tb for big meetings do you guys put your camera on or is it by default camera off camera off muted muted yeah they're off muted I'm not even in the room yeah I feel like those big meetings like sometimes it's like orientation or maybe like a big all hands some of our like company -wide all hands are so big that it's just streamed to the company it's like not even a meeting right so then it's just like on in the background
i'm like making breakfast or like getting the day started camera off muted all of that yeah all hands is like 100 breakfast time for me only i've ever not had all hands where i'm not i think it takes a special type of person to like have their camera on during big meetings there will be times where i'll like sit in all hands that's not a webinar so you can still see like the individual camera slots and stuff and people are actually like actively listening i'm like damn like you could really be camera off like laying on your bed doing something that you want but instead you chose to like show up
with your camera on knowing that you'll be blown up on a big tv and like in the actual office and i'm like this is crazy freaking try hard they want the the recognition oh my god I saw you at the all hands right next to the big screen I just love how intently you're like listening the entire time you know I'm sure the CEO really noticed I mean I don't know if it's the same with you guys but I feel like it's usually always the sales people that are like listening in while they're driving or it's leadership with their cameras on like there's no one else yeah that's pretty true I think but it is funny
sometimes where you can still kind of lose interest or like do other things with your camera on and I think seeing that in a big meeting is so funny where you can see people's like lighting change because they're opening new windows and stuff or they're like totally looking somewhere else and I'm always just like damn that's hella funny yeah I feel like sometimes when I have to do something even if it's like leaning over and grabbing my phone being out of frame I'm just gonna turn my camera off so people don't notice that distraction but then that also makes me wonder sometimes I'm like what if I
really need to go to the bathroom like should I just mute camera off and go to the bathroom in the middle of a meeting or do I announce it to the meeting if it's like a smaller smaller one or like what is the move here oh my god you know I struggled with that when I first joined the company and then I made the mistake of asking during the meeting if it was I asked permission to go to the bathroom yeah I was like hey by the way guys uh hopefully it's not you know hopefully I'm not interrupting anything but can I use the restroom wait you unmuted and you said this out holy fuck i forgot i forgot
why it seemed like it was necessary at the time if i imagine like what the fuck did like two agents go wait did did people laugh uh i don't think so oh my god that's even worse i know oh they were probably talking shit while i was going through something it was so bad it was like when i was like a fledgling you know like stars in the eyes like i just wanted to be the best i could be yeah i mean it's a tough one i have to be honest there are times where i just like take my laptop into the bathroom when i'm working from home i'm like this must be done especially if someone's presenting something
where i have to see it i'm like i guess i'll just take it in but other times for like smaller meetings i'll just type in the chat like BRB bathroom and then I'll just go to be honest very surprisingly I haven't encountered needing to go in the middle of a meeting yet ever I I I fear the day whoa yeah honestly there's been times where I'm in the office taking a meeting and I just like get up and go to the bathroom I'm shocked that has never happened to you before whoa the worst that's happened to me was like maybe there's a meeting in two minutes and I'm like oh I have to go to the bathroom really
badly right now and I'm like hopefully I can make it but it's shocking to me that like you just get up and leave to go to the bathroom are people not like hey what the fuck where's she going I mean no I've seen plenty of other people go to the like especially if there's a lot of back -to -back meetings right I don't always have time to like prep for a meeting yeah and use the restroom dude what if some of those people who are always late it's because they have a full day of back -to -backs and they just need to go to the bathroom yeah maybe seem skeptical listen after that whole fiasco in the beginning
of my career i just go i don't announce it i'll type in the chat nothing in all seriousness right i don't think it's that big of a deal you just leave and someone like asks you a question you're not there they'll just ask you later and usually what happens is like when i'm in the meeting and they do it to someone else they were like hey annie do you know this oh okay i guess annie's busy right now you know i guess sometimes the thing i'll do too is like i'll maybe pm my mentor like a friend on the team or something like i'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick let me know know if i missed anything
that way if they do ask me something they could just be like oh i know she just went to the restroom but i'll like pass it on so there's workarounds to our little bio breaks oh my god that's also like that is so peak meeting lingo i hate it i refuse to say bio break I vehemently refuse to it's so stupid just say bathroom don't be embarrassed yeah there's bathroom there's restroom or biobreak but I feel like biobreak is like the most commonly used phrase even just today too my manager pinged me she was like hey do you have time to uh chat I'm like yeah let me go to the bathroom real quick and then
it was like a 30 minute like shit oh my god I'm speechless and I didn't say that you know I just came back I was like all right I'm back she knows what happened she knows what happened but we're both adults here you know it's not like me saying bio break would have made it any better dude whenever I hear bio break I always think like biohazard i feel like if someone says bio break you assume the worst well i'll test this next time during the middle of my team meeting i'll just get up and leave and i'll come back one minute later sorry i was in the bathroom but the thing is like apologize for your
bio break for my team meetings i always go into the office for them so i'm just like imagining like me suddenly getting up and leaving it's kind of shocking you know it seems like i stormed out out in anger or something oh my gosh i mean i don't think i think people would just assume you're going to the restroom like what other reason i don't know just so it's clear i'm storming out angrily okay like slam the door on your way out yeah yeah because i think using the bathroom when you're remote is a lot easier i just turn the camera off mute and then go to the the bathroom then come back like nothing
happened but when everyone's seeing you in a meeting room and you just suddenly get up and leave I'm like oh god don't look at me you do have to be perceived you know when you do that but I've only really done that during bigger meetings I guess where there's maybe like 20 people in a meeting room so it's a little bit less scary yeah I guess all my meetings are remote I only really work from home and so my meeting culture is a lot easier to deal Well, aside from like these bigger meetings, I feel like low -key one -on -one meetings are both the hardest and the easiest because to me, sometimes it's
the hardest because I feel like I have to fill up the empty space or time a lot more.
But it's also the easiest because I feel like it's easier to wrap up sometimes.
I feel like I'm doing things wrong because whenever I have a meeting with my skip or my boss I always start and end the meeting within like 15 minutes and we like never take up the full 30 minutes and it got so like bad that I changed my meeting with my skip into a 15 or 10 minute meeting because I didn't I was like damn I can't just take up a whole extra 15 minutes of her time on her calendar when we wrap things up in like 10 minutes so I'm I'm curious to know if you all run your meetings for the full 30 minutes.
Like what do you talk about?
It's about life, Dawn.
I will say my one -on -ones are usually with the PM, my manager, anyone else that I trap into a meeting.
My manager, for instance, every time we have a meeting and she's like legit busy afterwards, words then she'll stay in the very beginning like hey just so you know jimmy we can't chit chat for that long wait it's me what y 'all was just about to say that's jisoo yeah and like we'll we'll usually do and this is why she's probably three minutes late to everything because we'll still go over and then i'm the one that stops the meeting like i notice it's like three minutes it's over i'm like hold up manager don't you have like a meeting like right now so oh shoot yeah sorry and so we go but yeah usually
we just chit chat a lot so i actually do an hour long tv with my so long mentor and also with my manager and it's weekly if i have to like divide it up it's maybe like 15 20 minutes of chit chat because it's an hour long right the rest is is work questions, or sometimes I'll have career questions of logistical stuff, like what do I need to do to get promoted?
Or what are some projects that you want me to work on?
Things like that. So I feel like I always have a lot of questions to ask about work, and then that fills up most of the time.
Even if it's not questions, it's a lot of status updates too on projects of like, here's all the stuff that I did.
Is there anything else that you need me to to take on just like a summary of what I did behind the projects and whatnot so I feel like there's always a good amount to talk about but that takes like 45 minutes a lot of questions a lot of updates if I'm like working on one project and I need to like validate the financial model I'm using or something it's not like a true false question right it's like oh here's like the background like here's the variables I'm using blah blah so then I feel like that like each thing takes like 10 minutes and if I'm having like five or six ad hocs that's like a good
chunk already it takes five minutes to be like can you see my screen dude can we do some role play right now can can I ask you some questions and then you can answer them as if you're meeting Waiting a one -on -one.
I need to see this in action.
Alright, let me just go ahead.
Can you turn this camera off and mute it?
So everyone, how's your week going?
Good. It's going good.
Account for the lag.
Alright, well, let's start off with Jisoo.
Let me know how your projects are going this week.
yeah so this week i've been really focusing on tackling a lot of like ad hoc requests that have come in from the sales team so this person sent in this i've been working on this and then this other person sent in this request and that really required me to like go into system a to like dig up stuff and i realized that system a doesn't have variable b so then i had to go into system b and then like merge the data together to work on financial model A so that's what I've been focusing on I have some questions for you after stand up if we can like dive into it together but um yeah that's mostly it
whoa off the off the role play for a second yeah wow you give so many details maybe I should add that to my repertoire wait Jimmy's still having his camera off muted all right back to the role play oh that sounds really good jisu yeah we could connect afterwards just shoot me a ping or we could connect offline or put some time in my calendar all right jimmy how about you any any updates for this week no updates not even a thing no updates is crazy oh my god okay i see now jisoo you give very good and like exciting detail well it's funny how you say that because when we do like our like team stand -up
or whatever of her i feel like i talked the least oh wow i always felt like i was giving really like i don't know not brief but maybe i just didn't have a lot to talk about or something so i'm shocked that you're like oh you say so much dude i say i say something between jimmy and you it's like black and white when you were going jisoo i felt intimidated dated i felt like a slacker with my camera off dude yeah yeah i mean this is only when i have updates like sometimes i don't have an update so i'll just be like i don't i don't have much to say wait so if you have no updates and you have an hour
-long meeting with your manager are you just like oh like not much is going on we can end early today you know we just did like a group stand -up yeah like in my one -on -one I go even more in depth like we fucking like go through my projects and I'm like can you like look at these or like here's the thing that I added to this type of report like do you think this would be useful I'll make recommendations or like I don't know and so I think I almost always do take the full hour although there are times where we'll only end in like 30 minutes and we'll be like ha ha ha we'll catch up next time okay
I feel like because my like team meeting updates are very similar with my manager because I'm like oh I said like everything I really needed to say yesterday at our team meeting.
So my updates go something like yeah I have like project A and it's going well it's on track.
Project B is also looking good.
The stakeholder is pretty excited about it and project C we just wrapped up and and they're really happy about it oh interesting I guess I see my TBs as like I mean right now I'm kind of more so learning or like trying to understand or like take on more responsibilities so I think that's a big part of it but in my past life because I was at a managerial role I was having TBs with my boss who's like a VP right I needed my VP to know stuff that I knew so that in his meetings with leadership he could like talk about the things that our team was doing doing so then i think that in itself like took
a long time too the only times where i didn't have a ton to update on was like weeks where i was like really slacking or something because i feel like with my personality if i did something like i'll tell you about it so if i don't have updates then maybe i didn't do much that week just the way i approach meetings i see i see how about you jimmy do you like go in depth into your projects with your manager or are you just kind of like me you're like all right yeah these are going well on track there's like a handful of projects I actually care about and I'll go like in depth on it but most of the time
yeah the updates they already know what's going on especially if they're like asking for an update then they're probably like you know either tagged in the email thread or you know we're already talking about it aside from a 101 we're just like hey do you have time to chat about this for those usually an update isn't really necessary but yeah I guess for my projects I'll have updates and I'll let her know like how that business unit is doing the latest news and whatnot but then also I'll be like look at look at the deck that I made and then you'll have all your answers you're invited to the meeting
if you want to join yeah I guess maybe it's also like the way my my smaller team is structured because we have this project tracker that everyone can see and my manager sees everything that comes in and then she assigns it and stuff so it's like you can see the same description that I see so there's no questions everything is pretty straightforward I'm working through it kind of thing but I feel like I want to take up more time instead of like finishing it so quickly because sometimes the thought is almost like oh maybe I like don't even leave an impression in this person's day damn just broke
jimmy's heart i visibly saw it break because sometimes my thought is like they have no idea what i'm working on because i described it so quickly and simply and so instead of describing something so like quickly and like skip over me quickly it's like uh oh i feel like i understand more of what's happening here so i I feel almost like I have a bigger stake in knowing if this thing goes to completion or whatever.
I mean, you never know, because as I'm talking to you guys, I feel like we're on like a spectrum of like our meeting philosophies.
I know there's execs out there who are like, Oh my god, thank God this person is taking up like an efficient amount of time in my meeting schedule that's already so busy so i feel like there's a happy medium in here somewhere of like i cut down my meetings and then you like inflate yours a little bit and like jimmy turns his camera on or something and we like all happily meet somewhere in the middle of the venn diagram but you know i think being brief and like concise isn't inherently like a bad thing hopefully i think as long as you get the job done i mean what jisu said actually reminds me of like
a funny story where I have product watch, which is, like, a really regular thing for me.
I have to make a deck for it.
It used to be every two weeks.
Now, it's every month.
And then one month, I just forgot to do it.
And, like, an hour before the meeting, I was trying, like, really hard to, like, do it.
I was only able, it's, like, two business units that I have to report on.
And I was only able to do one business unit.
And I remember specifically in that meeting, I called on people that I knew took a lot of time and so I would like call them and be like what do you think about this Bill?
you're like that's 20 minutes for a thing I was like yes Bill keep going you're like oh could you elaborate on that?
I didn't quite get the part that you just oh my god I mean hopefully it wasn't that obvious because Bill would be talking and then ryan i know he has questions about it right so like right what what do you think about that we didn't even get through the first business unit and i'm like oh thank god that is so funny it was the first time after the meeting where i specifically didn't say okay i'll send the slide deck to you guys afterwards you know that's genius though it was pretty nice it's the directors by the way the the director is usually like talking a lot i notice whenever i'm leading these
meetings they always latch on to one thing and then they just want to spend the entire time talking about it you know dude yes i've noticed that too it's like this one number or like this one percentage they're like um where did you get this number and then suddenly that question becomes like a 30 -minute meeting yeah the whole entire exactly so you just like slip if if you don't finish your slides you know then just like slip in like some inflammatory numbers that you know it's gonna get everyone stirred up here are the real workplace tips i like the strategy yeah this month we've had very like
an uptick in negative vocs oh shit they're like i heard negative like yeah genetic was really upset about this well it's so funny to talk through this kind of stuff because these are things that happen in a meeting that aren't always positive for example someone taking one number running with it and taking up like your entire meeting time or not feeling like you're super prepared for a meeting but I think talking to you guys it makes me realize that we can use these things that happen in meetings to our benefit and to our advantage so thank you Jimmy and Crystal for talking through some of the meeting
culture and meeting etiquette things with me today for any of our listeners out out there.
If you have meeting tips and tricks.
Jamie just turned his cam off again for the ending of this meeting.
I'm just waiting for him to say something in the chat.
Like, thank you. But if you have meeting tips and tricks or any sort of meeting habit that you might have, then feel free to hit us up.
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