Men in meetings - all the inane chat?!

[Bringringbring]

Of course there will be women that do the same.

However, anyone find that so many more men engage in innane chat during meetings resulting in much longer than necessary meetings.

I have just endured a 2 hour meeting. It would have comfortably concluded within an hour, however two of the men proceeded to repeat what had been said, speak at length about tenuous past experiences, waffle... on and on it went.
Until finally I closed my notebook, put in my bag, stood up and thanked them all and offered my apologies as I had a call to make. That led to all standing and the meeting ending. A colleague shot me a relieved look. I’m frustrated though. It happens time and time again and despite the stereotype of women being chatterboxes, in my 15 years in finance, i have overwhelmingly found it to be men that drag meetings with irrelevant chatter.

Am I alone?

I’ve always found it was women. The last three places I have worked with there have been a particular person ((always female) who can drag out a meeting with inane chatter and asking questions that anyone with more intelligence/common sense than a tea spoon should reasonably be able to answer.

It's neither men nor women in particular.

It tends to be people at either ends of the scale, so either with insecurities who want affirmation from other colleagues so try to be funny or descriptive to get lots of nods and assurance... or it tends to be loud, dominant colleagues who just like the sound of their own voice and who see meetings as an opportunity to demonstrate themselves, rather than get collective minds on oa problem or update in order to spark action.

It's not a male thing imo it's an insecure / not busy enough thing.

I didn’t find it particularly men or women just some people who seem to have decided that you need to talk the longest out of everyone in a room to be impressive and show you’ve got a lot on.

Oh god, the tenuous past experiences - it’s ALWAYS men that do this. I don’t care what a company you worked for 8 years ago did and the tedious story around it! Drives me mad.

I've worked with both men and women and found that there were people who talked shite of both sexes.

Interesting
Looks like my experience mainly men, others a mix, others more women.

So it’s more of a .... some people are prone to waffle inanely in meetings

This will happen if the meeting is badly chaired.

Btw, sometimes it’s good to let people waffle. They may be indirectly expressing concerns and issues. Leaders need to show they listen and that they don’t shut people down.

* Btw, sometimes it’s good to let people waffle. They may be indirectly expressing concerns and issues. Leaders need to show they listen and that they don’t shut people down.*

Fine if waffle about work (well, not fine, but within certain limits - acceptable), however this is waffle about “in my past life as a x” “oh I recall when we used to do things like x 10 years ago” etc

Some chit chat is good for relations ??

“in my past life as a x” “oh I recall when we used to do things like x 10 years ago” etc

We call them CV answers / questions. Usually seen when there is someone more senior in the room than normal.

There is always someone who does that. I don't think it is necessarily men or women. Damn annoying whoever does it!

Tends to be women for my experience and often nothing about the subject. Also try meetings with military. Lots turn up because they've been told, have no interest or knowledge but insist on talking so they appear on the minutes as evidence they attended. I've been to meetings with military where there were 20 plus attending all wanting to speak and only 4 or 5 were actually needed.

BigFatLiar Can relate to your experience of military meetings. I was CS, but my boss was ex military and insisted that I go to represent him if he was ever away. Yet at least 50% of the time our team didn't need to attend.

I found that the amount of inane chat really depends on a person rather than gender. In any case, I must say I fully understand how you feel. Can't stand people, who take 30 minutes to say something that can be said in 5. And we have plenty of those in my team at work.

My boss is like this, and his boss is worse. An hour's meeting taken up with discussing schools in the town the rest of them live in and I don't.