To be feeling totally drained by long meetings every single morning?

[Maria53]

Hi everyone. Before remote working, we would have one staff meeting per week. Useful to catch up and brainstorm etc.

But now that we are remote working we are required to have a meeting every morning for up to an hour some days. These meetings have no agenda and mainly consist of 'do we have anything to cover? No? Yes? No? Funny story btw...' or most of us sit in silence because we're fed up waiting to be released.

I am now regularly finishing work 30-45 mins late to get those tasks done that I don't have time for in the morning. I thought it was just me until my colleague messaged me during yesterday's meeting saying 'is this really necessary? This starting my day off in the wrong foot every day'. Another colleague said they like them as it is 'better than looking at four walls' which is valid for them.

This morning I woke at 6 with debilitating pain due to suspected endometriosis. I'm going to have to sit on the couch with a hit water bottle so I'm not attending this time. But it won't spare me other days!

Do people think I can bring this up or not?

Daily brief is ten minutes tops. I would bring it up. This is time waisting for everybody and it will get worse with time. Imagine the day you REALLY have something to deal with. This must not become costum. The briefer is just feeling that he justifying his paycheck while actually being professional would mean keeping it straightforward and short.

Don’t companies have a duty of care to their employees?

Could you be suffering a lot with endo pain next week and not want to bring the mood down as you feel too ill to attend the meetings? Then crack on with your work, see what happens? This may force your boss to actually act.

Same here. There used to be a weekly meeting, frequently postponed/abandoned but now it's at least once a day. Boss usually makes it to about 10am before getting twitchy (no one was ever allowed to work from home before this). Most of it is him checking everyone is working except he can see that, including what they're actually doing in tiny detail just by looking at live activity logs. Then there are multiple smaller meetings during the day, most of which would have previously been a two minute conversation or an email. Most people are working later than normal to get everything finished.

Put your microphone on mute and carry on with your activities. That's what I do.

Feeling your pain OP. Have a nice week-end.

@blackteaplease we also have a 15 min coffee break call for chit chat. I wonder if we work for the same company?

Half of these are just so that your boss can be seen to be doing something. Can you prequels that there’s an agenda and a time limit on the catch up?

Can you not raise it with your manager? You don't have to seem unwilling –perhaps ask whether they could move to the end of the day as you're more productive first thing and are losing hours to these meetings (and therefore having to work late). Then when MD drones on but it's 5pm it's ok to leave!

In the end I informed everyone I was I'll and wouldnt be attending the meeting but they could contact me via XY. Lots of folk replied sending get well soon messages and my boss checked in. I actually told her about the suspected endo for the first time and she was sympathetic.

I think for now I will try to get some of my smaller, admin style tasks done during the meeting. No doubt it will continue to get me down but maybe I will have to try and balance that out in other ways. The meeting I escaped this morning was 45 mins...in that time, I got my first major task done and dusted.

We have moved ours to every other day now. But 15min max. Email the organiser and ask if they can be moved to every other day

I am so drained by the constant zoom meetings and calls in between. It's exhausting.

I know @SybilWrites. It is hard going.

Someone above mentioned this is an extrovert/introvert thing. I agree to an extent. But I do have a laugh and a chat with my colleagues first thing/I am quite extroverted really. I do have an introverted side as well though and it is bringing me down.

As well as muting your own microphone can you also mute the meeting for at least part of it if it is just chat so it just appears like you are there or at least turn the volume down to an absolute minimum? Are you likely to get caught or?

I'm quite extroverted too - I just find it exhausting being in constant meetings - never get any downtime at all. If you're in the office there's plenty of time to piss around I think.

My husbands job has this. They normally wouldn’t have meetings any more than fortnightly, but now have a video call twice a fucking day. Honestly seems so pointless. DH has just started putting the video off at his end and getting on with other things. It’s really distracting as both of us are WFH with a small person and I don’t want these ransoms looking into our house

My line manager literally just asks us to text and confirm we are ok and working every morning

Thank god, no-one insists on videos for ours. No-one uses them as the network wouldn't cope if all people used them all the time. And, if you're wfh, why should you have to get yourself ready for a pointless on camera pointless meeting?

I agree. We have meetings every morning that run on for an hour. Endless emails and phone calls. I'm only meant to work part time. I used to go in and leave. When I left, I would leave the work behind. Now I feel its taken over my life and I'm busier and working more than I did before! Fortunately my work is paying me overtime, but it feels relentless.

Oh I am so glad to read this thread. I WFH without any problems usually and am very productive, but since all the bosses are now forced to WFH we have about 3/4 zoom meetings every day and it's such a massive stressful waste of time. I hate everyone looking at my house and having to look decent, and I can't focus on the conversation while staying into the camera. So glad it's not just me!! Our director LOVES seeing our faces fuck knows why we all look so bored.

We now have one weekly meeting- I've avoided most meetings my entire career. I don't mind it. But daily would be a total waste of time and painful.

That's crap, my line manager has set up daily catch ups for his direct reports (all dial in at the same time) but they are optional if you have anything you want to raise or just a general chat, other than that its a 10 minute catch up every week.
Employers are worried people will be isolated so try to avoid this but sone are OTT.
As pp suggested you could go on mute and just carry on working unless its video call, i sometimes do this on calls i need to dial into but not necessarily involved with

It's dh who works and he spent so much time in meetings, this week, that when he finally walked free, at 11:30, this morni g, with me still in my jammies because both of our SN boys were having a difficult morning, I was all "I need a shower. Deal. With it!"

Yep.

Exhausted by all the Skyping. Full team Skype. Then most of the morning taken up Skyping junior team members - some of whom need direction, others who are finding it a bit harder to adjust to home working and need support for that.

Generally get to my own work after lunch at the moment, and my workload is not light, lots time critical, lots needs extended periods to focus on budgets/ project reports etc.

Lots of my team being furloughed next week and I’ll be relieved to be honest. I think we’ll be able to knock the daily catch up on the head for the rest of us. We speak constantly anyway (cross project working.)
And my kid is HARD WORK when I Skype- hates me talking to other adults. Plays by himself happily any other time.

I’d just keep declining the meeting. Do you have clients? Can you arrange a client call for the same time....every day 😂

One of my senior colleagues is obsessed with video calling me on MS Teams, honestly we could go a week without seeing each other prev or would chat via email or phone over small things, he’d only cone to my office and vice versa if it was something significant, now he’s bloody video calling me all day!! I wouldn’t mind so much if it was scheduled meetings, but I find it really intrusive in my home!

there are opinions that have a good point of view, I also suffer from the same. It is not easy, however my husband is a person who helps me a lot while working remotely.