Best Way to Get Out of Meetings?

May 1, 2006 12:01 PM

What's a good answer in trying to avoid meetings?

Our company loves to have meetings where nothing much gets accomplished - decisions that usually don't affect me either way - of course, my bosses up the chain want to know why I'm not there - I'm pretty senior so it's not like I have to be a good foot soldier but of course, not being there is 'not being a good team player.' so what can I say that is politically correct? Thanks.

posted by jbelkin to Work & Money (11 answers total)

Is your company large enough that you might claim to be booked for a different meeting?

The other one I like, is food poisoning on the day of the meeting.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 12:06 PM on May 1, 2006

I like the 'good use of my time?' test, which is perfectly legitimate and puts the onus back on the person who has invited you to the meeting. Ask very specific questions about the purpose of the meeting, and declare, "I'm quite busy with X right now...is this meeting the best use of my time?" This [often] makes the inviter actually consider whether you need to be in attendance. They can also pass this up the chain: "J's in the midst of X right now; this meeting wasn't the best use of his time."
posted by hsoltz at 12:10 PM on May 1, 2006

posted by airguitar at 12:25 PM on May 1, 2006

I will say "They're called meetings, not doings" and not go.

This wins me no friends.
posted by sohcahtoa at 12:25 PM on May 1, 2006

To echo hsoltz, you can ask the meeting organizer for an agenda in advance ("oh, there's not an agenda... hrm... get me one and I'll see if I have anything to contribute"). If there's something of (tangential) interest to you, or that your supervisors think that you should be "in the loop" on, then you can just attend that part of the meeting. True, you'll still have to go, but at least you'll only be there for the last half or first half or whatever. Since you're pretty senior, it's probably socially appropriate to do this.
posted by zpousman at 12:38 PM on May 1, 2006

Arrange for a call to your cellphone a few minutes after the meetings start. Step out to take the call & then just go back to your desk/cube/office. It's kind of passive-aggressive but it gets you out of the meeting.
posted by scalefree at 12:47 PM on May 1, 2006

I believe there are even services that will do what scalefree suggests: call your number at a certain time and even play a script for you to say out loud.

But I agree with airguitar the most.
posted by chuma at 1:02 PM on May 1, 2006

If you're a senior employee then you should just not go. Your boss trusts you to make the best use of your time. If your boss wants to know why, tell him the truth. What may concern your boss is when you don't go to any meetings, ever. This is often not a good sign. What you might consider is holding your own meetings and providing your boss with recap notes. This will let him know that you're filling your meeting quota (and communicating with others) and you'll get to hold meetings that might accomplish something.
posted by nixerman at 1:25 PM on May 1, 2006

It seems to me that your central problem is the disconnect between what the bosses expect of you and what you think your role is. If you are skipping meetings that they are also attending because "your time is too valuable," you are sending a very dangerous signal to them. Even if they are not in attendance, but they think that you should be, then there is still a problem that you should probably be more focused on that the issue of how to avoid meetings. If the culture of your organization embraces endless meetings, you are running some risks be rebelling against that culture.

Having said all that, if you have a staff you can often delegate many meetings to someone in your group. I have a deputy that we often joke is my "deputy of pointless meetings." This sometimes lets me appear to be paying attention to the agenda of the particular meeting without actually letting it interfere with my direction.
posted by Lame_username at 1:35 PM on May 1, 2006

If they can't start a meeting without you, well, that's a meeting worth going to, isn't it? And that's the only kind of meeting you should ever concern yourselves with.

-- Swimming with Sharks
posted by kirkaracha at 1:39 PM on May 1, 2006

Three words: attend by phone.

I accept a lot of Outlook meeting requests as "tentative", then spend 5-10 minutes scanning any relevant meeting documents before deciding to attend or not. I attend manymany meetings by conference call. If I know there's something buried in the agenda that might be relevant, I can listen in (with the call on "mute") from my desk while working on other things, until it's time to chime in.

I'm pretty darned good at multi-tasking, though, so if you aren't...
posted by ersatzkat at 7:13 PM on May 2, 2006