As someone whose calendar is often wall to wall, this is really stupid. The fact that I'm two minutes late because I'm a biological creature and need to piss occasionally doesn't mean I should be excluded from critical discussions.

Being late is seen as lame, but leaving the preceding minute early is seen as badass - do that instead.

>leaving the preceding minute early is seen as badass - do that instead.

I worked in one organization where leaving early was disrespectful. Being late was a "flex" move done by leaders who were "super busy".

I'm not saying that is right. I'm just saying that is how it was viewed.

If the CEO of a company says they need to go to the next meeting that's not a flex.

Why not politely state the reason and leave?

How much faux-flexing is done in large corps ? it seems everybody is trying to inflate reality to impress or protect from the people around.

Sounds like a decent back-pressure to take more control of your calendar to me. I’m the kind of person who is almost always on time and it annoys me to no end when the first 5, 10, 15 minutes of a meeting are spent piddling around or catching late arrivals up. Leaving other meetings early feels more risky but it’s also more proactive and doesn’t waste other people’s time. At least they aren’t stalled waiting on you to show up.

The other meeting last 10 minutes is not necessary pointless waste of time. That is when the tasks are split final decisions made.

The issue here is in scheduling. Forcing people to leave other meetings early is no different then coming late to this one.

And at minimum, by the start of the meeting you can choose which topic to start with.

I disagree. It is different because showing up late effectively robs another group of people of their time. You can always say, “hey I have to duck out at a quarter til, so…”

In any case, it’s probably best to make all meetings 50 minutes long instead of scheduling in blocks of hours. I always set speedy meetings on in Google Cal.

> It is different because showing up late effectively robs another group of people of their time.

In a way that is no different then leaving sooner. Missing start is no more harming then missing end.

Plus, if it robs so much, then check out with people prior organizing it. Or whoever is organizing the meeting should. In an ideal world, the meeting that was scheduled second without regard of already existing schedule should be one where people miss part.

> it’s probably best to make all meetings 50 minutes long instead of scheduling in blocks of hours.

Imo, ideal is to have maximum run time determined. It is perfectly ok to have and schedule short meetings.

That's why all meeting should end at least 5 minutes before the hour or half hour.

I've tried this. Personally, I still forget the meeting is supposed to end. I'm trying to start meetings 5/10 minutes LATER.

The problem with that is that external meetings will still start on the :00/:30 so your overlaps will be a problem or you'll lost another 5 minutes from your internal meetings when anybody on the call bumps against a :00. Besides if you start all of your meetings at :05 as a company you'll still have people wandering in at :07.

This is the right answer, mostly because no one ends meetings intentionally at 5 minutes after the hour. However, even calendars that support "short meetings" don't seem to support this.

They should have Bells, like school.

The Lesson of the Bells is that nothing is worth finishing.

Lunch is worth starting.