Meeting Hell -- Any Office Workers With Thoughts?

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Science
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

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Joined: 27 Jan 2015
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 5

16 Mar 2015, 3:54 pm

I cannot stand work discussions.

Every Monday I have to attend a work discussion which includes 2 academic talks by my co-workers. The talks themselves are not so bad and mostly quite interesting. What annoys me are the “discussions” afterwards.
There are patterns in it. When PhD student #1 says or asks anything you can bet that soon #2 will do the same and they end up one upping each other for minutes, no matter how trivial the issue is. When group leader #1 explains something #2 always slightly disagrees (“with all due respect”). We even have a group leader that will say the given talk is rubbish and then refuses to explain why. I used to want and do my best to actively participate in the discussion but found myself misunderstood or ignored. Now I just keep my mouth shut, but that also feels bad. The atmosphere becomes combative too often.

These are just some examples I needed to get off my chest. In my opinion work discussions are at least as much about interpersonal relationships and pecking orders as they are about the work. Strangely, my co-workers do not seem to notice or care as much about it and remain unaffected.

Sometimes the meetings go well. Almost always when this happens it it because a good talk was delivered and the presenter actively leads the discussion afterwards.



dryope
Toucan
Toucan

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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 281
Location: head in a book

03 Apr 2015, 7:43 am

Thank you, everyone! I didn't get an email update about the responses (stupid gmail) but I appreciate your sharing. I will look into the SME track vice management...I was coming up to a crossroads, so this is really helpful. :D

{Stupid meetings....}


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Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder 19 June 2015.