Head Office Syndrome

[plonq]

One would think that I would be used to it after all this time, but I still find myself occasionally irked by the arrogance of our head office -- especially when it comes to scheduling meetings. They are all about setting up meeting times that are convenient for them, even if those "convenient" times happen to fall over our lunch hour. I attended a few of those in the interests of moving things forward, but I would make a point of reminding them that they had - once again - scheduled a meeting over my lunchtime.

Oh, that's right. You people are in a different time zone. Hur hur.

Lately I have started rejecting the invites out-of-hand, usually without bothering with explanation. This morning I got a meeting invite that pushed head office arrogance to a new low; they want to meet from 15-16K.

Bad: They have scheduled a meeting for when people tend to be at their mental nadir. If they want a conference call full of people who are alternately watching the clock or nodding off, then I suppose that's a good time for it.

Worse: That puts it at 16-17K my time. Under normal circumstances that means they are blithely expecting me to stay an extra hour that day for the meeting.

Ugly: My calendar clearly shows that I finish work at 14:00, which means that they're actually expecting me to put in an 11-hour day for their convenience.

Normally I'd just decline without explanation (the reason should be self-obvious), but this is a meeting that I really should attend since it will probably involve saddling me with an ugly project. I responded as a "tentative" attendee, with the stipulation that I might call in from home.

Comments

[mwalimu.livejournal.com]

I used to work on a project that had people in three different time zones, with my team being located at the one in the middle. The other two sites would often schedule teleconferences that were afternoon for the eastern group, morning for the west, which landed them right over lunchtime for us. This was but one reason my group often felt like the forgotten stepchild.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

I am not salary. My work day is 8.5 hours. I have a half hour unpaid lunch. It is my half hour. It is amazing how everybody thinks they can transact business during my lunch time. Lunch zombies we call them. The secretary gets attacked by zombies too.
You see them down the hall, smiling, and waving. Always with the same lines.
"Sorry to bother you during lunch." No they're not.
I'm starting to bill the company for .5 O.T. with the name of the employee who interupted us in the overtime explaination. Hopefully, it will get noticed.

[typographer.livejournal.com]

One of the teams I'm on is split between people in three time zones, unfortunately one of them is ten hours a head of us. So I come in an hour early one day a week, but don't complain because there are three guys staying two hours late in another office (the third time zone is only two hours ahead of us).

I used to be on a team that had four time zones--on two hours ahead, one ten hours ahead, and one ten hours behind...

[fuzzytoedcollie.livejournal.com]

I responded as a "tentative" attendee, with the stipulation that I might call in from home.

Collect, of course... :)