When the calendar invite isn't sent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, so I am an assistant to a very busy partner at a law firm. When I schedule meetings for him I ALWAYS block off any time I offered or someone else offered for a call in a bright color on his calendar marked "HOLD: call with so-and-so, TBD, or they will send conference info, or waiting to hear back to confirm and send our bridge/Zoom, etc.". That way when I look at his calendar for the next day or two, I know whether someone who was supposed to send an invite/bridge actually has or has not and also know not to offer that time slot to a different client - and follow-up if they haven't send a bridge or follow-up to confirm the time and send out the bridge on my end. I have his Outlook calendar color coded. LOL, sometimes I feel almost like I'm playing a video game...like Tetris or something with how often I schedule calls or move them around. Do you have an assistant or do you handle your own calendar?

For a busy person with lots of calls placeholders are super necessary for keeping track of the scheduling and not offering the same time slots to multiple people.

I also love worldtimebuddy.com, it makes scheduling calls between many people who are in multiple times zones much easier. Also, sending a Doodle to schedule call with a lot of people is very helpful to cut down on the email back and forth on availability.

This is me again - I also change all of my attorneys' calendar invites from other people to a "one-click" if they are not already in that format so they can just click on the link and not have to separately enter a code to enter the call. I also add any emails or documents to call invites that they may potentially need for the call to the invite (so they don't need to search their email for documents)

Wow. Ummm, are you looking to move firms? Because I'm awesome but have never had an admin approaching your level.

DP, but I am an EA (different industry) and do the same. This is exactly how it should work! Total sh*tshow if we didn't use calendar holds while working things out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If OP never got the invite, I am not sure why so many people are dumping on her/him. OP, you might want to reach out to the organizer and ask if your name was left out on the invite. You can couch it as making sure you don’t miss important meetings in future.

Does this person belong to another org? Sometimes emails go missing or go to junk even if you got many emails from this person.

It is quite common at my place to discuss availability verbally but nothing is set in stone till an invite is sent. Also, if I were the organizer, I will make sure all important attendees actually accept the invite.

+1. If I send a calendar invite and someone doesn't show up, you bet that a couple minutes into the meeting I check first the invite to make I included the person, and then reach out via email or whatever to see if the person is around and can join in case something went wrong in transmission. I don't just go on without them and then make some nasty passive-aggressive comment about it in front of their boss - which would (rightfully) just make ME look bad anyway.

It's probably not a big deal, OP, but I don't think you were in the wrong here at all, no. The person who was supposed to send the invite was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, so I am an assistant to a very busy partner at a law firm. When I schedule meetings for him I ALWAYS block off any time I offered or someone else offered for a call in a bright color on his calendar marked "HOLD: call with so-and-so, TBD, or they will send conference info, or waiting to hear back to confirm and send our bridge/Zoom, etc.". That way when I look at his calendar for the next day or two, I know whether someone who was supposed to send an invite/bridge actually has or has not and also know not to offer that time slot to a different client - and follow-up if they haven't send a bridge or follow-up to confirm the time and send out the bridge on my end. I have his Outlook calendar color coded. LOL, sometimes I feel almost like I'm playing a video game...like Tetris or something with how often I schedule calls or move them around. Do you have an assistant or do you handle your own calendar?

For a busy person with lots of calls placeholders are super necessary for keeping track of the scheduling and not offering the same time slots to multiple people.

I also love worldtimebuddy.com, it makes scheduling calls between many people who are in multiple times zones much easier. Also, sending a Doodle to schedule call with a lot of people is very helpful to cut down on the email back and forth on availability.

This is me again - I also change all of my attorneys' calendar invites from other people to a "one-click" if they are not already in that format so they can just click on the link and not have to separately enter a code to enter the call. I also add any emails or documents to call invites that they may potentially need for the call to the invite (so they don't need to search their email for documents)

Wow. Ummm, are you looking to move firms? Because I'm awesome but have never had an admin approaching your level.

DP, but I am an EA (different industry) and do the same. This is exactly how it should work! Total sh*tshow if we didn't use calendar holds while working things out.

The concept of my admin (biglaw) taking any initiative to "work things out" in my calendar is mind-boggling. I'm a young partner and basically the problem is that when I was coming up over the last 15 years, the admins at my firms didn't give associates the time of day, focusing instead on their partners who are by now in the retirement home, so we learned to do all this stuff ourselves. And as our self-sufficiency went up, expectations went down, and the quality of admins suffered greatly. It's a pity because good admins really are a value-add, but in law at least they are essentially seen as a cost center maintained only to service the technologically challenged 50+ crowd.

[Anonymous]

If they said they'd send a calendar invite and didn't, but you didn't block it off, I'd say it's 50/50 or no fault.

Apologize, set a new time, and put it in your calendar. This assumes you both are at the same level. If this was a higher up, then you were in the wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate it when people don't send the calendar invite with the meeting links and then follow up the next day and imply that I missed the meeting. What am I supposed to respond to that other than (re)scheduling?

It is a little unclear what happened here. If you straight up did not get any notification of the exact time of the meeting or how to join, sure not on you at all. You can just reschedule.
If you received an email or phone notice of the meeting, as in "We'll gather at 10:00 on the usual conference line" then yeah, you should have put that on the calendar yourself...

There's no usual conference line. We verbally agreed on a day and time, and the other person said they would send a calendar invite. I didn't receive it/it wasn't sent. The other person said I'm sorry you missed our meeting...

Obviously something went awry on their end, but you have to own your part in this as well. You knew there was a date and time sent, and then blew it off anyway when you didn't get a calendar invite. You should have followed up before the meeting when you didn't get a calendar invite.

I completely agree. You need to apologize OP for missing the meeting.

WHAT? OP these people are wack. This must be something that varies org to org. At my company we discuss availability verbally all the time but it isn't set until the organizer sends an invite. Stuff changes all the time so it is not weird to say we're going to set a meeting for Wednesday, hear nothing for 5 days, and then it pops ok the calendar for 2 Fridays from now.

And if the person did organize it and forgot to invite you, then that would be on the organizer at my org, not the person left off the invitation list.

yes I agree with you. We're not in the same org, so something definitely got lost in translation. Of course I'll apologize for "missing" the meeting and not call out the other person. But I do find it strange they called me out. Maybe to save face in front of their boss.

It is slightly strange/annoying, but not worth really puzzling over. You could say you "missed" the calendar invite you were expecting, or just simply reschedule and never think of it again.

I do put calendar invites on my own calendar if someone else organizes a meeting. It is not 100% in my working culture that the organizer of the meeting will send them out. They may just send an email of the meeting time, and expect everyone to manage their own calendars. This derives from a history of lots of cross-organizational communication without a common calendar, but it drives me a little nuts since calendar formats are pretty universal these days...

In your case, they said they'd send the invite, and didn't... so...

[Anonymous]

Op, I try to put "HOLD" on my own calendar even when I expect another person to send an invite. If it's not on my calendar, I honestly forget or double book. I always send calendar invites if I initiate the meeting.

[Anonymous]

Also, people who put info in an email (dial in etc) - for the love of God, just send it as a calendar invite. I can copy/paste on my own free time, of course, but how much easier for all to just get an invite with this info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, people who put info in an email (dial in etc) - for the love of God, just send it as a calendar invite. I can copy/paste on my own free time, of course, but how much easier for all to just get an invite with this info.

+1. What are they thinking? Especially when there are several attendees who have to copy/paste.

[Anonymous]

I'm a technical grunt and don't have someone to maintain my calendar for me. When someone makes an appt/meeting for me, I got to my calendar and put in a quick placeholder note on my calendar. It takes all of about 5 seconds to do. If I get an official meeting invite, when I confirm, I cancel the placeholder. I check my calendar most afternoons for the next 2-3 days so that I can get an idea when I have something coming up and whether I have a meeting to prep for. If I see a placeholder but not meeting, I send a note to the meeting organizer and explain that I haven't got an invite with the call-in/meeting link.

I also put placeholder notes for myself for things that need to be done. For example, if I have to do work that someone is waiting for output from me, if it is not something I need to do immediately, I put in a placeholder a few days in advance to remind me to do whatever I need to do. Short things like "Form for John Doe" "Run scan, output to Larla" "Coordinate pickup with Sam", etc. Most of the time I see these placeholders sometime on Monday and I try to figure out when during the week I'll squeeze these things in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, people who put info in an email (dial in etc) - for the love of God, just send it as a calendar invite. I can copy/paste on my own free time, of course, but how much easier for all to just get an invite with this info.

+1. What are they thinking? Especially when there are several attendees who have to copy/paste.

FWIW (I'm one of the admins upthread), when dealing with outside orgs/different systems, those details don't always show up clearly in an invite. So I'll send an invite, but also close out the back-and-forth email thread with, "BTW, here are the Zoom details in case it's helpful." In house, it just goes in the invite.

[Anonymous]

If the invite was never sent, then how did everyone else attend the meeting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the invite was never sent, then how did everyone else attend the meeting?

No one attended the meeting. It was supposed to be only me and the other person. This thread has been useful for upping my admin A-game!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, people who put info in an email (dial in etc) - for the love of God, just send it as a calendar invite. I can copy/paste on my own free time, of course, but how much easier for all to just get an invite with this info.

+1. What are they thinking? Especially when there are several attendees who have to copy/paste.

FWIW (I'm one of the admins upthread), when dealing with outside orgs/different systems, those details don't always show up clearly in an invite. So I'll send an invite, but also close out the back-and-forth email thread with, "BTW, here are the Zoom details in case it's helpful." In house, it just goes in the invite.

Yes, that is totally fine / common. Just weird to ONLY email the meeting details.

[Anonymous]

In my organization, if you want to have a meeting, it's on YOU to set it up. No one is following up with anything agreed verbally. If it's not in the calendar based on the invite you sent and I accepted, it's not on the calendar. Nobody's job but yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my organization, if you want to have a meeting, it's on YOU to set it up. No one is following up with anything agreed verbally. If it's not in the calendar based on the invite you sent and I accepted, it's not on the calendar. Nobody's job but yours.

Spinoff, but is there any excuse for people (particularly managers) who never accept calendar invites, and force people to follow up by email to see whether or not they plan to attend?

I'm never quite sure if it's rooted in disorganization or passive-agressiveness.