Asserting status by being late or no shows to meetings?

[Anonymous]

Do people in your office often cancel or show up late to meetings as a way to assert their status in the hierarchy, as if to let you know how much more important or valuable their time is? Or is it just that their bosses or clients were late or no shows and their schedules were pushed back?

[Anonymous]

Not really. Sometimes senior people are invited to meetings and they don't accept the invite, and if their presence isn't necessary, I just let it go. If people accept, they usually attend, but sometimes people have packed schedules, and frankly, I'm sometimes late for meetings despite my best efforts.

People who do stuff like that usually don't get that high up, because they tend to do other dumb stuff.

[FruminousBandersnatch]

Many times people get scheduled back-to-back, so if a meeting runs over at all they simply have no slack (or time to get lunch, go to the bathroom, etc.)

If someone is apologetic about it, I generally try to let it go.

[Anonymous]

One does, and I hate it.

[Anonymous]

Folks here are pretty good at respecting people's time. Time efficiency is a big issue here. So having to sit and wait 15 minutes for someone who is essential to show at a meeting would not go over well.

We have the opposite problem here. People are eager to show the bigwigs that they are on top of things, so a lot of people end up getting invited to meeting who have no real purpose in being there. On a whim, our SVP may decide to accept the invite because the subject matter interests him. When the VP's see that he accepted, they accept. So we end up with a lot of people hat are not essential to the meeting shuffling in and out.

[Anonymous]

My boss does this and it drives me crazy. Or if someone approaches her office to ask a question, she purposly makes them wait at least 5 minutes even if she not on the phone or in a meeting.

[Anonymous]

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Our office is full of insecure men trying to one-up another. It's sad.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the men at my office do this to prove their status. Just the junior level execs though, the company president and the CEO both manage to be on time!

[Anonymous]

Hmm. Yes, that's why I'm always running late and/or completely forget about, I mean, skip, meetings. Cause I'm a *better* worker than you.

[Anonymous]

I had a coworker who did this years ago and she had less seniority than I did. Eventually her arrogance got her in a lot of trouble.

[Anonymous]

No, for the most part everyone is on time. The President is sometimes late for internal meetings but we usually know a few minutes before the meeting. He is also never late for external or important meetings.

I don't think I could work at a company where junior executives are so disrespecting of other's time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's just the tip of the iceberg. Our office is full of insecure men trying to one-up another. It's sad.

Oh look, one of my coworkers is on dcum
...and then they fiddle with their phones the whole damn time. I really want to have a phone box by the door... if it's that important JUST LEAVE THE MEETING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's just the tip of the iceberg. Our office is full of insecure men trying to one-up another. It's sad.

Oh look, one of my coworkers is on dcum
...and then they fiddle with their phones the whole damn time. I really want to have a phone box by the door... if it's that important JUST LEAVE THE MEETING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

PP here.

Do they also insist on talking, even when they aren't really saying anything new? Just to make sure everyone knows that they're there and have something to say?

Meetings would be 1/4 the length they are now if these blowhards would just STFU. Basically repeating one another, just changing a few words around.

This is why I am leaning OUT, not in. I just cannot stand it any longer.