Breakfast meetings
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All that talk of company food events below reminded me of one of my most despised business practices: The Breakfast Meeting. What complete tosser came up with those? When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting. I went to one, and promptly decided that under no circumstances would I ever be going to another one. So the next time I received an invitation instruction to attend along the lines of "I've organised a meeting in the canteen in Brighton for 7:30", I promptly responded, Caroline, Well you can just bloody well go and un-organise it. I am NOT getting up at 5am and travelling 70 miles to sit around in the canteen drinking stewed tea at half-past bloody 7 in the morning. Yours, Martin. Funnily enough, she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
I don't mind breakfast meetings. But that's only because I eat breakfast at 11:00am. :) /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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What's even worse is a breakfast job interview I once had to endure. I am not a morning person, and it came off terribly. Turned out I was glad I did not get the job anyway, because the guy who interviewed me (the company owner) had no life outside of work, and he thought that no one who worked for him should either. He most likely wanted the breakfast interview so he would not have to take an extra 45 minutes out of his work-a-holic day. X|
WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.
I'm not being argumentative here, but my second-favorite job came about through a breakfast interview. At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated. He just couldn't get it through his head that I was a full-time professional now. He kept treating me like a kid, which pissed me off to no end. I had this breakfast interview. I walked out of it with a verbal offer of 12% over what I was currently making. They followed that up with a courier-delivered offer letter to my house later that morning. The next morning after that, I hand-delivered two letters. One of resignation to my current company, and another of acceptance to the new one. The new job was fantastic. It only lasted a little less than three years, but it was still pretty awesome. BTW: You still have my favorite sig on CP.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
All that talk of company food events below reminded me of one of my most despised business practices: The Breakfast Meeting. What complete tosser came up with those? When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting. I went to one, and promptly decided that under no circumstances would I ever be going to another one. So the next time I received an invitation instruction to attend along the lines of "I've organised a meeting in the canteen in Brighton for 7:30", I promptly responded, Caroline, Well you can just bloody well go and un-organise it. I am NOT getting up at 5am and travelling 70 miles to sit around in the canteen drinking stewed tea at half-past bloody 7 in the morning. Yours, Martin. Funnily enough, she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
Never had those. The closest was on one job I had, there was a regular team meeting on Mondays at 10:00. The project lead had to provide bagels to bribe people to attend.
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I'm not being argumentative here, but my second-favorite job came about through a breakfast interview. At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated. He just couldn't get it through his head that I was a full-time professional now. He kept treating me like a kid, which pissed me off to no end. I had this breakfast interview. I walked out of it with a verbal offer of 12% over what I was currently making. They followed that up with a courier-delivered offer letter to my house later that morning. The next morning after that, I hand-delivered two letters. One of resignation to my current company, and another of acceptance to the new one. The new job was fantastic. It only lasted a little less than three years, but it was still pretty awesome. BTW: You still have my favorite sig on CP.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]Obviously you must function better than I do in the mornings. I had a bad case of brain-lock that morning. It did not help that it was the first interview that I had been to in years. Also, the interviewer in your case must have not been a total jerk like mine was... Good for you.
WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.
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I am up at 6 am to dial into a meeting this morning.
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
Christian Graus wrote:
6 am
Since I have to stay late at work, it is almost like midnight for me.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson -
I don't mind breakfast meetings. But that's only because I eat breakfast at 11:00am. :) /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
A kind of early lunch?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson -
All that talk of company food events below reminded me of one of my most despised business practices: The Breakfast Meeting. What complete tosser came up with those? When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting. I went to one, and promptly decided that under no circumstances would I ever be going to another one. So the next time I received an invitation instruction to attend along the lines of "I've organised a meeting in the canteen in Brighton for 7:30", I promptly responded, Caroline, Well you can just bloody well go and un-organise it. I am NOT getting up at 5am and travelling 70 miles to sit around in the canteen drinking stewed tea at half-past bloody 7 in the morning. Yours, Martin. Funnily enough, she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
martin_hughes wrote:
When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting.
I had a similar experience working for a company in the 90s. We had a director who lived about 10 minutes from the office and had a habit of calling people at home on a Saturday afternoon to arrange a Sunday morning meeting. Needless to say, she was about to gain her third (!) divorce and had no life outside of work. I refused to participate on religious grounds stating that I had to attend church. She reported this to the MD, who, it turned out, was a devout Christian from the US. He instructed her never to hold Sunday morning meetings again.
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I'm not being argumentative here, but my second-favorite job came about through a breakfast interview. At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated. He just couldn't get it through his head that I was a full-time professional now. He kept treating me like a kid, which pissed me off to no end. I had this breakfast interview. I walked out of it with a verbal offer of 12% over what I was currently making. They followed that up with a courier-delivered offer letter to my house later that morning. The next morning after that, I hand-delivered two letters. One of resignation to my current company, and another of acceptance to the new one. The new job was fantastic. It only lasted a little less than three years, but it was still pretty awesome. BTW: You still have my favorite sig on CP.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
All that talk of company food events below reminded me of one of my most despised business practices: The Breakfast Meeting. What complete tosser came up with those? When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting. I went to one, and promptly decided that under no circumstances would I ever be going to another one. So the next time I received an invitation instruction to attend along the lines of "I've organised a meeting in the canteen in Brighton for 7:30", I promptly responded, Caroline, Well you can just bloody well go and un-organise it. I am NOT getting up at 5am and travelling 70 miles to sit around in the canteen drinking stewed tea at half-past bloody 7 in the morning. Yours, Martin. Funnily enough, she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
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All that talk of company food events below reminded me of one of my most despised business practices: The Breakfast Meeting. What complete tosser came up with those? When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting. I went to one, and promptly decided that under no circumstances would I ever be going to another one. So the next time I received an invitation instruction to attend along the lines of "I've organised a meeting in the canteen in Brighton for 7:30", I promptly responded, Caroline, Well you can just bloody well go and un-organise it. I am NOT getting up at 5am and travelling 70 miles to sit around in the canteen drinking stewed tea at half-past bloody 7 in the morning. Yours, Martin. Funnily enough, she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
In 2001, I worked on a project where the project manager had twice-daily meetings. The first one was at 7:30am and the second at 4:30pm. It was a pain in the south end of my anatomy! I think the first meeting of the day was to ensure that everyone was in the office (or to take attendance) and the second one was to make sure nobody left early. After nine months of hell, and thanks to the events of 9/11, myself and about 700 other contractors were cut loose on 9/14 even though the project was far from finished (no, we weren't all working the same project). I think they just used the events of the day as an excuse to do some housecleaning. Since this was a major power company, they were also mumbling something about security as the reasons for the massive cut-and-run.
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A kind of early lunch?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson -
[At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated.] Errr why take a job with him then!!!!!!
You've got to get your foot in the door somehow.
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[At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated.] Errr why take a job with him then!!!!!!
Bob1000 wrote:
[At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated.] Errr why take a job with him then!!!!!!
A bad job is better than no job.
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always got punched out when I reached 4.... -- El Corazon
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A kind of early lunch?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis LevinsonI guess you could call it that. :) My work day usually ends at 2:00am. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Good Man! I hate meetings in general. Ones that involve food even more. I once was required to call into a meeting at 11:00 pm Friday Night local time when I was traveling abroad for business. I requested that I be let out of the meeting or that it be rescheduled. Since my boss refused and further insisted that I call in even though I had nothing new to report I decided to "comply exactly" with his wishes. Long story short, I called in from a loud and rowdy pub using a public pay-phone. No mute and lots of noise. Needless to say, I got to say my peace and get off the call first.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - -Lazarus Long
Chris Austin wrote:
Since my boss refused and further insisted that I call in even though I had nothing new to report I decided to "comply exactly" with his wishes. Long story short, I called in from a loud and rowdy pub using a public pay-phone. No mute and lots of noise. Needless to say, I got to say my peace and get off the call first.
I am going to have to remember that for my next teleconference I have to sit in on :rolleyes:
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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What's even worse is a breakfast job interview I once had to endure. I am not a morning person, and it came off terribly. Turned out I was glad I did not get the job anyway, because the guy who interviewed me (the company owner) had no life outside of work, and he thought that no one who worked for him should either. He most likely wanted the breakfast interview so he would not have to take an extra 45 minutes out of his work-a-holic day. X|
WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.
Tom Delany wrote:
What's even worse is a breakfast job interview
:omg: Who wants to eat in front of a complete stranger? I did this once for lunch and hated it.
"Love people and use things, not love things and use people." - Unknown
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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All that talk of company food events below reminded me of one of my most despised business practices: The Breakfast Meeting. What complete tosser came up with those? When I worked for a largish regional company, my boss's boss was particularly fond of organising them. She was a director of something or other, and liked to ensure that the participants had to travel to reach the meeting. I went to one, and promptly decided that under no circumstances would I ever be going to another one. So the next time I received an invitation instruction to attend along the lines of "I've organised a meeting in the canteen in Brighton for 7:30", I promptly responded, Caroline, Well you can just bloody well go and un-organise it. I am NOT getting up at 5am and travelling 70 miles to sit around in the canteen drinking stewed tea at half-past bloody 7 in the morning. Yours, Martin. Funnily enough, she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
martin_hughes wrote:
she never organised another one after that. Breakfast Meetings - stamp them out!
Your response sounded more kind and professional that the one I would have given :rolleyes: Mine would have been along the lines of a "flu"... ( something like: "Sorry, I am down with the Caroline-flu and won't be able to make it to the meeting" )
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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[At the time, I was working for a guy I hated. I'd worked for him through college, and took a full-time spot from him when I graduated.] Errr why take a job with him then!!!!!!
Because my next best offer was $3000 lower, and would have required I move.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Because my next best offer was $3000 lower, and would have required I move.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
Forum:The Lounge Subject:Re: Breakfast meetings Sender:Gary R. Wheeler Date:Tuesday, May 20, 2008 2:42 PM Because my next best offer was $3000 lower, and would have required I move.
Can't beat a bit of pragmatism over moral principles!
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What's even worse is a breakfast job interview I once had to endure. I am not a morning person, and it came off terribly. Turned out I was glad I did not get the job anyway, because the guy who interviewed me (the company owner) had no life outside of work, and he thought that no one who worked for him should either. He most likely wanted the breakfast interview so he would not have to take an extra 45 minutes out of his work-a-holic day. X|
WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.
Ha! The last job interview I went to was for a lunch meeting, not breakfast. I walked in and found the person, introduced myself and before he had a chance to ask anything, I asked "Now, explain to me why you think I might want to work for your company?" He couldn't, so that was the end of that. Another time I went to a lunch interview at a decent restaurant without a coat and tie. The interviewer mentioned that I would fit in better with a coat and tie. I mentioned that he might need to decide whether he wants a coat and tie or someone that can solve his problems. I then picked up the tab for his drink and left. I think it's a blast to turn the tables on an interviewer just to see how the poor souls react. But a breakfast interview? You gotta be kidding!
The PetroNerd
Walt Fair, Jr. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software