Is it that hard?

I hate "meetings" where everyone has their head buried in a laptop. I prefer to "meet" at meetings - I can read mail or do other work just as well or better at my desk.

What bothers me even more is how many people fail to mute the volume on their laptops during meetings. There's nothing like a meeting with the constant "bling" of new mail and IM sounds. I doubt that we hire people that are incapable of turning the sound down on their laptop, but I question my hypothesis. My laptop, on the other hand, is always muted  - unless I need to listen to a voicemail or something. There's really no good reason to listen to system sounds and music from that little tinny laptop speaker, and don't understand why so many people think it's so necessary.

Is it really that hard to turn the volume down in a meeting?

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 29, 2008
  PingBack from http://blog.a-foton.ru/2008/07/is-it-that-hard/
• Anonymous
  July 30, 2008
  I had a boss that actually did not know how to turn his volume down... he even asked how to do it.One gauge about whether email or IM are OK in a meeting is whether it would be OK to do a cross-word puzzle in the meeting.  If not, then don't email.  And if the meeting is that slow, boring, or irrelevant to your work, then it's OK to get up and leave.
• Anonymous
  July 31, 2008
  Thanks Ashley - as usual, I agree completely. Most of the time I do just that - leave. There are a few meetings I attend (including the worst offender) where I am required to attend. (I'm working with the meeting organizer, however, on how to run more effective meetings).I'll start bringing my crossword puzzles to work...just in case.