- Down with the outdated 40-hour work week. As someone stated above, I can get all my work done for each day in a much shorter period of time than 8 hours. I'm a Gov't contractor and we have things to do but they never, ever, take up a straight work day. Luckily my boss agrees and we're typically out quite early on Fridays to hit the golf course. :)

A Keeper - "Relaxed" work attire. Where I work if I wear business casual it'd be ruined outright within a few hours. I wear jeans, colored tees or polos, and my boots or Puma's. Some jobs definitely do not require being dressed-up. Also of note is that each day I do interact directly with our "customer" which happens to be the US Army. Nobody gets all uppity because I'm not in a button-down, slacks, and an overpriced pair of dress shoes. We have work to do and that's the focus, not some faux fashion show.

Almost forgot one to get rid of forever - that hokey "corporate speak", saying meaningless things that sound important like "drill down", "let's peel this onion", and the list goes on but it makes me sick to type even those two so I shall stop.

thepounder

Faxes - half of them come through garbled or are spam.

Voicemail - can't you just write me an e-mail?

Read responses - either ask me to write you back if it's that important or just assume that I've read it.

Weekly/monthly meetings - usually it's just each employee telling the boss what they're doing that week.

We could probably stand to have more places that are "work from home"...but people over 30 value that face time so much you kind of have to have it.

I'm not a big fan of campy theme parties and celebrations every month (see Office Space, Hawaiian shirt day, birthday cakes). Oh well.

Jarick

OK..as the boss of a bunch of Admins here is my take:

Overtime (weekend work) that is not compensated for is Bullsh*t. My guys know they are in IT and that hours are odd sometimes. If they work a day on the WE..they get a 1/2 day comped. I generally don't care if my folks work from home...I do too.

Status meeting happen on Tuesday AM. Monday is too busy, anything else is too late in the week. He who runs the meeting, keeps the minute and finishes within an hour if at all possible.

I and my people work at corporate. We have to wear ties. It's possibly the stupidest invention in Western civilization and Louis XIV is the one that should have gotten the Guillotine for foisting it on the masses.

When I am Galactic ruler..they will be banned forthwith.

Cell phones? We give a Bberry to the Admins..I'm more concerned that I can email and chat w/ them than the phone. I can't hear you without a service desk ticket anyway!

My biggest pet peeve?! Corporate credit cards. They are in our name, yet the mileage accrues to the company. I wouldn't care but I still have to take care of paying the bill on time etc. That's horsecrap. To he who falls the burden of the work so should the benefits... Needless to say, Finance never checks the card numbers on expense reports, so I have been using my personal card for years. Many trips to the Providenciales have been the result!

Most IT managers I've had the displeasure of working with couldn't hold a candle to a plebe at West Point when it comes to understanding and caring about there employees welfare/happiness. I am not the expert in what my Admins do. They are. If you have to micro-manage your employees, you don't trust them. if you don't trust them, why even let them sign on?

my .02 Euro (always had a self-inflated view of my opinions) lol.

sapguy

Yearly sexual harassment training.

We get it. OK?

The HR dept should quit hiring cavemen.

TPSreports

@Scott D. Feldstein: Bad idea. I don't want to have to pay for my cell phone bill and then do extra paperwork to be reimbursed 3 months after the fact. I'll carry 2 cell phones, instead - it's a lot less work and hassle.

drsmith

Have to admit, I haven't read all of the replies yet, but I would disagree with almost all of the items in the heading.

Reply instead of Reply-All confuses a lot of people especially when the purpose of emailing all of them at the same time was to ensure that everyone's on the same page. In the instance of working on a project, leaving people out of the loop can be disastrous - primarily because steps have to be completed in order and by different people.

Email instead of voicemail? Not me. Where I work, email is considered low priority and you can't guarantee the recipient will read the message and get back to you that day. Voicemail or IM on the other hand always gets an immediate response.

Office parties are one of the best parts of working here, but then again I work in an actively social group. They *want* to spend some time chatting and passing the latest rumor.

A Monday morning is a great time to have a meeting, too. I always hated the late-Friday meeting because no one would remember anything the following week.

Guess my office isn't typical, but then again, I actually like working here. It's a bit more relaxed than most places and management is very down-to-earth.

drsmith

Actual occurance yesterday in large meeting:
"Can you please repeat that? i was busy writing something down."

You wouldn't even do that in high school, how on EARTH is that ok at an important meeting??!

HucknPluck

Here's the list of things that ought to be banned immediately (for full disclosure, and since the article seems to be interested, I'm under 30):

* strict dress codes (if you're covered, and there's nothing offensive or political on the clothes, why should it matter?)
* disdain for tattoos, odd hair color, piercings, etc. (same reason as above)
* working lunches (honestly, your brain needs a break mid-day to work effectively)
* preferential treatment for management (allowing managers to stay in more expensive hotels and get extra gadgets for no justifiable reason just breeds contempt.)

Also, for the record, I always check my voice mail. I usually leave voice mail unless the situation is better explained in e-mail, and then I'll e-mail. We don't have call logs on our phones.

deadlybreeze

The listed URL [blog.penelopetrunk.com] doesn't work any longer, and the post is missing!

ddouthitt

-Project Management software: Since when are people resources? The time alloted to do a task is rarely accurate (either too much or too little). Sr. Mgmt, rarely pays any attention to, it at my company anyway, they set a date and expect it done in that time, then are "shocked" when it can't.
-Status Meetings/Reports/Updates: let me just get to work on it
- 40/50/60 hour work weeks: I want to use my increased productivity any way I'd like, thank you very much.
- Overpaid and under-performing executives

surloc

So, Microsoft is such a believer that voicemail is a waste that they translate it to e-mail? Wrong analysis. MS thinks that left voicemails are so important that they translate it to the mode that is the most frequently checked and available communication medium: e-mail.

Brent

* email/sms/chat arguments instead of face to face discussions. Are we too afraid of confrontation that we have forgotten how to politely disagree?
* sitting on-site for 10-12 hours, just to be there What are the real working hours?
* weasel words and marketing speak, when did honesty become wrong?
* status meetings. I suggest working meeting that focus on solving the known problems.
* emails at all hours of the day and night. I get emails at 2am with a request to answer by first thing in the morning. Uhh... No.
* The idea that I am always online and always available.
* The stupid idea that you must be doing something, all the time. When are we supposed to brainstorm or think out-of-the-box? This means that I'm pondering the solution to a problem, not that I need more work. I often decline meetings, turn off my mobile and leave the office just to find a place to digest all that is happening. I need an hour each day to process all the barrage of input.

AndyW

My company recently went from paying for cell-phone usage as claimed on an expense report to only paying if you use the company plan, preferably with your existing number - presumably to save on new business cards. As a result, people have stopped giving their cell numbers to clients or have started fiddling their expenses. Yeah, that worked well.

I'd like to eliminate emails telling us to work harder so we can make the quarterly numbers - except for the really desperate ones that ban non-billable meetings. Those rock.

I'd also like to stop the pretense that we have the ability to take time out of the office for medical or other personal reasons - if management is going to come after us at month's end for screwing up the overhead numbers by going to the dentist and not making up the time in the evening while the Novocaine is wearing off, I'd that they be honest about it.

DCTrojan

-Micromanaging supervisors. The share all meetings that some people are describing seem like a waste of time. Related to that, some bosses need to quit treating their employees like idiots, especially in the service industry. Some employees may be better educated and have college degrees where their supervisors may have only a HS diploma.

-Keep the vending machines. It would take too much time to go and get food and drink for most people.

anyanka323

Coming in a little bit late, but I just wanted to throw in the perspective of a relatively new hire:
1) Office parties: for me, very lame. The average age where I work is at least 40, I'm the youngest at 23, and the next youngest I believe is 30. The only thing I have in common with a lot of them is work, and I would rather not spend my off time talking about work.
2) Charity guilt-trips: I have my own ideas of what charities most deserve my hard-earned money, thankyouverymuch.
3) The Vending Machine: A lot of commenters don't seem to get this one. It's not taking away the snacks and soda. It's taking away the requirement to keep change around to pay for it. Look at young companies: snacks and beverages are free. It doesn't cost that much, and it tends to bump up productivity AND morale quite a bit.
4) Reply-all: Very overused. I would also bundle in group-wide mailing lists; there are three separate secretaries that will all send the same mailing list the EXACT same email within 15 minutes of each other. My solution is a filter that dumps everything with more than 5 recipients or from one of the aforementioned secretaries to a group mailing list into a folder. I check it at the end of the week just to make sure nothing actually important slipped through. Nothing has yet.
5) Voicemail: I tend to do communication either thru email or walking down the hall and knocking on a door. The only time I'll really use the phone is with someone that I know doesn't quite get "the email". If they aren't there, I just try again later, since leaving a message is rarely worth the time.
6) Mandatory meeting-for-the-sake-of-meeting: Mine are on Friday mornings. 70+ people in a big conference room, and after 6 months, there has only been one that has held any interest for me... and that's when the technical group lead took over for a demo. I've been considering taking my laptop in so I could at least get something useful done.

okmnji

The article was gone but here are the things I would get rid of:

- Meetings for the sake of having meetings with no new information to share

- People who use their PDAs and cell phones DURING a meeting (How juvenile and rude)

- Colleagues who become too familiar and tell you of all their personal problems

- Companies and fellow employees who solicit "voluntary" contributions to various organizations.

- People who come late to meetings and ask to go back over things already discussed

- People who leave EVERY voice mail as URGENT every day. Come one people!

- People who cc everyone on emails for no apparent reason

Gosh I could go on and on. Basically, we could get rid of any rude behavior. :-)

RunnerGirl

I'm no fan of suits and ties at any time, but in the absurd, punishing heat of the height of summer, a coat makes zero sense. Even a long sleeve shirt and pants don't really make sense. It's crazy to see people trekking across the blistering asphalt each day wrapped up in their dark suits, choked by their ties. When I am rich it will be because I invented a new style of hot-weather professional wear for men. And no, not even Bermuda's plan counts. all they get right is the shorts.

As for phones, my idea has long been two accounts/numbers on one phone. Apparently somebody does this, like maybe Nextel? And I've seen sketchy double SIM cards for sale online. But everyone should be doing this. We can assume that basically everyone in the workforce has a personal cellphone. Like one commenter here says, your work shouldn't pay for your insane iPhone plan, but you shouldn't have to carry two phones.

So when you get a new job, they'd assign you a phone number. You'd associate it with your personal phone. (There would be a sort of broker service that arranged these things so that two different companies could have accounts on the same phone). When work called, that phone would ring. When personal called, same phone. You keep your personal number forever, but when you leave your job, you surrender that number back to them. They assign it to the next guy. You go to your new job and get a new number. The technology for this would be nothing new. It could happen right now.

The particular flavor of Monday status meeting I'd like to see eliminated is the one whose only value is to update the boss. We've got over 30 people in my group and every Monday morning we sit there for an hour or more while each team tells their sanitized story. Anything substantive is "taken offline". Nobody listens to anybody else's report because they don't care. Each team is working on their own thing and it rarely matters what the others are up to. People stare ahead with glazed eyes. The meeting happens solely so the boss can know what's happening. So for an hour or more I sit there and zone out along with everyone else until it's my turn. I do my couple of minutes and then zone back out and dream of punching my underboss in the face. No need to be there at that point. How about everyone just email big boss a few lines per week to let him know what's up? His secretary could even compile them all and send out a digest for anyone that's interested. Hate you, Monday meeting.

If someone leaves me a VM, I call back. If the light isn't on, I don't check or care who has called. Must not have been important if no message.

Open cube bullpens. This is the stupidest thing. I get so much less done now that I'm in one because it's always chatty giggle time for somebody and I'm in on everyone's phone call whether I want to be or not. It's supposed to foster team interaction but just magnifies distraction. Knowledge workers need to concentrate.

kookoobirdz

"Employee appreciation" meetings should be banned by law. Since when do employees appreciate having to go to work two hours before the store opens, eat cheap stale pastries and drink orange juice out of a carton, and watch the same people get the same awards every single time?

Want to appreciate your employees? Give them each a $50 bill next payday. In ADDITION to their regular pay (I put this in because one company I used to work for would undoubtedly have found a way to make it INSTEAD).

infmom

@HeartBurnKid: I wouldn't call that spoiled (He sounds like a great boss btw.) since he's covering for you. If there was no one else there to cover for you, you can see the predicament I'm talking about.

MercuryPDX

@MercuryPDX: I guess I'm just spoiled at my job, but if I have to work overnight for whatever reason (server upgrades, etc), my boss will just flat-out tell me, "Why don't you take the next day off? I'll cover for you." Great guy.

HeartBurnKid

I wonder how much vending machines are essential because most office parks ("parks"?!) aren't within a comfortable walking distance of a grocery store and/or small restaurants/cafes/etc.

OTOH, I have caved in once in a while, even though a 20-minute walk gets me to one of several options. (Generally as an addition to a meal that I brought in.)

My pet peeve is people fundraising for their kids. I guess that's a subset of charity fundraising at work, but it just bugs me. Probably because when I was a Girl Scout my widowed mother was at home with my baby sister and/or going back to school. So I always had the least cookies sold of anyone in my troop. Yeah, I'm still a little bitter.

That, and it's a total guilt trip to be asked to buy overpriced junk/junk food. "Won't someone think of the children!?"

epersonae

Commenting on the Author's 5:

1. If you don't leave a message, I don't call you back.

2. Reply all is great when everyone needs to participate in the conversation; maybe the big offenders need a little e-mail etiquette 101.

3. (And I say this as the more polite option) Why not lobby to have healthier choices added to the vending machine?

4. I agree here somewhat. I'd prefer an e-mail saying "I'm selling girl scout cookies/doing a walkathon/etc. If you are interested please see me." as opposed to the desk-by-desk, face-to-face begging that goes on in the office. Give me the ability to decline without any chance of you guilting me.

5. I've never worked anywhere that REQUIRED your attendance at an office party. Don't RSVP? Personally, I prefer to keep the line between business and social events separate. Once I see "Bob" drunk, sloppy and being inappropriate at the Christmas party, I have a very hard time seeing him as "Bob" the VP of sales and giving him the same level of respect.

MercuryPDX

@danielo: I don't know if I would go as far as to say that it's lazy and inconsiderate. Sometimes the call is so time sensitive that if I hear the message later there's nothing I can do about it. I'd much rather not get a message saying something like "I wanted to know if you could go to the game but since you're not answering I gues you can't."

The way I figure it, a message means you want a response and no message means that you don't.

waffles

@HucknPluck: How about they just give you an extra $50 a month and expect you to have a cellphone that's accessible for that? And maybe a $200 credit when you first start at the company to cover the cost of a phone if you don't have one? If your bill goes over $50 and it's for work purposes, just submit it as an expense report and get reimbursed.

tommertron

My pet peeve is the Salary vs. Hourly disadvantage that upsets life/work balance.

Your company expects a minimum of 40-45 hours of you per week. Say during a crunch, you work 60+ hours in one week (including the weekend), you don't get paid overtime (as a salaried employee) and you don't get any offset.

I'm not asking for a 1:1 hourly comp, but if you only put in 38 hours the following week(or even leave 30 minutes early one day) you should not be read the riot act.

MercuryPDX

Link *appears* broken. Perhaps they took the post down?

balls187

@rHughes: I strongly second the notion that not leaving a message is lazy and inconsiderate. I've had the conversation you describe so many times I've lost count. And even on a personal level, I hate it. I submit that it's NOT quicker to call someone back from a missed calls list, because I STILL have to listen to them tell me their story. If they leave the story on voicemail, then it's QUICKER to listen to it there, and to call the person back if it's necessary, when I have free time.

danielo

Sorry if this is a double post.

I'm 20 I get alot of phone calls, from work, friends, family. If you are a friend of family, you get a call back. A number I don't recognize, or work, I listen to voice mail and call you back.

Flamsmark ; Great idea about sending a text or e-mail. I'm going to implement that into my voice mail tonight, and quite frankly put, if your friend or family, please text or I'll call back when I can.

Bilbs

@justjack75: We have ABRA. It is hell.

bsankr

I could do without one of my coworkers reheating her leftovers at 8:30 a.m. There's nothing that smells worse than last nights "whatever with onions" that early in the morning.

tonystl

I say we end that practice that expects knowledge workers to stay in the office from 9am-5pm (or 8am-6pm or whatever the case may be) just for the sake of clocking in. Most of my work can be done online, by email or over the phone. If I don't have any meetings, I could be getting the same work done in my pajamas from home.

deliriousnyc

@Flamsmark: As long as every person you do business with is on the same system, that will work. Everybody else is out of the loop.

I'm in the real estate industry. If you ever want to sell a house, that system will not work. Any agent who has to jump through so many hoops to contact you to show a home will just skip yours and move on to one that is easy to show. And if you use caller ID to call back to a medium to large company, you will have no idea which of the many people tried to call you. You've potentially just driven away your buyer.

That's just one example (taken from my experience). I'm sure it's true of other situations as well.

rHughes

Jumping in on the voicemail thing:

I'm under 30.

If I'm calling and don't get through, (and I want to communicate something) I hang up and send a text. The text will say whether or not I'm requesting a callback. If it's not a cell number, I use email instead. I don't leave voicemail.

If I don't want to communicate something, and/or want them to call me back, I just hang up. If they reply after the issue has been resolved, I inform them of such, and apologise for their time spent replying.

The service to which my phones forward missed calls has a voice message requesting that people send me a text or email. It doesn't take voice messages, but does text me to say who got through to it.

I treat the list of missed calls on my phone - and the texts from 'voicemail' - like a pager, and call people back.

I use SMS interchangably with email depending how soon the message should reach the recipient.

I see no problem with this overall protocol, and have never had anyone complain to me about it. As far as I am aware, those around me and with whom and for whom I work follow a similar protocol. I have never met someone who preferred me to leave a voicemail than to email or text them.

I hope that gives an alternate point of view.
-Flamsmark

Flamsmark

Anyone have a summary of five practices that should go? It appears that the article was a little too popular, and was taken down. The link is broken, and I can't find it anywhere in the archives.

JacobHelwig

@savvy9999: (and others against 'workplaces') - I am a Unix system administrator and have worked on systems in other cities/states (and even countries) for most of the last 7 years. Most of the people I have worked with in that time I've never even met in person, except maybe once.

I have grown accustomed to this work-style and while I think it is good for productivity, it is fairly bad for career growth. As a remote employee, you're less "visible", and easier to overlook by management. Sad but true.

Because you see, once you 'prove' to your boss that your job can be done from a remote location, you just 'proved' to your boss that it can be outsourced to a country with far lower wages. At least that is 100% true in my field.

Whether or not that actually happens depends on the company and situation of course, but if you are a technical person doing technical work (programming, sysadmin, etc) for a megacorp, don't count on keeping that job too long after you go remote full time.

Joshua Timberman

@jtdcg: yes, please! Save the nail clipping for those boring, useless meetings, by all means.

jaxun

My work still uses pagers! And not even nice pagers with text message and names, those crappy black box pagers that only give you a number! I'm expected to keep the stupid battery replaced (every 2 weeks) and call the random nameless pages back!! AHH! When I leave this job I'm definitely planning an "Office Space" moment for my pager ;)

kala_way

@rHughes: We get the same sort of thing at my office. There's only one number for everyone, and you can't just go right to someone's extension. Worse yet, we don't have Caller ID, so we can't tell who's calling.

Therefore, calling up and saying "well, someone from here called me" without identifying yourself is a Very Bad Idea, because that'll only narrow it down to... pretty much anyone.

drjayphd

Oh, and our company agreed with getting rid of the vending machines. So instead they supply us with free coffee, wide variety of sodas, juices, milk, etc. Oh and popped corn. And bagels and muffins on fridays. Yeah, we're spoiled.

Speaking of, if you live in the Boston metro area and are looking for a marketing or programming job (we also really need some good graphic design talent), pop me an email at robert.shawnna at gmail dot com and I can get you the 411 and possibly refer you to the appropriate hiring manager.

hipersons

i disagree with the no more parties. our office of 400+ people parties (not everyone shows up obviously) every Friday 5-7 open bar with food, all courtesy of our company, at the office and it's awesome.

hipersons

"Young people treat their list of missed calls as a page system. And they call the person back. No extra step for listening to the message."

This is news to me, and I'm 23. If you want me to get back to you, leave a message or text me and ask me to call back. If I see you in my missed calls, but don't have any voicemails, I'll assume it wasn't important enough that you need to get in touch with me ASAP, and you'll call back yourself or just talk to me in person the next time I see you.

Better yet, just e-mail me.

adamjaskie

Paper in general.

nick_r

@Pomme: actually, I've been moving to paper based task time tracking. Works much better than software.

engtech

@Pomme: hmmm, we must work together...

baest

@jtdcg: AMEN! I absolutely hate when co-workers clip their fingernails in their cubes. I understand that sometimes people need to take care of a hangnail, but the cube is not the place for personal grooming. That's why doors on bathrooms were invented (that and the smell factor).

xnendron

Funny, I'm under 30, and personally, if someone calls and *doesn't* leave a voicemail, I'm not calling them back. VM is a way for them to leave me a message and let me know if they need something. Why would I want to take time to call someone and possibly get stuck in a conversation if they didn't have something important enough to leave on a message?

edmicman

I would do away with all-staff meetings that are meant to build "team-spirit." We've started doing these at my small, non-profit in the past year, and they're horrible. They make us sit in a restaurant for half a day and the HR person talks at us about thinking smarter for the sake of the company. The surprising thing is that people buy into it. They think it's great! I think it doesn't mesh well at all with the idea of a non-profit, where you don't really have to ask us to think for the company when we are already altruistically working for the organization with the hope of making people's lives better. I personally get more team-building out of the unofficial whirly-ball outings.

Oh, and I think Monday meetings can be useful if it is not only the person running the meeting who prepares. Each person should come with something they really need feedback on. I run a Monday meeting at my office, and it's a great time for everyone to bring problems that they need a little more input on. We're also such a small group that we are willing to cancel them if nothing seems to be going on at the moment, so we cut down on unproductive meetings.

Sallyfl

Clipping fingernails at your desk. Not sure when this became the norm?

jtdcg

The 8-5 workday and the 40 hour week. I'd like to add that this doesn't need to follow with a tremendous pay cut either.

Modern technology makes work much more efficient than it was 50 years ago. Seriously on a regular day I spend 50%+ of my workday doing "nothing". I'm getting things done I need to get done, they just aren't all day tasks.

I happen to know a lot of people work like this.

Ramen Junkie

No!! Not the vending machine!

BlackBeard

This topic seems to have been removed from Brazen Careerist, perhaps because of Lifehacker's link? Not sure, but here is an alternate source for the content: [www.readthehook.com]

apronk

1. Replying to an email - any email - with nothing but a 'thank you' in it.

Somebody in the department I work out replies to EVERY mass email with a "Thank You." It's annoying and useless.

clarient

The link is broken so I can't speak to the article itself.

Down with
1) Cube Farm Attendance. If someone is able to perform 99% of their job functions outside of the office then allow them to do so and get a smaller office. Corporate rent/electricity/etc.. costs are significant. The down side, if you're a remote access employee you have to share desk space.
2) Micromanagement. 'nuff said.
3) Meetings & scheduled blocks in conference rooms. Then the meeting organizer feels the need to fill that entire block of time. Most people around here who need to set meetings have offices, just gather the relevant parties and move on.
4) Paper. :D Not literally but too many people around here print things just to print them. If you have PDF of the manual, just point me to that and if I need to print a page out I will.

Keepers
1) Voice mail. I'm 31, I dislike voice mail, but I understand it's place. If I call and don't leave a VM it means I don't require a follow-up. If I leave a VM then listen to it, I bet you it had some pertinent information.
2) Vending machines. Sadly I don't know her reasoning (article dead) but, is she insane?! What if I'm thirsty? What if I want to buy a package of pretzels or a Twix for that late afternoon pick-up? I fail to see the vending machine is even worthy of being on someone's radar if things that need to be changed.

That's my 2 cents.

Chris

Allowing the use of Blackberries in meetings of ANY kind. I once had a boss who, at our quarterly offsite meeting, threatened to take away anyone's Blackberry who was using it during the meeting sessions or presentations. And she did! I cannot believe the utter rudeness of people. Didn't we learn in grammar school to pay attention to the person speaking (or at least not be blatantly engaged in another activity)? BTW, I'm only 31, but luckily was raised with enough manners to know you are supposed to show common courtesy when in a meeting - even if it's boring, bureaucratic and unnecessary. If you don't want to listen and participate - DON'T GO.

melmhill

The linked article seems to have been removed. The link doesn't work, and the article isn't on the blog anymore as best as I can tell.

TsuKata

@yagameister: There are so many studies to the contrary here, need I argue this? Hell, I can just tell you since I started freelancing how different my work rate is in PJ's vs. slacks and button-down.

HucknPluck

@Scott D. Feldstein: What do you think is more efficient, giving you a crappy Sprint phone that they can get a huge deal on through the provider or deal with paying for your iPhone and trying to juggle the contract for a phone that's in your name but they're getting the bills for?

Dream world.

HucknPluck

Microwaved popcorn.

Totorototoro

Status meetings? Until you have sat through a 3 1/2 hour quarterly QI meeting that has nothing to do with you (but you are required to go) and developes absolutely no action, you don't know the meaning of of a meaningless status meeting. LOL

And I'll disagree about vmail. In my office, all calls originate from a main number. Any of a 100 people could have made that call. Listen to your vmail, you sound-byte, low-attention span 20 something.

Reply to all: 99% useless because people abuse it. This is a staff training issue.

Vending machines: don't use them often, but every now and then I need a mid-afternoon snack to keep me lucid. Speaking of which...

kenposan

Workplaces themselves should be 'over'. Except for perhaps 3 hours a week (when I have to be in meetings and give/get 'status', and could easily be done over phone/webex), there is absolutely no reason for me to commute to just sit in this building and write code.

savvy9999

@yagameister:

i agree. down with the suit n tie.

strict dress code should be reconsidered especially if your job function requires NO physical contact with a customer. if it's just employees plugging away in an office, respectable-looking casual dress should be more than fine

dotmike

@rHughes: That is exactly my thought on VM as well. If I left a message, listen to it please. If I didn't, don't bother to call me back as it wasn't important enough to leave a message.

I think part of this comes from people leaving messages just saying "Call me back" instead of imparting some kind of useful information like what the call back is about. Give me some idea that way I can be prepared when I call you back instead of wasting both our time.

Insomnic

Unfair pay-rates! (this is my number one right now, being underpaid)

Other important ones to note:

Micromanaging
Busy-Work with no value
Useless data collection
Evacuation Drills for single-floor, windowed, suburban buildings with less than 500 employees present.

theo

@Naomi:
Can you believe we've got paper timecards and all I do is write automated document processing software?

hometoast

In the linked article, I strongly disagree with the idea of doing away with the snack/candy machine. There have been multiple times when I'm unexpectedly had to work late when I've eaten dinner out of the snack machine. Sure, a pack of pretzels, snickers and a Coke isn't the best meal, but it will keep me going for another few hours.

gt0163c

I think status meetings need to go. I'll often clear my plate of all early week requests by Wednesday mid-afternoon, and use the rest of Wednesday lining up the other projects I need to work on. Thursday morning, we have a news meeting where we discuss what we're working on. I'd rather spend Thursday morning doing the work than talking about it.

This was particularly annoying last week, when one of our alums was named a cardinal in the Catholic Church. I needed to get an announcement together with a quote approved by the university president. But I had to sit in an hour-long meeting where we talk about what we're working on instead.

Jeff Martin

Ties. Suits, fer sure.

yagameister

@Naomi: Be careful what you wish for you could end up replacing those simple paper timecards with a needlessly complex, web-based time and accounting system that is so bogged down in it's own javascript and dependencies that 8 times out of 10 it crashes and doesn't save the data you've just taken an hour to meticulously enter.

@Glenna: I realize that Reply-to-All is a tool, but as the original source states that tool shouldn't be readily available to use as a default. You *should* have to think about it before you use it.

justjack75

With friends and family and perhaps direct managers/charges, yes voice mail is pretty useless.

However, voice mail is pretty critical in allowing me to figure out who you are and why you are calling so that I can evaluate when to call you back. Suffice it to say that if I get a call at work and I don't recognize the caller ID, if you can't be bothered to leave a voice mail, I can't be bothered to call you back. It's that simple.

I love e-mail-to-voice mail type things because they make it much easier to receive and manage voice mail.

Troy F.

(1) Reply-to-all is a tool, and, as with any tool, it can be mis-used.
(2) Same with voice-mail. (Of course, "stupid" voice-mail isn't anywhere near as bad as idiots who spend all of their time "texting" instead of talking--talk about juvenile. :D)
(3) Management tried to get rid of the vending machine; there was a near uprising by employees (not me--don't care; don't like it? don't use it, your choice).
(4) Most meetings are a waste of time

I guess some people are more easily distracted from the real purpose for actually being at work. (Maybe one of the "practices" that should be in her list is pulling pranks to make fun of your boss because you're too juvenile to understand that not everyone is "you"?)

GlennA

Stop printing each and every mail you receive through the day!! Stop working on paper, except when you have to take some information with you for a meeting or something!

Pomme

@Engtech: I'm with you there.

We have Thursday status meetings, which suck on three levels: 1.) The general sucky uselessness of status meetings; 2.) if there actually is any action item identified during the meeting (usually not, but sometimes) there isn't time to research and implement it on Thursday afternoon/Friday, at which point, as you say, it falls out of our heads over the weekend; and 3.) Wednesday is our odd scheduling day, when we stay two hours later than the rest of the week, which makes getting up early Thursday morning to sit through an hour of useless blather just that much more annoying.

OTOH, the value of office parties, I think, is inversely proportional to the size of the office. I get Penelope's point, but I went to an office party last night with seventeen atteendees (including spouses) and it was just delightful.

lyndyn

What Workplace Practices Should Be Over?

1. Snitching.
2. Bossiness.
3. Secretly videotaping employees.
4. Authoritarian hierarchical structure with selfish CEOs grabbing too much money for themselves.
5. Hiring of illegal aliens and cheap immigrants.
6. "Hired to invent" policies.

Capone

"Young people treat their list of missed calls as a page system. And they call the person back. No extra step for listening to the message."

I Hate that. We have 20 to 30 real estate agents, coming and going, making phone calls and leaving messages.

Four lines are lit up, and someone calls, "Hi. Did you call me?"
Me: "No, I did not call you."
Caller: "Somebody called me from there."
Me: "Did Somebody leave a message for you?"
Caller: "I Dunno."
Me: "If somebody from here called you, they would have left a message."
Caller: "Can you ask around and see if somebody called me?"
Me: "No sir, We have too many people coming and going from the office to do that."
Caller: "Maybe I should check my messages."
Me: "Yes sir. Goodbye."

By hitting the redial instead of checking messages, they waste their time and mine. I consider that to be lazy and inconsiderate behavior.

rHughes

I like pmarca's suggestion to never schedule meetings and "just have it now" if everyone is available.

Meetings with more than 3-4 people are usually a waste of time.

I think monday status meetings are good though because it lets you know what everyone is up to, and to reprioritize for the next week. It's much better than FRIDAY status meetings, which falls completely out of your head by the next monday.

engtech

How about trading the phone for IM?

I occasionally see the need for the phone to explain complex ideas in words but for 99% of conversation, I strongly prefer IM.

Not only does it cut down on voice clutter, but I can multi-task when in a conversation, and easily copy-and-paste items I need to take action on.

DaveTyranham

paper timecards....CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!??!

Naomi

@Scott D. Feldstein: That is a great idea. I hate having to carry two cellphones around all the time.

Black_Umbrella

Giving cell phones to employees who must be reachable when they are away from the office. That made sense when few people had cell phones of their own. Now the employer should simply subsidize the employees own phone.

Scott D. Feldstein

While I agree many scheduled meetings can be pretty meaningless, I think it's probably the fault of the convener rather than the meeting itself. A weekly meeting could be great if it, for example, lets the members of the team know what everyone else is working on, or has a valuable bit of information that might be too nuanced for e-mail. If you're trying to determine whether a meeting is worth holding (or if you should cancel the meeting for the week), when you put the meeting's agenda to paper, if there's really nothing there, don't be afraid to cancel. If you really can't get anything down, there's probably no reason to hold it. Plus, every meeting should have an agenda to keep you on track and to help attendees prepare. When I run meetings I use this simple rule: No agenda, no meeting.

plainstarchedtom

Traditional Faxing has to be at the top of the list for me. Being the local IT I need to make sure it works. That is I need to make sure it works for the .00001% of the time it is used.

Why not just Scan and E-mail?

christetro

My company strongly encourages (literally written in our company guidelines & suggestions), that we have lunch meetings. I am already working 55 hours a week - on a short week, so give me that half or so to relax a bit.

Its just another way to get more work out of us with the same pay.

Black_Umbrella

@Katie: I dunno, some of the wildest animals I ever saw worked in an office:)

Devon

My company requires monthly safety meetings to remind us not to take shortcuts and sever a limb or something like that. While I understand that it is important to be conscious and responsible for your own actions, our last safety meeting was about how to handle encounters with wild animals while on the job. I work in a windowless office in the middle of downtown LA. I mean, really?

katie_b

The only one I disagree with in my particular situation is reply to all.

There are a lot of email chains that I have been able to "jump in" to help someone out because I was CC-ed. If the email chain had just been between the two people involved then I never would have been able to interject.

You do have to be very good at quickly skimming lots of emails and archiving/deleting them though.

burnmp3s

The worst company practices I've seen were when I worked in sales at a very large music equipment retailer.

The 8:30am Saturday meetings were by far my least favorite, especially when considering that they were 8:30 am, when most of the people in the store were out late (read: 4am) the night before and when less than a third of the people at the meeting actually worked that day. It ended up making a lot of people work on their day off, flooding the floor with salespeople and lowering everyone's commission for the day.

The only other complaint I had about working there was that Commission or Hourly pay bases end up with all of the employees working 70+ hours and not getting paid a dime when they're not on the floor, which they never seem to be in the extra 30 hours. Unpaid overtime ftw.

noftheta

Boss' Day and any other Hallmark created holiday. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother thinking of something to write on the cards, instead just sign my name and pass along.

waj0606

Looks like the article has disappeared - all the page says now is: "We can't find the post you're looking for. But here are some popular post you might like:"

See the resurrected copy at:
[cc.msnscache.com]

dirtisgood

Re: Calling back w/out checking VM. This irritates me more than anything else. If there is a unknown number on your cell phone, with no VM, and you call this number, and say, "Someone just called from this number. Who are you? and why did you call?" please go towards the nearest trash can and deposit your cell phone.
This is the bane of every front desk person's life. We have 80 employees, I am not allowed to leave the front desk unattended. No way in hell am I giving this person the time of day if they think i've got time to ask each and every person if they called such and such a number. If it is important they will call back.
P.S. If you are one of these people, did you ever stop to think, IT MIGHT BE A WRONG NUMBER!

jen2002

@hipersons: I would like to work with you, plsthx.

My company got eaten by a (very large) company. Very large. There's an espresso machine in our new office. It's awesome. I've lost productivity since we moved, because there's a fucking espresso machine in my office! They want me to do work? I could be drinking more coffee!

Her Grace

VoiceMail- The caller can just leave a spoken message right then and there when you don't pick up. Simple!
Or, the caller can hang up when you don't answer, open his e-mail program, type up an e-mail and send it to you. How convenient for the caller! (sarcastic)
Of course by the time they are done typing, looking up your e-mail address and sending the e-mail, you've already called them to say "I see you called, what did you want?". Ug!
VoiceMail is easy for old & young alike. If you don't like listening to voicemails, you can take Microsoft's example and automatically have VoiceMail sent to your e-mail inbox...that way you're happy and the people who are trying to contact you (friends, customers, business associates) won't be put off by your inconsiderate call handling methods.

watts4u2

VoiceMail: My school district's voicemail is useless to me. I travel between 6 buildings, and only have one voicemail number (no remote access). So, if you leave a VM, it'll take me anywhere between 1-10 days to receive it. If you do leave a voicemail, I will reply (when I get it). No voicemail, and an unrecognized number, I assume isn't important. I follow the same "rule" with my personal number since I use my cellphone as my only phone number. It saves me from wasting minutes on a "Did you call me?" phone call.

Faxs: You're much better off emailing me a document that I can edit, save, and send back. Something requiring a signature: I'll scan the signed copy and email it that way.

Reply-To-All: Just some etiquette is needed. Decide whether *everybody* needs it, or just "most". When I get 40 "send/reply-to-all" emails for things that don't concern me, I get irritated.

rorowe