Old People...want your story

SkyHog

SkyHog

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Everything Offends Me
So something occurred to me today while working with an administrative assistant. Today, when I want to set up a meeting, I just open up my calendar and schedule it with whomever I need to meet with. If I'm being exceptionally lazy, I used to (before the whole world changed via acquisitions) ask my AA to do it for me also. But either way, coordinating schedules is easy - generally, you can see free/busy time and can just pick a slot where someone is open.

But I assume, before technology made this easier, scheduling a meeting with someone was much tougher. How did you do it? One on one, I would imagine a quick call to discuss schedules would work. But what about meetings with like 15 or 20 people? Did people make heavier use of their admins? Did more people at lower levels have admins?

How did you get someone to write an appointment into their calendar? Did you just walk up to their desk, grab their calendar, and write it in yourself?

What about cancellations? Did people use pencils instead of pens?

This stuff blows my mind, and I'm genuinely curious.
 
JoeSelch said:
Fewer meetings
Click to expand...

Yeah, that.

Or the person in charge of calling meetings was important enough that everyone else would clear their schedule for it.

The memo would be printed, copied, and handed out. It would have a time, place, reason, and agenda. You were expected to attend. If you needed to meet with anybody yourself, you called them and worked it out.

Now, anybody can send a meeting schedule, just like an online plane reservation system. They see an empty slot on your calendar and reserve it, whether or not it might interrupt whatever the other person would be doing in that period.
 
Glad I don't, and never did, work in a place that had a lot of meetings...
 
SkyHog said:
So something occurred to me today while working with an administrative assistant. Today, when I want to set up a meeting, I just open up my calendar and schedule it with whomever I need to meet with. If I'm being exceptionally lazy, I used to (before the whole world changed via acquisitions) ask my AA to do it for me also. But either way, coordinating schedules is easy - generally, you can see free/busy time and can just pick a slot where someone is open.

But I assume, before technology made this easier, scheduling a meeting with someone was much tougher. How did you do it? One on one, I would imagine a quick call to discuss schedules would work. But what about meetings with like 15 or 20 people? Did people make heavier use of their admins? Did more people at lower levels have admins?

How did you get someone to write an appointment into their calendar? Did you just walk up to their desk, grab their calendar, and write it in yourself?

What about cancellations? Did people use pencils instead of pens?

This stuff blows my mind, and I'm genuinely curious.
Click to expand...

Well, let's see, I'm pretty old (53), but we have had email since the early/mid 90's, so we would email back and forth and agree on a time/place. If urgent, we picked up the phone. Before that, we just picked up the phone. Of course cell phones weren't all that common back then, so you often got voicemail. It just took longer to get it coordinated.
 
What meetings there were occurred regularly, so you knew to put it in your schedule. If you had lots of meetings for different purposes you probably had a secretary or assistant to help you keep it straight.
 
Not a lot of teleworking/remotely sited people etc. so generally the secretaries would coordinate with other secretaries and figure out a time. Back in the day, anyone who was worthy of attending a meeting had a secretary, or at least shared one. For the record, I'm only 42 so when I entered the business world they were administrative assistants and no they wouldn't make me coffee. :)

Also, less meeting straphangers, so fewer people to coordinate. If you were only peripherally involved you would get a memo with the minutes of the meeting.
 
When meetings were harder to schedule they actually had to be useful. Now that anybody can call a meeting most of the time is wasted.
 
There were a lot fewer useless meetings...but when you did need them you got on the phone or in their face and scheduled it. Now it's so easy everyone schedules meetings willy-nilly and wastes the bulk of the corporate day. I'm so glad I'm out of that environment!
 
LDJones said:
There were a lot fewer useless meetings...but when you did need them you got on the phone or in their face and scheduled it. Now it's so easy everyone schedules meetings willy-nilly and wastes the bulk of the corporate day. I'm so glad I'm out of that environment!
Click to expand...

Amen to that.

The other thing I don't miss are conference calls. What a colossal waste of time. But video conferences are even worse because it's much harder to enjoy a good B.M. while on a video conference than during a conference call.

Rich
 
Due to technology,people seem to be calling more foolish meetings,so that they can actually have contact with real people,as opposed to their computers. Now that I a. Retired I don't even think about meetings.
 
Some organizations have always been prone to more meetings than others, usually in proportion to the size of the organization (more bureaucracy means more meetings). My company is small, but I work with a lot of larger ones, so I end up in a lot of meetings (most of my time, unfortunately). It seems like I used to be more productive, so there were probably less meetings back in the day, on the other hand, I worked with smaller companies back then, for the most part.
 
I detested group meetings because they generally turned into opportunities for people who just enjoyed hearing themselves talk. I always believed that what was ultimately accomplished in a two hour meeting could have been accomplished in the first ten minutes. But how did we do it? I guess we just wrote them down on a legal pad or desk calendar. When I started CFIing I carried around one of those pocket calendars called Day Timers. Worked pretty well, actually.
 
Ah, yes.... the good old days!

Sure we had meetings back then, a lot fewer than today. Back before all the electronic gizmos, we had to do this thing called "personal interaction". Generally one would go visit the other person and have an actual face-to-face conversation. Bit of small talk, some trading of family news, even in some cases light up a cigar!! More often than not, the question/issue was resolved on the spot and a meeting wasn't even necessary - yes, I know - unbelievable! This process weeded out a lot of fluff and reduced the problem to its real issue. The amount of information that is traded via body language, tone of voice and subtleties of language is amazing. On those occasions when it was mutually agreed that a meeting was truly necessary, a quick note on a calendar was easy. Believe that chain of command was a bit more important in those days. Get the right person in charge to do the schedule and everyone else fell in line. Secretaries (do they still have them anymore?) were indeed instrumental in getting things done.

Of course this was before the time of right-sizing, downsizing, empowerment and the ability of being "on" 24/7 was considered an enviable trait. No doubt there were times of pretty intense, concentrated effort, but there was - IMHO - a greater team effort to focus on what was important and not lose sight of the goal.

Now-a-days, it is so easy to just cruise through calendars, pick an open spot and transfer your crisis to someone else by the mere push of a button. An appreciable number of my e-mails are just that. I'm really sorry you (the global you, not personal) have a problem, it just isn't mine, and by the way, an open spot on my calendar doesn't mean I'm just sitting around, surfing POA and waiting to help you out, I might really be working on doing my job!

I'm sorry to hear your life is ruled by the Outlook calendar. There are indeed other ways to accomplish things.

And yes, we did have pens! My old (still working) fountain pen has an honored place on my desk! :D

Gary
 
When I started, around 40 years ago, if we wanted to have a meeting, we called the guy we wanted to meet with and arranged a time. If we thought someone else needed to come, we called them too. Then everyone showed up. I never missed a meeting until I had one put on my calendar by a computer, which I didn't check until after the meeting.

OK, for you young squirts, how do you remember to eat or go to the bathroom if your phone battery dies?
(or for that matter, what do you do in meetings if your phone battery dies and you can't text your girlfriend or check your email)?
 
I never worked in a pre-outlook office but I was a teenager just before most people had cell phones. We just planned in advance... everyone meet here thursday at 4. Guess what, we just met there thursday at 4 and everyone showed up because that's what we agreed to. You wait 5-10 minutes in case someone is late and then continue on.

One thing that's driving me insane with the current state of text messaging is the constant contact. We don't meet at a specific place and time anymore and if we do it seems like it gets changed several times and someone always has to text the group they'll be half an hour late. This is incredibly annoying for me as I plan all my trips, errands, meals, even my sleep schedule around when I need to meet with people for something. When they change it, it screws everything up or I end up just waiting around without enough time to start anything else I need to work on.

Also a word on "useless" work meetings. When I was still in an office I actually found some value in them- this was mainly because nobody ever kept me in the loop and it was the only time during the week I got to find out what was going on outside my own cubicle. Sometimes it was the only time I could actually discuss anything I was working on with a manager.... our communication sucked.
 
The supervisor of the group would ask his secretary to book the conference room and send a memo to everyone expected to attend.
 
Not sure if I'm old, but it used to be: For a ****ty decision, just ask your manager. For a total disaster - hold a meeting.

We used to schedule meetings on PROFS and it's descendants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_OfficeVision

I lead the Lotus Notes project for my facility to get off of PROFS
 
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I had voicemail since my first job in 89. Small company, few meetings. Then went Fortune 500 in the mid 90s, had so many recurring meetings it was hard to do anything. Some were daily, some weekly, monthly or quarterly. People I met there often asked how I got anything done between meetings.

Where I work now, most meetings are standup meetings. Much better than the hour-long gab feats that were broken up by the next group wanting the room. Outlook just made those things easier to schedule. Now, we are pretty meeting-averse, and 15 minutes is a long one.

I still have and use the Cross fountain one that I bought c. '98 to force myself to write larger. Still gets admiring comments from people, too.

P.S.--I ain't old, neither. But I gave you an answer anyway.
 
JoeSelch said:
Fewer meetings
Click to expand...


This.

steingar said:
What meetings there were occurred regularly, so you knew to put it in your schedule. If you had lots of meetings for different purposes you probably had a secretary or assistant to help you keep it straight.
Click to expand...


This also.

Old Geek said:
The supervisor of the group would ask his secretary to book the conference room and send a memo to everyone expected to attend.
Click to expand...


This too. Memos. Those really were a thing. And someone would walk them around and drop them off in this thing you had called an in-basket. If it was happening really soon or really important, they'd put it on your chair.

rolivi said:
Not sure if I'm old, but it used to be: For a ****ty decision, just ask your manager. For a total disaster - hold a meeting.



We used to schedule meetings on PROFS and it's descendants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_OfficeVision



I lead the Lotus Notes project for my facility to get off of PROFS
Click to expand...


PROFS ! Wow. Forgot about that one.

Here's a big piece folks are leaving out. It was rare for a non-supervisory person to ever call a meeting. You'd walk to someone's desk and work out problems amongst yourselves and maybe walk to another gathering people working the problem (if it was important enough) as you'd go.

Eventually someone would say, "we need a manager to do that" and you'd go hunt down the manager in his office. You might what folks call "meetings" today, right there standing in the office and the doorway if it really was that important.

A "meeting" was usually something more formal than the garbage we have "meetings" for today. Pre-prepped handouts, important safety info, big division or company announcements...

Oh and notices on boards in cafeterias. Meetings didn't have to happen "now" back then. They'd hang up a sign and say, "meeting tomorrow at 10 AM". Word would get around.

"They're going to take attendance!" ;)
 
I think the steady increase in the number and frequency of meetings (along with the concomitant decrease in their usefulness and purpose) reflects an emphasis on "collaboration" that has become rather absurd. It seems to me that every task, no matter how trivial and mundane, is expected by default to be a group project these days. That's another thing I don't miss about the corporate world. Collaboration has become a goal in itself, not just a means to a goal in those cases when it makes sense. I'm inclined to think it's a generational thing because I first noticed it around the time the boss's son started running the last company I worked for.

Around that time, I was asked to revise a (paper) form by adding a few lines and check boxes to make it conform to the new web-based version of the form. The Web was still new enough then that not everyone had access, so we still needed the paper forms. Revising the form should have been about a 10-minute task because I'd created the form a few years earlier using StarWriter and I still had the files. All I had to do was add the new lines and boxes.

The original form had taken me about half an hour to create. Maybe an hour at most. But thanks to the company's newfound emphasis on collaboration that occurred when the owner's son took over the operation, adding the new lines and check boxes became a two-week project that involved several meetings. It was really ridiculous.

I really didn't care that much, though. I got paid one way or the other, so really it was their own time they were wasting. Besides, I'd already decided that I was leaving, so nothing they did really bothered me. I just put on my stupid grin and nodded a lot. It made life easier.

Rich
 
I've also found that the frequency of meetings you have generally increases as your "rank" in the company also increases relative to the amount of "work" you actually do.

Maybe that's just me.

When I was a manager I had meetings pretty much all day, engineers, customers, upper management, etc. When I wasn't meeting I was updating documentation, project plans, etc. But pretty much 50-75% of my day was meetings.

I've changed roles a bit and now I hardly meet at all, but I do a lot more "grunt" work. When I do meet, it's so counter-productive and nothing is ever accomplished EXCEPT those in the meeting manage to agree that another meeting should be scheduled to discuss the meeting we just had.

What would have taken a day to accomplish in my other roles now takes weeks, months and sometimes (because people can't be bothered to meet) we get nothing done!
 
rolivi said:
We used to schedule meetings on PROFS and it's descendants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_OfficeVision

I lead the Lotus Notes project for my facility to get off of PROFS
Click to expand...

Wow, that thing must've really sucked if you went to Notes to escape it! :eek:

"Old People..." LOL Nice job Nick. I take it you haven't read How to Win Friends and Influence People? :rofl:
 
rpadula said:
Wow, that thing must've really sucked if you went to Notes to escape it! :eek:

"Old People..." LOL Nice job Nick. I take it you haven't read How to Win Friends and Influence People? :rofl:
Click to expand...

Hey - I couldn't think of a better way to refer to those that existed before computers did the menial stuff. Figured "old people" was better than "dinosaurs."
 
rpadula said:
Wow, that thing must've really sucked if you went to Notes to escape it! :eek:

"Old People..." LOL Nice job Nick. I take it you haven't read How to Win Friends and Influence People? :rofl:
Click to expand...


Didn't bother me. I've got white hair and earned it. Ha.
 
Crap.

Oh crap

I really am getting old.

Oh crap.


So, I've always been in IT. Back in the day, you had one BIG computer somewhere that had the letters IBM stamped on the side. I mean BIG. It literally came with a "chiller" otherwise known as an industrial strength air conditioner.

Did we have email? Well kinda. Nobody really used it.

Did we have an electronic calendar? Yep. We IT gurus couldn't figure it out.

Did we have a network? Yep, two. Neither were Ethernet. One was a variation and ran an IBM protocol that didn't play well with that college school girl network call DPRPA NET. We also had miles of phone line like cables to run what is called a "dumb terminal".

So what happened if you needed to call a planning meeting between the hardware and the software guys? Well, one of two ways:
- an inter office memo. A pre computer version of an emai. You either had a box or someone would bring you any memos from outside the building. Basically a company wide post office.

- if it was complicated or needed to happen quickly, our administrative assistant would call your AA. Each would look at your dry erase calendar board to see if the schedules meshed.

The rest is pretty much the same.

I'm done here. This board makes me feel old.
 
brian];2015835 said:
Oh yea! Forgot about them! Scratch out your name and write the name and office number of the next guy.
Click to expand...


Back when we all had offices and not these god awful bullpen open work area sweatshop style seating. Hahaha.

We moved three IT guys into one office with a closeable door and a whiteboard that covers an entire wall a few months ago, and I can't explain adequately how it has helped me get crap done.

Well actually I can, we've closed more real tickets in those three months than we did all of last year before that. People peek in and actually ask if we're busy before interrupting for non-critical things.

When they were asking if I minded that my desk was smaller I said, "Are you kidding? If it holds my two monitors, my Mac mini, and my phone, and I can make it QUIET at my desk, I'll be about 100% more productive. You could give me a damned bean-bag chair and I'd make it work."

People already learned long ago not to shove something onto my calendar TODAY without it being something a VP wants me at, or I simply won't show up. I've got a list of stuff to get done already made up in the morning from the open tickets and outages, and I'll happily come to your new meeting you think should pre-empt all of that stuff and keep it from getting done today, after you get a ticket open, and we talk about what it should bump off tomorrow's schedule in Scrum tomorrow morning.

No tickie, no laundry. Very little you can walk in my door with is going to be important enough to do *right now* unless it's an outage and we've already committed to those... and I'll drop things to fix them.

Your "ideas" for what to do in the phone system? Yeah, that's a meeting and will get prioritized into the big picture list tomorrow morning with the team and my PM and VP present. Bye bye. Go away now.

Of course I'm old and wise enough not to *verbalize* it that way. I just ask politely if this is "on the PMs radar" and "What's the ticket number? I'll bump it up and ask him to move it to the current project list right now".

But I'm really thinking "go away, if you're not ready to hand me something actionable".

I got a great ticket this morning. "Build new environment for X". X already has seven environments and still released a total system-downing hot fix Monday. They don't need any more environments.

They need disciplined releases.

I wrote, "Needs specific details, not actionable. Please create a Spike ticket for whoever will define the needed architecture and block this ticket on that one", to the PM. "I'll attend the meeting if we need a Sysadmin representative present."

Done. Moving on to things I can actually DO.

Next four tickets saved us $6000/year. Sent summary of savings on next month's bill and exact numbers to accounting with CC to the managers.

Gotta stay focused on the important stuff. This ADD based distraction crap where someone has "an idea" and just slaps a ticket in with no details? Shove it. Seriously. We're working here. Haha.
 
Matthew said:
I always liked those envelopes. I was down in the bowels of the building. Whenever I got an envelope like that I'd look at the names and work backward to see who had it before me. Kind of like "6 degrees of company president".
Click to expand...

We still use those envelopes...
 
Matthew said:
I always liked those envelopes. I was down in the bowels of the building. Whenever I got an envelope like that I'd look at the names and work backward to see who had it before me. Kind of like "6 degrees of company president".
Click to expand...


Heh. The information about how information really flowed around was gold.

At one place I worked they had to stop hanging the printed Outlook schedule for the conference rooms outside each room every morning when management realized we all knew we were being bought out by everyone analyzing who was meeting with whom via those conference room schedules.

They freaked a bit since we were being bought by a public company and they were doing Due Dilligence. We all had it figured out months before the "official announcement". SEC rules and all... LOL.

There's a reason Outlook and Exchange can be configured to only show Free vs Busy and not what the title or attendees of the silly meeting are. Haha.

We all wanted to kill the snitch who told a manager that we'd all just go read the main conference room schedule every morning on our way to coffee to figure out what the next stupid thing from on-high was going to be. Hahaha.

I love figuring out information leaks like that. I usually keep them to myself though. It's a skill you learn after the first couple of "right sizings". And those folks usually resort to scheduling off-site meetings to hide it nowadays, which in our overly-connected world now is a sure sign of serious crap about to be rolled downhill... Hehehe.

I've shocked a few managers who walk up and say, "I'm closing the door because IT needs to be involved early in this..." And I say, "So what's the date for the shutdown of X department?" Hahaha. They just look at me and wonder how the hell I figured it out.

And no, I don't cheat and use the rootly powers that allow any senior folks in the IT department to read damned near anything on any system to do it. I have watched a few idiots walked out the door for that.
 
cgrab said:
When meetings were harder to schedule they actually had to be useful. Now that anybody can call a meeting most of the time is wasted.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's true. Time consuming from my perspective. Email idea looks cool!!!!! Everybody get connected to each other 24*7 hour. We used to make groups also for emailing purposes. And that will also work well for the situation of emergency announcement also.
 
cgrab said:
When meetings were harder to schedule they actually had to be useful. Now that anybody can call a meeting most of the time is wasted.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about this one earlier this week when I had a client's "young project manager to be" try to manage my team and kept harping on a project timeline for development that has fairly loose requirements. I own the company, I'm old, I get crabby, and I finally had enough. So I said:

Bryan, PULL THE CHUTE!


(Just kidding. I don't work with movie stars like Bryan.)

I remember sitting in on some very useless meetings back in my COBOL / pre outlook days. I also am guilty of calling more meetings now that I'm the old falker trying to resolve ever growing issues between groups and people with very different skill levels and work styles. As I finally explained to this young project manager to be, we need to focus on finding and fixing any issues that would impede delivering on the project. Meetings (and especially Microsoft project) are great tools when used properly. Used without thinking about "how will this help the project" in mind is just wasting time and money.


Any PM to be needs to read the mythical man month. The best Gantt chart makers I knew we're the first people knew to get laid off "back in the day".
 
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