Just had an hour long call with my boss
My boss does not know how to have concise conversations. All of my calls with him are at least 20-25 minutes, but this was my longest one yet.
1 hour and 6 minutes.
We were talking about a project that needs to be done, meanwhile he’s wasted an hour of my workday where I could have been working on that very project.
He shows me random meaningless Excel spreadsheets, rambles on and on, repeats himself, and basically talks for an hour about something that could have been a short email.
Is there a way I can politely address this with him? Our meetings are truly pointless and just way too long. At a certain point I just stop responding with anything meaningful, nothing more than “yeah” and “mhm”.
He’s the same way with all of my coworkers and it’s never been addressed. I honestly wonder how he gets anything done – he’s just calling me and my coworkers all day to show us Excel sheets.
How do I (politely, but assertively) tell my boss to get to the damn point? I’ve been at this company for 2 years, I’m 24F and this is my first job.
Netizens’ comments
- It’s never being addressed because you guys are scared how he will react, and is not a thing to be addressed is just how he is. Is best to know how to manage it.
The best way to deal with him is by taking over the conversation, ask questions to get to the middle and end of the story, then you say when it’s over if his not getting to the end.
What sucks about doing the “yeah” and “hmm” it makes them believe that you not understating what they saying. He might get upset at that. - Let him know you have a hard stop at x:xx time and you will need to drop for another meeting. Even if you don’t have another meeting, it’s really rude when meetings go over and affect other meetings that now have to start later/reschedule
- My boss does this as well. He messages me on Teams saying “quick call” and well I say yes because its supposed to be quick but it never is. They can range from 15 minutes to over an hour sometimes. Even worse is when he wants to call like 15 minutes before lunch and the calls take so long. I now just do not answer him or his messages at least an hour before my lunch. He can wait.
- Tell him you need to poop and hide in the toilet.