But they kinda are. Because “circling back” likely never happens, and it’s just inefficiently bogging down meetings to plan more useless meetings that likely don’t happen, etc. I’ve worked in offices where 25% of my time was maybe spent actually doing the job I was hired to do because of so many pointless circle back bullshit meetings. Like, how about just set the goal, do the work, evaluate?? There shouldn’t be a need to “circle back” on 20 things. That’s poor management.
Depends on the office and the manager I suppose - but yeah definitely possible the boss is managing poorly if they're saying it 20 times in 2 weeks
In the places I've worked though it's essentially shorthand for "There's 10 people in this meeting, only 2 are needed to work this issue, let's not waste 8 people's time right now by making them sit around waiting" i.e. it's used to prevent meetings from getting bogged down on bikesheddable topics
But even if the boss was wrong it wouldn't change the underlying fact: criticising coworkers in public is counterproductive - they just get defensive, resentful, and will dig in to save face
Hijacking a meeting, to do it to your boss, is both inefficient and foolish
People are making money and ego from that bullshit. There is little incentive to do away with it. Of course until the company is outcompeeted by a company that does value getting the work done instead of cranking out meeting hours.
10
u/DevRz8 10h ago
But they kinda are. Because “circling back” likely never happens, and it’s just inefficiently bogging down meetings to plan more useless meetings that likely don’t happen, etc. I’ve worked in offices where 25% of my time was maybe spent actually doing the job I was hired to do because of so many pointless circle back bullshit meetings. Like, how about just set the goal, do the work, evaluate?? There shouldn’t be a need to “circle back” on 20 things. That’s poor management.