I try to join about 5 minutes before because I’m terrified of being the first person or the last.
Depends on the context.
- My meeting? Right on time.
- Team meeting? On time.
- A meeting I knew about, was on my calendar, and requires my expertise? Right on time, but a lower priority.
- Something is broken and we’re grouping up? Right on time.
- A meeting on my calendar that I don’t really need to be in? 2-3 minutes after, I’ll finish what I’m currently engaged in or get to a stopping point.
- A meeting I’ve been invited to with no additional context? 2-5 minutes late.
- A meeting I was invited to with no communication/context that is before/after my normal working hours? If I remember and I’m bored.
- A meeting I was inviting a to outside of my working hours and will start before I come online? Forget about it.
I work for a global corpo, so the last two happen quite a bit. Time is money friend.
My god I need to emulate this. I’m doing it all wrong.
Exactly on point, because there’s always people early or late. This way I neither have to start it nor be embarresed to be the last.
Also:
A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to
1 min early, or right on time. Never late.
“A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to”
I shut and lock my door ten minutes before a meeting. Hit the bathroom and then usually log in for a functions check, fix my blinds and pull up the relevant group chat that doesn’t have the boss in it.
Organize my notes on my desk, get a coffee or water in front of me. Someone will always be later. I’ll sometimes be the first. Let teams let them see that I’m starting it, whatever, everyone knows I’m getting my coffee.
Also, I like to give my colleague a fifteen minute heads up since he’ll sometimes forget.
I just join whenever someone else joins or about a minute or two before it starts. Or whenever, doesn’t matter as long as I am not late. The main point for me is not being late, so that I respect other peoples time. If I am more than two minutes late, I apologize most of the time.
Small talk isn’t that hard. Might feel a bit unnatural until you get used to having it. But is that tiny awkwardness an actual issue, or something you just should ideally get used to?
How are you doing? What’s going on with x-project/your work? Looking forward to the weekend/had a good weekend? Watched any good shows lately? Have any pets?
It depends.
I’m one of the few people still teaching on Zoom. Turns out it’s a good delivery method for some students at community colleges (like if you have young children at home, etc.)
If I’m teaching, I show up 15 minutes early.
If I’m just a participant, I show up pretty much right on time, then I quietly judge whoever is running the meeting because most calls are run poorly.
Five minutes earlier? God damn bro. That’s coffee making time.
Join on time to virtual meetings. If you are hosting or setting up a room, then you can join a bit early. If it’s a large meeting like a company or division wide one maybe even join a minute late.
Waiting around on an empty zoom is a massive waste of time.
5 min early. If you’re not 5 min early, you’re late.
Honestly, usually it’s 4-5 min early: I’ll pop in and noodle about prepping whatever, documenting something or just staring out the window a sec to clear my head. I’m usually very satisfied I’m not late by normie standards because being on-time shows a modicum of respect to others. If it’s a shit meeting, that’s an exception. I have one where I’m noticeably barely-on-time, and everyone points it out.
I’d encourage meetings to lock at the start time if I could, so late joiners wait in the lobby until someone opens the door, and then we’ll know whom to heckle.
Usually exactly on time, but if I’m doing something that requires concentration and there’s a chance I might lose track of time I might join 5 min earlier so that I don’t miss the meeting.
Aren’t you always the first 5 min before? I know that the times I joined even a minute or two early I’ve always been the first.
if im invited then right on time if I host then one minute early, maybe 2. usually. sometimes I have meetings that end 3mins to the next or go over which impact my ability to get to the meeting on time.
When I served in the military, my first supervisor taught me a valuable lesson: “15 minutes early, or you’re late.” I actually got in trouble with her if I was less than 15 minutes early to any meeting, appointment, or event.
Or even arriving to work. We worked in an IT field, so our office had a large row of server racks along one wall. Her desk sat facing the door, but next to the GPS server that kept accurate time for all our computers on the military base. It had a giant digital clock on the front of the server. Every day when I walked into work, she would look up at me, then turn and look at that clock. If I was even 10 seconds late (to the 15-minute rule), I got in trouble with her. I was never late to work though, because she ensured I was always there earlier than my official shift start time.
Being 15 minutes early to everything has changed my life. If I’m running behind, I have a quarter hour window to get myself back on track. If I arrive 15 minutes early, I have plenty of time to get myself set up and situated. Or just time to sit and clear out some other pending tasks while I wait for a thing to start (check phone notifications, clear out emails, etc.).
When it comes to virtual meetings, I like to join 15 minutes early, then mute myself and turn off my camera. Then I can sit at my computer and knock out some other tasks while I’m waiting for the meeting to start. That buffer gives me time to mentally switch into meeting mode while also giving me time to be productive beforehand. And no one is waiting for me to show up, so if the meeting is ever running late, it’s never my fault.
I hope your workplace doesn’t use Teams. Everyone in that meeting will get a notification that you already started that meeting 15 minutes early.
For everything else other than arriving 15 min early at work, I agree. Your boss has no right to ask you to come earlier than your agreed time. If I had a boss like that I would make sure to leave 15 minutes earlier, since obviously I should be home 15 minutes earlier too!
Next time you’re in a Teams meeting, take a screenshot of a colleague. Then set that as your own meeting background. Then join early, stay out of camera range, and watch the fun.
We set up Teams during the pandemic (because Zoom was being a bitch about the govt not paying to use their full suite). We already used a bunch of other Microsoft products, so it was easy to get a contract for Teams integration too. I don’t remember Teams giving people a notification when you joined though, just the meeting host. But I’ve also been retired for nearly 3 years now, so I have no idea how Teams has changed recently.
Your boss has no right to ask you to come earlier than your agreed time.
In the military, they have every right.
You see, when you join the military, you sign a contract for 4-6 years of service. The day that contract begins, you start your first shift and it doesn’t technically end until your contract expires, several years later. You’re on shift 24/7/365 until your contract is up. So your boss can demand you work any shift or come in at any time, day or night, and you just have to do it. Even if it’s outside of your normally scheduled work hours.
There are regulations that outline “regular passes,” which is time off granted daily because you’re human and can’t literally work 24/7. A regular pass allows you to go home, eat, sleep, and be refreshed for the next day. I don’t know if the federal regs have changed in the last handful of years, but the last time I looked them up, you couldn’t work more than 17 hours straight before you were required to take a minimum 8 hours off to rest. Most shifts are typically 8-12 hours long, so hopefully you don’t get stuck working a 17-hour shift anytime soon.
The whole point of this is that military people need to be ready to respond to war, no matter when it strikes. You don’t work a regular day shift, then argue about extra hours or overtime pay when shit hits the fan. You just grab your bugout bag and go. And yes, we don’t get overtime pay because again - we’re always on shift.
We do get lots of time off, though. From the day you join, you start earning 2.5 days off for every month you serve, which adds up to 30 days off per year. You can carry over something like 60 days off every year too. It was pretty nice. In my early service days, I would save up a whole month of time off and then take it all at once to go hang out with my friends and family back home.
I join when the meeting reminder pops up and I click “join”, right on time. I don’t like small talk, no point in being early.
Plus it’s not like there’s anything happening in the first couple minutes. The more people who are in the meeting the more likely someone will be late anyway.
I feel like people who join really early are basically saying “Tell me you have nothing to do without telling me you have nothing to do.”
Sometimes I join really early BECAUSE I have stuff to do. I lose track of time, so I’ll open the reminder and keep the room running in the background while I accomplish something else, once I hear someone talking, I’ll switch tabs and focus on the meeting.
This is me, too
Not quite. I join on time because I’m busy and if I don’t join now I will completely forget. I just keep working until everyone else gets there and the I’ll turn on my camera and mic.
Probably people who were raised by military parents. My instinct is to join early as fuck, like 10 minutes. I blame my father forcing me to show up early for everything.
If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.
I had a job like that some years ago, where you were expected to arrive at 540-45 to pregame the day but not clock in until 6. Kind of unspoken, but you knew it was frowned upon if you showed up right at 6 by the death glares (they knew they couldn’t mandate being early because laws, but it was just a soft expectation). Someone must have said something, because they don’t do that anymore, I’m sure that went over super well for whoever said something.
I teach over teams. I plan bullshit for the first 5 - 10 minutes, because there will always be late people.
If it’s a customer meeting I’ll join 30 seconds early. If it’s an all hands or has big wigs in it then I’ll join 10 seconds early. Smaller internal meetings I can be 10-300 seconds late.
