Opinion: Start meetings ontime - "give it a few minutes" is rude to other attendees

I attend a lot of online meetings nowadays, and I can’t tell you how often at meeting that starts at 10 AM actually ends up starting at 10:05 AM or 10:10 AM to cater for people who are running late. Right now I’m in yet another meeting that hasn’t started yet, as we’re just “giving it a few minutes for stragglers to join”.

Now it’s a different story if there is a specific person who really is needed in the meeting, and they’ve let you know they are running a few minutes late. But I see this as routine in pretty much every meeting I attend. Meetings almost never start at the correct time.

Don’t do this!

All you are doing is being rude to, and wasting the time of, the people who did turn up at the right time.

I spent a lot of time coaching kids playing baseball, softball, and soccer, and it was the same thing. I always made it very clear to all the parents that practice sessions would start and finish on time. Anything else is just rude to the people who make the effort to be on time.

I understand that things come up and people will be late. Sure. But meetings should run for the people who met with the timings, not for the people who didn’t.

2019-09-10