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by bigstrat2003 338 days ago
Approximately zero people in the world care if you join a meeting at 1:00, or 1:01. It's good to aim to be punctual, but if you're off by a minute there is no consequence.
2 comments

That is definitely not true. It's very dependent on the culture, the company, the specific group.

I've met managers who literally lock the conference room door when it hits :00.

That's a little crazy in my view, but there are definitely places where it's the norm.

There are basically two ways of managing expectations around meeting times. The first is that it's acceptable for meetings to run late, so it's normal and tolerated for people to be late to their next meeting, and meetings often start something like 5 minutes late, and you try to make sure nothing really important gets discussed until 10 minutes in. The other is that it's unacceptable for meetings to start late, so people always leave the previous meeting early to make sure they have time for bathroom, emergency emails, etc. In which case important participants wind up leaving before a decision gets made, which is a whole problem of its own.

I'm curious how you came to such a universally sweeping conclusion. At any rate, it's incorrect as I have personally observed counterexamples in my professional career.
Companies where people care that you join a meeting just one minute late? Sounds kind of unbelievable tbh. Humans are humans.