I really do. There is just no winning when you are trying to schedule a large meeting — there just isn’t a time that works for everyone. Or you get immediate responses from half the group, and the other half all seems to have taken the rest of the work day off, because NO ONE is responding. And the folks that do respond? Well, they all select a different option of the provided available times. It’s just so frustrating.
Now if you’ve ever tried to organize an hour conference call for 14 people during the middle of August, where a handful of them live in different time zones, then you probably understand the hell that I was in this afternoon. Did you know that people are still taking their August vacations during the middle of a pandemic?? Yeah, I didn’t. I just assumed that everyone was stuck at home with their summer vacation cancelled like me. I was pretty surprised!
And then I thought I had a date that was working for everyone and I was so happy. Maybe this was our meeting time!! And then the next 5 people to respond couldn’t make it and there goes my quorum…
So then I got bold and re-polled the group for the week BEFORE I had originally asked for and you know what happened? Everyone could make the Tuesday a whole week earlier then the one I was originally planning for! Here I was thinking that more folks could attend if I gave them more notice, but nope — the less time I gave them, the easier it was to find free time on their calendars. Unless they just felt so bad for me at that point…
And just in case you are trying to plan sometime for mid-August — don’t, most folks are taking vacation that week. Trust me, I know.
Notes from a Self Quarantine 