I’m done with people that derail meetings and discussions.

While I want to seek feedback for an Interface that I wrote, these attention seekers decide it’ll be the perfect opportunity to bring up the topic of “how functional programming paradigm facilitates better encapsulation”.

Everyone else follow suit. I try “time checking” and bringing the talk back on track. Never worked.

I’m concluding that meetings are shit and a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME.

With these people I stop the meeting right away and say, "Would you mind explaining to the class how that has *any* bearing to the matter at hand?"

Do that once, and do it hard. Stops anyone else trying the same shit. They all get in line.

And, yes, meetings are a total waste of time.

I once had something similar. Couldn't get it back on track no matter what I did. Everyone was arguing about something completely unrelated instead. My solution?

"Guys, I'm going to stop you all there. This is, as I've said countless times before, completely irrelevant to the task at hand. Quite frankly, I'm ashamed that you all value your time, and mine, this little. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to leave this meeting. I'm going to email everyone, including (boss), explaining that we've just wasted the last half an hour without discussing the topic at hand. I'm going to schedule an identical meeting for the same time tomorrow, where we won't deviate, or I'll do exactly the same thing. Goodbye."

I followed through exactly as described. Meeting was recorded as per standard protocol, so boss took a listen. Boss came down on everyone like a ton of bricks.

I was unpopular for a while, but didn't care. Next meeting, and *every other meeting after that*, went way better.

I have to agree. A total waste of time.

@AlmondSauce I think you were very lucky to have been just briefly unpopular.

I guess with the current dynamic at most workplaces, walking out of meeting or aborting it mid-way over digressions would make the knives point at you, and your action might even collectively be deemed "emotional". (Though it very well is not)

Also, for a boss (For the generic boss), it'd be easier to throw one person under the bus than argue with an entire team. Sad truth.

@platypus Tried that too.

This is how it goes :

Me: Hey hows this relevant to the topic at hand?

Random guy 1: I think it is. We should keep this in mind while we design interfaces and always leave room for future enhancements, thats the point"

Random guy 2: Yeah me too. So the point I reiterate is, functional interface blahblah

Me: Well one minute,

Random guy 3: Hey Random guy 1, what did you mean by future enhancements?

--- Discussion gets out of hand ---

@Marill Oh yes, it's a specialist situation. You have to be in the right position to make it work. I was "fortunate" in that regard that, despite my best efforts with mangement, the bus factor was basically 1 (me.) Management knew this, and wanted said product out the door yesterday, so anyone viewed as holding it up wasn't exactly in the good books.

I also wouldn't have cared particularly if I was permanently unpopular, but again, that's not everyone.