Somebody wrote in to tell me their company holds a meeting to prepare for a meeting. And then a follow-up meeting to review how the meeting went.
Three meetings. Zero work.
That is not a company. That is a support group for adults who are frightened to be alone with their own thoughts.
And every single one of them is wearing a headset. Nobody needs a headset, Greg. You're in a spare bedroom.
Welcome to Bitch Fest!
I'm Joseph Tito. Gay dad of twin girls, bestselling author, and a man who has sat through so many pointless conference calls that my soul now buffers.
Coming at you from King City, Ontario — where I have a home office, a door that closes, and absolutely no protection from a calendar invite.
Quick self-assessment. I've written books. I've raised twins. I survived my own Italian family at my own wedding. And nothing — nothing — has broken me like the sentence "let's get some time on the calendar."
Time on the calendar. Sir. That's my life you're booking. That's not a slot, that's ninety minutes I am never getting back, and you want it so you can read a document out loud. To adults. Who can read.
So today's theme is work. Specifically, the people who have confused talking about the job with doing the job.
Let's go.
This one's signed "Death By Calendar Invite," which honestly should just be printed on the corporate letterhead. She writes:
"Dear Bitch Fest, I work at a mid-size company where my manager has turned the calendar into a religion. We have a Monday kickoff to plan the week. A Wednesday sync to check on the week. A Friday wrap to review the week we just had. Plus a biweekly all-hands where leadership reads slides to us. Out loud. Slowly.
Last week I had eleven hours of meetings and finished none of my actual work, so I did it at night. When I mentioned I was falling behind, my manager suggested we set up a time to talk about my bandwidth.
Another meeting. About not having time. Because of meetings.
I'm not lazy and I'm good at my job. I just need somebody to send me an email telling me what's needed and then leave me alone long enough to do it. How do I say that without sounding like I'm not a team player?"
"Let's set up a time to talk about your bandwidth."
Babe. She scheduled a meeting to discuss why you have no time — thereby removing more of your time. That's not management. That's a woman standing on your oxygen hose asking why you look tired.
And the eleven hours. I want everybody to sit with that number. Eleven hours of meetings, and the work still had to get done. So when did it get done? At night. On your own time. Unpaid.
That's the scam nobody says out loud. Your company didn't hire you to work eight hours. They hired you to attend eight hours, and then do the job in the parking lot of your own evening.
Meetings have become the performance of labour. They're theatre. Everybody logs on, everybody nods, somebody says "great question," somebody else says "just to build on what Sarah said" — and then repeats, verbatim, what Sarah said. And at the end, twelve people have collectively produced one decision that could have been made by a single person in four minutes with a functioning spine.
And the slide reading. God, the slide reading.
There is a specific kind of person who will put a document in front of you and then read it to you. Out loud. At a pace designed for a hostage negotiation. And you are sitting there, having already finished the entire deck in ninety seconds, because you are a literate adult, watching them narrate slide four like it's a bedtime story.
Sir. I can read. I learned in kindergarten. It was a whole thing, my mother was very proud.
Here's what's actually happening, and it's the same as the wedding people last week — it's not about you. It's about them. That meeting isn't a work session, it's a visibility event. Some of these people have figured out that being seen being busy is safer than being useful, because usefulness can be measured and talking cannot.
You can't get fired for a meeting. You can get fired for a deliverable. So they've quietly stopped producing deliverables and started producing meetings.
And you — the one actually doing the work — you're their alibi. You're the proof the department exists.
Let me tell you where I'm at right now, because I'm not roasting this from a distance. I am in it.
I work with a company that schedules meetings to have meetings. That's not a joke. That's the calendar. And these calls go an hour and a half. Two hours. And you know what happens for those two hours?
Somebody reads the project brief.
The brief. The written document. The one that arrived in my inbox. The one I had already read — because I am a functioning adult with eyes.
I do not need this. I have never needed this. Send me an email. Tell me what you need and when you need it, and I will get it done — better and faster than anyone on that call, because I'll be doing it, instead of watching a man in a rectangle explain a paragraph.
That's it. That's the whole ask. One email. And instead I get two hours of grown professionals taking turns hearing themselves talk, while my actual work sits there aging like milk.
And here's my part in it, because I am not innocent.
I say yes. Every time.
I get the invite, I feel my entire body reject it, and then I click accept like a coward. And then I sit on that call with my camera on, nodding — nodding, like I'm receiving wisdom — while I'm actually answering emails, checking my kids' schedule, and pricing flights to a country with no wifi.
I have perfected the fake nod. I have a whole face I make. It says "mmm, good point," and behind it there is nothing. It's a screensaver. I am a man-shaped screensaver.
Two hours a week of my one life, given away, because I couldn't bring myself to type the word "no" to somebody I have never met in person.
So when I tell you to get out of these meetings — I'm not lecturing you from a mountain. I'm yelling it at myself in a mirror.
Right. So how do you get out of these without becoming the office villain?
You don't refuse. You trade up. Every time, you offer something better than your attendance — because "no" sounds lazy, and a better deliverable sounds senior.
Three moves.
One. Reply to the invite, in writing: "I don't think you need me live for this — send me the brief and I'll have it back to you by Thursday." You didn't decline. You promised a result. And nobody in corporate has ever successfully argued against a result.
Two. When it's genuinely unavoidable: "Can we do twenty-five minutes? I'll come with my part ready." Twenty-five, not thirty. The weird number makes people think you've thought about it, and it kills the fifteen minutes of small talk that opens every call like an overture nobody asked for.
Three — and this is the strongest one. "Happy to join. Can you send the agenda?"
Watch what happens. Half of these meetings quietly evaporate. Because there is no agenda. There was never an agenda. There was a feeling.
Here's why trading up works when "no" doesn't.
"No" makes you sound like you don't care about the team. A deliverable with a date on it makes you sound like the only person on the team who does. Same outcome — you're not on the call — completely different story.
And do it in writing. Always. Because now there's a record of you offering to deliver, which means if anything goes sideways later, the paper trail says you were producing while everybody else was scheduling.
Now — the part nobody wants to hear. Sometimes you'll do all of this perfectly and they will still make you come. Some places, the meeting is the job, and the whole culture is built on watching each other be busy.
If that's where you are, that's your information. Not a failure. Information. Because a company that can't tell the difference between talking about work and doing work is a company that will eventually not be able to afford either.
You are not a bad team player. You're the one still producing something at the end of the week. Don't let a calendar convince you otherwise.
To Death By Calendar Invite: you are not the problem. You are the only person in that building with a functioning relationship with time.
And to every manager out there who books a meeting to discuss why nobody has any time — you are the fire, standing in the room, asking who smells smoke.
Send the email. Say what you need. Give people a deadline and then leave them alone, and I promise you they will hand you something better than anything that has ever come out of a Wednesday sync.
Next week: neighbours. Because somebody wrote in about a woman who measures the property line with actual string, and I have been waiting my whole life for this letter.
Until then, keep being unapologetically you. Loud, chaotic, and one Chardonnay away from flipping a table on Real Housewives.
This is Joseph Tito — and I bitch so you don't have to.