It must’ve been some soul-melting recent LinkedIn work/life balance post that did it, but I’ve finally snapped, so it’s time to talk about corporate sin-eaters.
Many, many jobs ago, one of our company’s extremely rich and powerful co-founders did a post in which he advocated for just never having meetings.
I understood the “meetings suck” sentiment, and as someone that’s now worked in the tech industry for almost 25 years, I’ve obviously been involved in more than my fair share of jaw-droppingly useless stand-ups, syncs and religious-adjacent offsites.
Here’s the thing though: the whole “firewall off your daily communication time!” preciousness that’s seeped into the world over the past few decades may be delightful and professionally nourishing for you, but it absolutely doesn’t come without costs.
There are always unacknowledged company communication sin-eaters, and it’s about time that we celebrate (and elevate) them.
These are the people that seem to always be available on Slack and email (or Teams, whatever, I’ll use a Slack example here) to “unstick” those that need quick answers, help make quick cross-company connections and (perhaps most importantly) translate hastily-written “I’m too busy for this right now” or “we’re not staffed for this” responses from those invested in the business of defending their…
