The Meeting That Should Have Been an Email (But Somehow Lasted Over an Hour)

A Meeting No One Wanted

Every so often leadership decides it is time for a Tech Town Hall. A grand event where the engineers who are the people actually building things are expected to showcase their work. In theory it is a chance to share progress celebrate wins and discuss challenges. In reality it is a corporate hostage situation.

No one actually wants to present and those that do are usually forced into it. The attendance breaks down like this.

80% do not want to be there and sit in silence hoping to go unnoticed.
20% do not care but they are too lazy to leave the call.

And at the helm of it all is the Phantom Engineer. Yes the very same Principle Engineer who has mastered the art of getting paid without working. This time they were supposed to host the session which in any functioning company would involve actually hosting the meeting. But no they did the bare minimum. They spoke for sixty seconds before handing it off to someone else and vanishing into the abyss once again.

The Icebreaker That Broke My Will to Live

As if an hour long corporate punishment was not bad enough someone decided that the best way to start things off was with an icebreaker.

Now keep in mind this is a tight knit group of fifteen engineers who have worked together for months. We already know each other. We talk every day. But no instead of just starting the meeting we had to go around the room and answer some cringe worthy corporate nonsense question like:

1. What is your favourite productivity hack “None I just pretend my internet is lagging“
2. If you could have any superpower what would it be “The ability to skip this meeting“
3. What is a fun fact about yourself “I once had free time before I worked here“.

By the time we finished the forced enthusiasm circle the polar ice caps had melted further and I had aged at least five years.

The Main Event A Meeting of Pure Nothingness

With the icebreaker out of the way it was time for the real reason we were all here the actual tech presentations.

Except there were no presentations!

Because as expected no one wanted to show anything off. Every engineer had either conveniently forgotten to prepare something or just sat there in silence waiting for someone else to step up. After a few minutes of awkward staring one poor soul finally cracked under the pressure and started talking completely unprepared about some random work they did weeks ago.

What followed was over an hour of one person talking while the rest of us sat there watching our own lives slowly slip away.

Then just when we thought it was over when we had endured the pain and could finally be released back into the world silence.

Two full minutes of complete silence.

No one left the call No one spoke We just stared at our screens waiting for someone anyone to say okay let us wrap this up.

But no We were trapped Each of us too afraid to be the first one to leave in an unspoken standoff of corporate suffering.

Why Did We Even Show Up

Let us be real Everyone in that meeting was there for one reason and one reason only:

To do absolutely nothing for the next sixty minutes

The Town Hall was never about engagement collaboration or showcasing work It was about filling time A glorified break disguised as alignment And the best part We all knew it.

Management will sit there and act like these meetings are crucial to our success but let us be honest:

1. No one learned anything
2. No one presented anything valuable
3. Nothing actually changed

At best it was a socially acceptable way to waste an hour of company time At worst it was an existential crisis in calendar invite form.

The Moral of the Story

Tech Town Halls or any corporate meetings that exist just for the sake of existing are proof that meetings are the biggest scam in modern workplaces. They accomplish nothing waste time and serve as a reminder that some people have built entire careers around sitting in rooms and talking without ever actually doing anything.

And our Phantom Engineer They once again walked away having done zero work contributed nothing of value and somehow still looked busy.

The real MVPs are the people who kept themselves on mute the entire time turned their cameras off and went about their day while pretending to listen!