A senior leader at a UK sports organisation has shared a simple workplace hack that frees up her calendar from pointless meetings: blocking out the last Tuesday of every month with the label 'FAMT', which stands for 'F**k all meetings Tuesday'. The Financial Times reported that many colleagues assumed it was a standing client meeting, but were shocked at the revelation.
Workers embrace fake meetings to get work done
Others in corporate environments have confessed to similar tactics. TikTok user Bobby (@bobbyyy_ok) called it her 'winning secret', saying: 'You start scheduling fake meetings just to get a few minutes of peace. Who knew “busy” could be such a great excuse.' Her video has garnered thousands of views.
HR expert: Fake meetings are a 'sane solution to an insane problem'
Jim Moore, employee relations expert at HR consultants Hamilton Nash, told Metro that this trick is an old habit in a new form. 'One of the great hopes of the post-Covid hybrid working world was that it might kill off the curse of presenteeism, and the need to “perform” by working long hours to impress the boss,' Jim says. 'But just like a horror movie villain, presenteeism was never really dead – and now it’s back in a new but strangely familiar form.'
Remote working created freedom but also anxious managers. 'Meetings have also proliferated because informal conversation has died, and managers now schedule meetings to get updates instead of walking over to someone’s desk,' Jim explains. 'By blocking time with a fake meeting, employees are just defending themselves against being booked into endless real meetings. It’s a sane solution to an insane problem, and it’s a cry for help for diligent employees.'
Some fake meetings are for gossip, not work
One TikToker posted: 'When you schedule a fake teams meeting to gossip.' Many replied saying 'I love to gossip on company time' and 'y’all couldn’t wait until lunch? A whole fake meeting? I do the same thing'. For HR expert Jim, this is harder to justify. 'Technically, deliberately deceiving your manager about your calendar could be considered misconduct, but in reality it’s management that has a problem, not you,' he says. 'Managers who are obsessed with monitoring staff create a breeding ground for dishonesty. Leaders need to trust their employees to manage their own time, and incentivise productivity, not looking busy.'
So, if you see a suspicious meeting in a colleague's calendar, it might be best to look the other way.
