Six weeks in and the calendars have collided. Job A moved standup from 10:00 to 9:15 in a reshuffle, and job B has been at 9:15 since before I started. Both are 15 minutes, both are daily, and both managers have said the time is fixed because it suits the offshore half of the team. I've been alternating days and it's already been noticed at A. What do people actually do here that doesn't involve a lie?
Don't ask to move a recurring meeting that suits people in another timezone. That request gets declined and then remembered. Ask to be excused from it instead, which is a much smaller thing you're asking for.
Also check your contracts before you push on any of this. Some have exclusivity or outside-work notification clauses and the answer to what you can do here depends on what you signed, not on what's convenient. Worth a one-off conversation with an employment lawyer in your jurisdiction if the wording is vague, because the internet will confidently tell you six different things.
If you genuinely can't get either to bend, that's data rather than an obstacle. A role that requires your live presence at a fixed time every single morning, no exceptions, is a role that is structurally hard to hold alongside anything else. I'd start thinking about which of the two is the one you keep.
Agreed, and daily standups are usually only the first collision. Sprint ceremonies, planning, retro, all-hands. The 9:15 thing is a preview.
Practical stopgap while you negotiate: block 9:00 to 9:45 on both calendars as busy with a neutral title so nobody books over the gap, and be genuinely early to whichever you attend. Alternating without a pattern is what got you noticed. Alternating on a fixed rhythm, Mondays and Wednesdays here, Tuesdays and Thursdays there, reads as a schedule rather than as flakiness.
@boring_portfolio · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Ask one of them to let you go async, and ask for it as a working style thing rather than a scheduling thing. The phrasing that has worked for me three times: I get my best focused work done first thing, I'd like to post my update in the channel by 9:00 each day instead of attending, and I'll join live on Mondays and any day there's something to discuss.
Most managers say yes to that because a written update is genuinely more useful to them than watching someone recite it. Pick whichever team already communicates in writing a lot, that's the one where it'll land.
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@boring_portfolio · 3mo ago
Then over-deliver on it for the first month. Post before 9:00 every day, be specific, flag blockers early. After four weeks of that nobody remembers you're not on the call.
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@night_train_ned · 3mo ago
B's team lives in Slack anyway. I'll try it there first.
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