A senior leader at a UK sports organisation has shared a workplace hack to avoid pointless meetings, blocking out the last Tuesday of every month as 'FAMT' – standing for 'F**k all meetings Tuesday'. The trick, reported by the Financial Times, initially led colleagues to assume she had a standing client meeting, but she later revealed the true meaning.
Fake meetings as a 'winning secret'
Others 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 know “busy” could be such a great excuse.'
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,' he said. '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 and meeting overload
Moore explained that remote working created freedom but also made managers more anxious. '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.' He described blocking time with fake meetings as 'a sane solution to an insane problem' and 'a cry for help for diligent employees'.
Some employees also schedule fake meetings for gossip. One TikToker posted: 'When you schedule a fake teams meeting to gossip.' Many replied with comments like 'I love to gossip on company time' and 'y’all couldn’t wait until lunch? A whole fake meeting? I do the same thing'.
HR expert's warning
Moore noted that deliberately deceiving a manager could be considered misconduct, but said 'it’s management that has a problem, not you'. He added: '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.'
