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I work for a Software company, in the US. My manager always reschedules or shows up late for meetings. They often cancel one to one meetings that are scheduled bi-weekly.

Even though it does not affect my work schedule, I feel annoyed about this as I am very organized and don't like a change to schedules or plans. I agree that they are very busy, with many issues to handle, but I value my time. I would ignore it if this was once in a while, but this has happened many times, and with everyone else in the team.

Also, I am talking about important meetings like planning etc (I'm a scrum master). Irrespective of whether it is an important meeting or not, I am generally annoyed with this kind of behavior which I perceive as rude and inconsiderate.

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    Do you WANT the meetings to happen? A simple "since these meetings never happen anyway, should we just not have tem?" might also work otherwise.
    – Erik
    Sep 21, 2016 at 15:04
  • Title does not make sense. Reschedules or be on time makes sense. Not reschedule and be on time makes sense.
    – paparazzo
    Sep 21, 2016 at 15:19
  • @Paparazzi - it makes sense, although the phrasing is a bit awkward - the OP wants the boss to be on time for meetings and not reschedule them. I've updated the title to better convey this.
    – HorusKol
    Sep 21, 2016 at 23:17
  • @Paparazzi Minor note on the edit, there are two spellings for behaviour, English UK and English US.
    – Draken
    Sep 22, 2016 at 8:29
  • Could you edit out the singular they and just pick a pronoun? This is rather confusing to read.
    – Lilienthal ♦
    Sep 22, 2016 at 8:43

3 Answers 3

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When he cancels or reschedules last-minute, reply saying it's not a problem, but you'd prefer to have more notice in future if possible. Point to him that Maker and Manager schedules are different. He may simply not be aware of that and see it as non-issue, as you don't complain and it doesn't impact you very much. You may as well suggest to cancel the meeting or move it permanently to a different time.

Consider the risk of the manager not reacting well to that (quite reasonable) request. That would be a red flag for me.

If you point it out and the behaviour doesn't change (or changes just briefly) there isn't much you can do.

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It sounds to me like this is one of those meetings that is "required" but he would either rather not do or doesn't see as necessary.

I know it's not the answer you're really looking for but there's really not a lot you can do, especially since it just doesn't affect your work schedule.

Perhaps you can talk to him casually about it but not complain. I'm suggesting that what you discuss is his impressions and thoughts of the meeting in general and whether or not that it's necessary or if it's imposed on him. That could lead to asking him what you can do to help have the meetings on a regular basis and hint that it makes things difficult because it creates a whole in your schedule that you have to block out. Perhaps suggest combining this meeting with lunch and just doing it that way.

But realistically, you're probably just going to have to deal with it since he's technically not doing anything wrong. And as your manager, it makes it very touchy to do anything he might perceive as criticism or might make him feel even more overwhelmed than he already is.

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If you ever want a meeting to happen on-time, schedule it for the first item in a day (except Mondays). That way, nothing else can overrun.

Monday is an exception, because there may have been a crisis over the weekend that needs to be attended to.

Meetings will still be cancelled occasionally, but less often than if (for example) you schedule them for 4pm.

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    this assumes that the boss arrives to work on time...
    – HorusKol
    Sep 21, 2016 at 23:15

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