I love what I do for a living, and I love the people I work with. We strive to maintain the environment that allows us to have the best time doing the best work.

However, every single day a bitter resource war rages in our office. At stake is our precious, finite time.

We each have our own responsibilities and deadlines. It is also essential that we collaborate and communicate with each other throughout the day. Let’s call these opposing claimants “work” and “meetings”.

This battle plays out on Google Calendar. When I opened it this morning to assess the state of things, a chipper new feature announcement greeted me:

At first I was confused, then super annoyed. My “working hours” are the times it’s OK for other people to invite me to events? Oh, heck no. To a person on deadline, a calendar invitation is a hostile land grab.

Even though we do work with a lot of folks in other time zones which can be tricky to track, this is solving the opposite of our thorniest problem. In fact, it is enshrining in the interface just the attitude we are trying to combat, that work is defined by meetings—or, euphemistically, “events.” Events are what I attend outside of work.

My working time should belong to me. Please Google, don’t strip me of that illusion.

A simple change in nomenclature to “Available to meet” would feel way more respectful and accurate, and this is the direction we entreat business communication to go.

Tweet | Written by Erika Hall on August 26, 2010 |