A New Service Anonymously Scolds Managers for Pointless Meetings

It's a passive-aggressive assault on groupthink

June 11, 2018 9:00 am

At one point in InsideHook’s history, half my day was taken up with meetings. And meetings about meetings. And, occasionally, a one-on-one meeting to prep for a pre-meeting about a meeting.

Dark days.

The passive-aggressive response I needed: Should Have Been an Email, a site that anonymously shames group-planning fanatics.

It’s simple to use: just forward the meeting invite to one of two different email addresses, depending on whether you want to shame all the attendees (meeting@shb.fyi) or just the organizer (organizer@shb.fyi) — basically, the person who thought “Volunteer Selection for Sunday marathon run” was worth an hour of your time. Note: The email needs to have an attached meeting event .ics file.

From there, the site sends a “strongly typed email” to the person or organizer on your list. Not in your name, though.

While fun in theory, a few people seem put off by the anonymous criticism. As one Product Hunt commenter put it, “Alternatively you could grow a pair and talk to them about it.”

Need more office help? Check out our roundup of meeting apps and hacks (and our Office Meeting Bingo game).

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