Boss calls hour-long meeting to cut meetings; ends with another scheduled - ‘Rub the manager’s nose in…’ Reddit roasts

Ever been pulled into a meeting about fixing too many meetings and realized you’re part of the problem in real time? That’s the irony one employee highlighted in a now-viral Reddit post, where a one-hour discussion involving 14 people was held to address meeting overload, only to end with… another meeting.

Some professionals faced the same workplace scenario described and say it perfectly captures modern office inefficiency.

A meeting to reduce meetings… that lasted an hour

In a post on the Reddit forum r/work, a user shared how their boss scheduled a one-hour meeting, with 14 attendees, to address a growing concern: too many meetings.

“I want to be clear: this was not a joke. There was an agenda. There were action items. Someone took notes,” the user wrote.


The outcome? A familiar corporate conclusion: the team should “be more intentional about meeting culture going forward.” Ironically, a follow-up meeting was scheduled to discuss how to implement those changes.

The user added, with a tone of resignation, “I work in a place where this is possible and I am fine.”

Internet reacts: ‘That hour has a cost’

The post quickly drew reactions from other Reddit users, many of whom shared similar experiences or offered tongue-in-cheek solutions. One commenter suggested a financial approach: “Honestly the best way I’ve found to combat that is to tabulate rough hourly rates for everyone in the room and mention it to the leader how much that hour cost.”


Another user supported the idea, saying, “Rub the manager's nose in financial details since they're supposed to monitor costs.”

However, not everyone agreed it would make a difference. A third commenter pointed out, “Managers usually already know meetings cost money.”

Efficiency in work and performance

Some responses mentioned how deeply embedded such practices are in corporate culture. One user recalled working with a company where the CEO displayed a live “cost-timer” during meetings to show how much each session was costing in real time.


“Yes. And yes. lol,” the commenter confirmed when asked if clients were billed while watching the timer tick.

The anecdote mirrored a broader tension: even when organizations recognize inefficiency, attempts to fix it can sometimes mirror the very problem they aim to solve.