Calendar 101

[canyonwalker]

I've had several situations at work recently of colleagues not understanding the basics of how to schedule a meeting— both in terms of using our calendar software and in terms of communicating effectively about proposed meeting times. Here are two categories of "Are you even thinking?" fails:

1) Check my calendar first

We use Google's G-suite; it has been our standard for several years. It's easy to view a colleague's calendar online, and I ensure mine is both visible and as accurate as possible. Yet I still get situations like this one:

Sales Person: Hey, I've booked you for a call with this customer 10-11am Wednesday, is that okay?

Me: If you'd checked my calendar first you'd have seen I'm already double-booked at that time.

SP: Ooookay... so what time is okay?

Me: Check my calendar and pick any open time.

2) Use time zones, and pay attention to them!

The reality of modern business is that people are spread across different timezones, even people on the same team. Thus it's important to use timezones when communicating to a broader audience. And note, "use" means both writing them and reading them! This eye-rolling little miscommunication happened last week:

Sales Person: Let's have a followup meeting... how about Thursday at 9am PST?

Customer 1: That works for me.

Me: I have a conflict until 9:30. [Grumble, grumble... see above] How about 9:30 Pacific?

C1: Sure, that works, too.

SP: Great. I'll set up the meeting for 9:30-10:30 Pacfic on Thursday.

C1: [Gets the invite] Oh, you were talking about Pacific time. I thought we were talking Central time! No, I'm not available.

Folks, please pay attention. These aren't hard words or long sentences.