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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> Daily standups and a fear of being "caught" on those days ...

Standups are mental health minefields. They are a hack evolution of an educational process best left out of the workplace. Law/med schools employ such tactics to deliberately create stress. That has a place in education, but to see it continue at a location where people work year after year is disturbing.

Startups that use standups also often miss the physicality of what they ask. They do not realize that they are disadvantaging people based on totally irrelevant criteria. There is a reason that, throughout history, people have sat down together to discuss important matters. Sitting is an equalizer. Sitting removes the threat of immediate physical violence. Save the standup confrontation junk for the courtrooms.

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I think the point of standing up during a standup is to make it short. They're only supposed to last a couple of minutes. Where I work we can't do stand up meetings because there is no appropriate room, so we sit down. Inevitably they take 30+ minutes.

That is the goal, but those who use them don't see that getting everyone to stand emphasizes physical differences. Short people, women and lightweight people can come off as weaker when literally standing beside large male blow-hards. If everyone in management seems to be a 6-foot male fratboy, a culture of formal standups may be part of the problem.

Talk to anyone in a wheelchair. The one situation where I've seen this resulted in the physical standup rule being immediately abandoned in favour of a conference room. Everyone recognized the awkwardness of the situation.

A strange twist on the standup is the evil situation whereby the meeting occurs in a manager's office. Typically, the person in charge remains at their desk, like a king lording over a royal court, and groups of people come in to give quick presentations.

Do people actually take the standing part of the standup literally?

All the standups I've been in the majority of the people were actually sitting down.

I worked in one office where they did the standup standing up. Not sure it made any difference besides the pressure to not fall over on a tired day.

I do not know about in general but where I work we physically stand up during daily standups.

My impression is that the standing up part really works too. We usually get quite restless when the meeting exceeds the allotted 10 minutes. Of course that might just be because people are bored quickly too.

A question to those sitting down during your standups: Isn't it weird to sit down during a meeting that is literally called a standup? Have you tried or considered standing up?

Absolutely, that's part of the point. The standup is supposed to be short, standing up emphasizes this.

I find a lot of humour here in the "standup is supposed to be short, standing up emphasizes this" as a kind of fradenscheude commentary on the typically unhealthy office workplace environment of sitting down in front of a computer screen all day. I have a stand-up desk and spend most of my day standing, and I realize this is a luxury most people do not have, but I do find humour in the implicit space in your comment about standing being a kind of chore.

Yes, we're all simply unfit sloths, standing up is physically demanding and that's why standups must be short. :)

Seriously though, my impression is that standing up encourages brevity in other ways.

Standing implies that the meeting must be short because there apparently isn't even time to sit down before you start. It really does save time when you do not have to find a suitable and available conference room and let everyone pick a chair.

Standing also makes subtle signals of loss of focus very visible. You easily pick up on the small things, like when people start shifting their weight, look at their phone, turn around to look at other things, etc. Things that aren't as visible when sitting down.

There is also a implied invitation to walk away at any moment. You're already standing, walking away requires little effort, at least physically.

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