I like Calendly a lot, it saves a lot of time, certainly more than some more polite scheduling method.
But asking others to find time in your calendar definitely has a power dynamic aspect to it, even if it shouldn't. It's the same as someone asking you to find time in a shared calendar at work (even though that in principle is worse, because the requester could have done the same in that case).
Maybe the solution is a more widely used calendar standard, where you can ask people to share their availability and find a time yourself.
Bottom line, if I was doing any kind of jockeying for power and someone sent me their calendly, I'd ignore it. On a day to day basis, it's easier, but you're showing your lower status vs the requester, even if that's as stupid as it sounds.
One thing to add, I've actually asked for people to send me a calendly before, I think that's a good social compromise for everyone- it let's me feel like I initiated the transaction, and overall we still get to schedule efficiently.
I did like the last approach the most though. Have something like calendly spit out your available times and you paste it into your email message.
They can click on what may work for them. This way it feels like you’ve done some work.
The other thing maybe could be that calendly can generate out your availability in a sentence form that can be pasted in. “I’ve got availability from 10-3 tomorrow, or 10-11 Wednesday” etc.
The point is that you still suggest times in the message but aren’t writing it all out yourself. Keeps it a bit more personal.
In general when someone in a lessor power position tries that, I fill in a bunch of empty times with filler meetings and let them pick from the smaller number of choices given to them.
Disclaimer; I try to have as little meetings as possible outside 1-1 and team meetings which are ad hoc mostly when we are chatting anyway about something work.
The language as written in the post implies the recipient has any idea who Calendly is or should care. I don't and I don't, so it comes across rude as now I have to figure out what this thing is you're asking me to do, just to be graced with your presence.
But really, don't treat your family like a business problem.
When I work with outside sales teams, from vendors, they often want to include other people (sales engineers, whatever). My calendar often gets chopped up into a few hours here and there of free time as most. I can sit down and write out what my schedule is for the next week but I'm not going to include every moment of free time, probably one or two big blocks per day - at most - if that's even available. They may be unavailable, or it might be late for them (West/East coast). However that one 30mn section I neglected earlier one day might have worked perfectly. But they don't know that. I send them a calendly, then they can look over all my free time and pick exactly what they want.
As a hiring manager, it's also great. People have jobs and lives. Calendly lets me say "here, pick anything that works for you". It gives them the control to not only pick a time that is convenient, but a time that they are comfortable with. Sure, maybe they could meet at 10am but they'd have to stand in a stairwell to take a call. However at 7pm East, they can be at home - and I'm totally ok with a 4pm call, my calendar is free after all.
The entire goal is to make the process of calendaring as convenient as possible for everyone involve. No more emails threads back and forth and back and forth and back and forth trying to find the best times. Especially when half the time you write out your availability to someone, 5 minutes later another meeting will appear in one of those open slots and throw everything for a loop.
Maybe there are ways that people send out these links that other people find offensive. Communication is always hard. But the goal is to reduce friction and make life easier. I will never be upset by someone trying to make my life easier by saying "Here, pick whatever works best for you on my caelendly".
The paid plan only lets you configure one meeting configuration, so if you simultaneously want to use it for your personal life you kind of have to pay for it. Pretty clever monetization strategy if you ask me. Anyway, as part of this bubble, a large number of people I know follow their calendar religiously - otherwise it's a host of double-booking friends and missing plans that you really did want to go to with people you really did want to spend more time with!
I get that this is part of the strange, strange bubble I live in, but the startup life is busy with a work/life balanced on the work side of things. Not trying to humblebrag that I have a lot of friends, it's more that I'm a wee bit forgetful and don't want to stand somebody up. It's ruder to be inefficient and have a multi-email back and forth to figure out a mutually acceptable time!
(Because I know the people are going to read too much into this: There are people here that don't live so slavishly to their calendar, but if I forget to manually add them to my calendar I'm likely to forget I've made plans.)
