1/19/2010

We Have to Stop Meeting Like This.

I have to attend many meetings.


Yesterday, I attended  a meeting in which the first forty minutes were spent with the Chair doing all of the talking. The following, directly from my meeting  notes, is what he said:

" talking about having a meeting, what happened at the last meeting , what will happen at the next meeting, how to have a meeting, when  to have a meeting, what to do during a meeting, going through the items without doing the items, then going through the items and doing the items and who are we doing this for, do we know what we're doing and to whom are we doing it.
Any  comments?", he asked when he came up for air.


"Yes," I said. "The guy sitting  to the right of me snores when he sleeps, and the guy to the left of me left. I think the guy across from me is dead, he died of boredom."
I believe I will resign from this committee.


Note Bene:
I promise to do my best not to use the following words heretofore:
heretofore
validation
confirmation
brainstorming
conflab





8 comments:

Wolynski said...

Very funny - hysterical, in fact.

Doesn't matter what the meeting was about - it was a meeting.

I think meetings would go much better if they took place in a bar.

Great post.

Ruth said...

lol! I can relate to this. I have to divert myself at some meetings to keep awake. Writing Haiku is preferable to biting my cheeks.

Carolyn said...

Great post Susan!
Meetings are a waste of time most of the time. I watch some of the footage of Haiti, of the meeting of the Forces on ships before heading ashore and wonder how much time is being wasted. Don't get me wrong, organization is good but way too often there is too much talk and not enough action. It is why I do not sit on boards or committees anymore...I volunteer to be the grunt worker, much more productive!
Smiles
P.S. Walk east on College Street from Yonge Street past Maple Leaf Gardens and you are at Allan Gardens!

Susan Ellis said...

Thanks Carolyn! You read my mind, a I was wondering where it was. I plan to skip out of a meeting or two to visit it.

robin andrea said...

I remember once, after a series of meetings much like the one you just described, the chair of the department asked us submit our ideas for reorganizing the department. Top on my list was a meeting moratorium for one year. NO MORE MEETINGS!

Great story, Susan.

Bill S. said...

Sounds like a conversation I had at school today. "Women have to do all the talking because men refuse to." Maybe that is a blessing to both sexes.

Susan Ellis said...

hey Bill...this was one of those rare cases when the man couldn't stop talking ...just loved the sound of the syllables I guess. It was painful! There are definitely times when silence is golden!

A human kind of human said...

Well, at least the chairs were interesting (lol).