Meetings...

[Jamie123]

I've just come out of a meeting.

I'd seriously like to know if anyone has ever achieved anything by going to a meeting. Everyone sits around a table and the chairman goes through the agenda items one by one, and sometimes says "Now item four, blah blah blah... I'll hand over to Julie for this." And Julie gets up and says "Blah blah blah blah..." - to which (almost) no one one listens to a word - "...blah blah blah blah. Thank you very much." and the chairman says "Thank you very much Julie, does anyone have anything to add..." and the one person who was listening gets up and says "Yes I'd like to add that..." blah blah blah blah blah..., while everyone else reads e-mails on their iphones or looks out of the window at birds circling against the grey overcast, or watches the hands of the clock and thinks about the piles of work on their desk which isn't getting done because they have to be at this stupid meeting listening to the chairman and Julie spouting stuff no one will listen to or remember five minutes on from now.

I can think of only two exceptions:

• The Council of Elrond
• During the war, the meetings that bomber pilots, navigators, bombardiers etc. would have with their commander before flying off on a mission to make sure they bomb the right place at the right time etc.

There are two consolations to going to a meeting:

• Coffee or tea (though this naturally doesn't apply if you're LDS. Sometimes orange juice too.)
• Biscuits (I like the ginger ones)
• (Sometimes) Cake and sandwiches

OKOK that's three. Cake and sandwiches do kinda make all the difference - if they have them. But apart from them, meetings are an unproductive drain on your time, which could be put to something far more productive (like sleep).

I daresay I'm going to be flamed now by all the meetings fans out there!

[Carborendum]

5 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

I daresay I'm going to be flamed now by all the meetings fans out there!

I'm sure that would be danger if such people existed.

[LDSGator]

I’ve always thought that the people who like meetings are always the least productive people in the office. 

[zil2]

My boss used to say that when they make you a manager, they take away 1/4 of your brain. Each step up the hierarchy removes another 1/4 until the people at the very top have no brain left.  This explains most meetings.

That said, when I was employed, we would have requirements-gathering / design meetings with the software users, where I would design parts of the GUI in real-time (gotta love high-level languages) and put the rules in comments in the code.  The BA would also be capturing requirements.  These were highly productive and everyone left the meeting feeling charged (or so it seemed).  Sometimes our meetings would be demonstration & review meetings, to walk through the system and make sure how it works matches the users' needs, note changes needed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

We also had "SCRUM" stand-up meetings - 5-15 minutes, on our feet, at a SCRUM board, each person noting what task they're working on, who they're waiting on, help they need, etc.  Cards would move between phases on the wall, to match those tasks.  Very efficient and helpful to ensure everyone on the project was busy and knew what was happening.

But meetings like you describe, where all anyone does is yammer on?  Mostly useless, and mostly a sign of people either not doing, or not knowing their job.

 

[NeuroTypical]

I am utterly sympathetic to every word being uttered here. That said, apparently God likes meetings for some things, so I guess I have to as well. 

 

If the D&C wasn't bad enough: 

 

Moroni had to deal with meetings too:

 

I might be wrong, but this is the only scripture that says we've got to go to church every Sunday:

 

[zil2]

For those who need a way to have fun mocking the meeting they're in, while also looking very serious, I present to you, the collection of "Yet Another Meeting" note-taking pages - download the zip with 10 exciting color themes (several are themed for US holidays, so @Jamie123 will have to be a bit tolerant ):

Edited 23 hours ago by zil2

[NeuroTypical]

That's brilliant @zil2.    I'd only make one change to that thing: Replace "dejected" with "ejected".   I've been in many meetings where I wished for either an ejection seat with a rocket strapped to it, or a trap door of some kind.

[Carborendum]

I just got out of three meetings that overlapped.

• One was to go over our file management system which is so messed up, you'd have to get an associate's degree exclusively devoted to the study of this architecture to understand it.
• One was to say hi to all the new people on the staff throughout the country.  (Like we're even going to remember the name of a staff member in California.)
• One was to go over the timesheet entry process... which I've been using effectively for over a year.  Why they thought I needed to be part of the meeting is beyond me.

So, while all three were playing in the background at my desk, I was actually getting work done.

Yey! Meetings!!!

Did I mention I'm a government contractor?

Edited 22 hours ago by Carborendum

[zil2]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

That's brilliant @zil2.    I'd only make one change to that thing: Replace "dejected" with "ejected".   I've been in many meetings where I wished for either an ejection seat with a rocket strapped to it, or a trap door of some kind.

You can use the blank line at the end.

[Vort]

3 hours ago, zil2 said:

My boss used to say that when they make you a manager, they take away 1/4 of your brain. Each step up the hierarchy removes another 1/4 until the people at the very top have no brain left.  This explains most meetings.

That implies that there are no more than four layers of management between top and bottom.

Or...

It implies that there is such a thing as negative brainspace, where most of our top executives live.

Terrifying.

[mikbone]

 

[JohnsonJones]

Well, for now I've cut down on a bunch of meetings.  Retired and sitting around now.  I think I'll go on vacation (but is it really vacation if you are retired, or just travelling?) in June.  

I had one college who said I shouldn't retire, that those who retire are dead in 6 months.  I hope not.  I still have kids and grandkids to go visit.

Still will have meetings for church, so I suppose I'll still have a few meetings to go to.  Otherwise, I don't know if I'll have to worry about another work meeting for a while (though if some people's stories of their after death experiences are true, if I pass away I may have a lot more meetings all of a sudden in the near future).

[NeuroTypical]

1 hour ago, JohnsonJones said:

Retired and sitting around now.  I think I'll go on vacation (but is it really vacation if you are retired, or just travelling?) in June.  

Congratulations @JohnsonJones!  I've paid a lot of attention to folks who retire, and folks who are retired, so I can have a glimpse into what the future might hold for me.   Here's what people are saying: 

- "I absolutely don't have to use my brain as much.  It now takes effort to find challenging things to think about."
- "Figuring out how to keep busy takes more work than actually doing the things that keep me busy."

I commonly hear that retiring is a massive adjustment in a marriage, throwing things up into the air and forcing lots of change.  People report varying degrees of things getting easier or harder, better or worse, nicer or not so nice.  The folks who seem to have the best grasp on things talk of approaching the change in a planned way that has involved a lot of communication.   I can see this requiring my wife and I to approach my retirement carefully.  So, I've also gathered input from spouses given to new retired breadwinners, where both parties report satisfaction and love as a result: 

- "You know, I promised to spend my life with you, but not all at once."
- "You will find ways to be out of this house and out of my hair on a regular basis."
- "We schedule everything, from trips to fights."

 

As you gain retired miles, please add to my growing database of things to think about.

[Carborendum]

2 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Well, for now I've cut down on a bunch of meetings.  Retired and sitting around now.  I think I'll go on vacation (but is it really vacation if you are retired, or just travelling?) in June.  

I've got a question that will take us on a tangent.  I'm getting to the point where I wonder when/if I will retire.  What were the factors that contributed to your decision to retire?

I have finances planned where I can "get by" when I turn 60 or so.  To do more than "get by" I'll be waiting until 65.  But I'm still very healthy and energetic at my age.  At my current rate, I'll still be able and willing to work professionally until I'm 75 or older.  And in my current specialty, a lot of people work until their early 80s.

With being LDS and Asian, I get a double whammy which would make my life expectancy pretty high.  And that is further lengthened by the fact that I have aged more slowly than my biological sister.  She's only a year or two older than I am.  But she looks her age.  People still guess that I'm 10 years younger than I am.

So, I'm hoping to live until I'm 98.

[Traveler]

Sadly, or strangely, there are in essence two kinds of meeting – productive and worthless.  I believe that the primary determination for what kind of meeting is taking place is the attitude and preparation of all those attending.

 

The Traveler