Not Well Met.

I posted a Thursday Thirteen a week or two ago about office-speak.  Several people were kind enough to comment and no one came to the defence of pretentious management twaddle.  There's a surprise!  I've had this in a dusty folder deep in the bowels of my computer for a year or two. I can't remember who sent it to me but whoever you are, thank you.  It is certainly accurate.  I'm sure most of us who have worked in offices have suffered through useless meetings which have been called to flatter the egos of managers who like to hear the sounds of their own voices.  I once worked with one who bought a telescopic pointer which he could keep in his breast pocket, pull out whenever he was giving a talk, extend to its full eighteen inches and point to various words he had written on his beloved flip chart, while the rest of us looked on through  glazed eyes and rapidly lost the will to live.
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Comments

[Winter]

OMG. That's hysterical. Some of that goes on in my office, but not too much. However, this: http://thewebsiteisdown.com/ (or rather a slightly different version of it) goes on in my office. I'm the person (IT Guy) getting on other people's desktops and realizing that they don't have clue one about how to use their computer or do all the stuff that they are getting paid to do. It's outrageous some days.

[Di]

I hated meetings! There was even a really funny video starring John Cleese called Meetings, Bloody Meetings that our consulting firm used with clients. Of course, consulting firms are often the instigators of many of these useless gatherings.

That may be why I have chosen to build my career...yes, I'm working for a paycheck again...from the comfort of my home office, sitting at my kitchen table and/or perched on the arm of my leather couch...and sometimes in my bed.

[PJ]

You might have seen that poster on my blog ages ago when I was frustrated about the countless meetings our Head of Department enjoyed scheduling. It was impossible to get any work done when you constantly had to drop tools to attend (or in my case take the minutes) of all of those unnecessary meetings.

[Matthew James Didier]

I've been fortunate that the only zombie-inducing meetings I've had to attend have been outside my own department... in information technologies, in the last four companies I've been with, they realised meetings were little more than a break from actual productivity... so the last two I worked for, IT meetings consisted of...

(Per Hour:)

10 minutes of actual work.
20 minutes of complaints and venting.
10 minutes of joking, mocking, and laughing.
20 minutes of eating (pizza/sandwiches/whatever) on the company's dime.

These meetings were usually reserved for Fridays... for fairly obvious reasons.

[Wylie Kinson]

LOL - sums it up perfectly!

I had a terrific boss at one point in my career, who eschewed group meetings. Everytime one was called, he's simply say - copy me with my action items and I'll get them done. He preferred one-on-one's that consisted of 100% business, no sandwiches. I had an algebraic formula to describe these tete-a-tetes: 1 Hour x Boss = 4 Hours Work, because that's how many hours it would take me to follow up on all that was discussed.
*sigh* He could teach a course on being the perfect boss.

[On a Limb with Claudia]

I love this! YES! Meetings are the practical alternative to work - add food? And you have a complete waste of time. You are funny.

[Tina]

thats funny! i used to hate meetings too. they were so pointless. talking about the same stuff ova and ova again.... yeah yeah just pay me my wages never mind about how to improve your profits lol!