My notes from today’s staff meeting (a word-for-word transcription of my “looking busy” note taking):
Blah blah blah.
Yadda yadda yadaa.
Blah yadda blah yadda STFU already.
Yeah, you already said that, Brainiac.
Sick of your voice already.
No, actually, that’s a really effing stupid idea.
Sure, if you hate having customers, then go for it.
Stop. Talking. NOW.
How can one person drone on this long???
If I tell you I like the idea, will you close your fat yap?
Are you really that dense?
Hey Cluebitch, I count three people in here fast asleep.
75 minutes = Too effing long for a meeting, cow.
4:17. Those who work 8-4 are gonna wanna string your ass up. Shut the hell up!! Some of want to actually go do our fricking jobs!
Done? Good. NO ONE ask any questions!
Matt, I’m gonna beat you with a Swingline in a minute.
ARGH!! You’re the ONLY one who doesn’t get it! Ask her AFTER the meeting!
Oh Cripes, it’s time for the Eric The Questioner show.
Because everyone hates you, that’s why.
Eric, do you love this stuffy-ass meeting room or something?
What, do you have a penis pump under the desk? Stop asking questions!!
Oh, you are so getting toner dumped in your coffee.
Thank God that’s over. Pigwoman, never ask me into a meeting again.
I love my job, but boy, do I hate stupid meetings.
Corp America has been meeting crazy for quite some time.
For the most part it’s all BS. The only way some ppl can show they are being “productive” is the schedule another friggin meeting. It’s the preferred process for brown nosing or kissing the ass of the boss. “Look I’m conducting a meeting. Look at my Powerpoint slides. Listen to my endless drivel.” Then there’s always some dips**t that has to try to share in the ass kissing by asking questions.
Let me do my job and leave me the f**k alone - my workplace motto.
This just reminded me of my quaterly meeting next Tuesday. 9:00-3:30. How the hell am I supposed to stay awake during that, especially since only about one hour of it will actually relate to what I’m working on? On the plus side we get a free catered lunch, so it’s not all bad.
I think if we reevaluate our sourcing strategy we can materialize a significant spend reduction.
You want me to reprioritize my primary action items list for my workstream?
No…only if you don’t have the bandwith to track to plan.
I think by transfering the outlier identification reports to Bob’s 'stream we can significantly de-risk some of the issues we had with the schedule.
Let me speak with Bob off-line. He has a lot on his plate right now with two of his resources rolling off next week. Mary, will you capture those to-do’s as actionable items for next week.
11:00 Meeting on One Page Plan (god, I hate these flavor-of-the-day management tools), purpose: discuss projects, safety, EBIT, revenue, ROCE, etc. Runs long until 12:30. Diabetics like me are ready to gnaw on the table and eat the chalk.
2:00 Financials meeting, purpose: discuss projects, EBIT, revenue, ROCE, etc. What, no friggin’ safety discussion?
Three meetings in one day to discuss the same goddamn issues with many of the same goddamn people. And you just gotta love all the sidebar discussions that are only relevant to two people in the room.
I recall looking at some notes from grad school when was a guy who would not stop talking. Revisiting my notes from the class, I found that I’d covered an entire page with variations on the theme of “DIE, TALKING-BOY, DIE!”
I’ve seen quotes alluding to conspiracy theories being pornography for the paranoid, and the above makes me think that meetings are porn for managers or hard-core type “A” uh, types.
Fortunately, I’m low enough on the food chain that I don’t have to attend but one or two a week. Even so, those can go on longer than they need to due to all of the mental masturbation going on.
Why am I getting hot and bothered all of a sudden?
Ever wonder why you suffer through so many useless meatings? Well here’s an interesting little factoid:
11.5% of all workers in the US are managers.
That is compared to 5.7% in Germany and 2.4% in Sweden.
That means that we are burdened with between 2 and 5 times the number of managers that are actually needed. Too many cheifs, not enough indians, at a national level.
What can all these useless high salary people do to justify their existance but schedule meeting after meeting. Certainly they can’t be any more productive than any fifth wheel.
Just an interesting little thing I discovered recently while researching for a paper I wrote on why Americans work too long.
As an interesting corrorallary anecdote, the department where my gf works has more managers than workers, and has many pointless meetings.
Been my experience that the only thing worse than a stupid, pointless, idiotic, content-free meeting called by the management to justify their existence to the bosses, and made mandatory because if it weren’t, no one would come…
…is a stupid, pointless, idiotic, content-free meeting called by the management to justify their existence to the bosses, and made mandatory because if it weren’t, no one would come when you work the graveyard shift, and they decide to hold the freakin’ meeting in the exact middle of your normal sleeping hours.
At one point, I had a boss who thought it would be neato to do this every stinkin’ week. I wound up daring him to fire me. Trying to do your job on no sleep makes you brave and stupid.
