Hell defined--It's a staff meeting

The BBQ Pit
#1

At the school where I teach, we have two to three meetings a month. All the teachers are herded into the library where we discuss important issues.
An example of an important issue is that someone keeps getting into the teacher’s lounge refrigerator and stealing teacher’s lunches. Then one teacher gets up and claims that she brought some salad bowls to school and they are missing.
Or we’ll have grade level meetings where we discuss at length how we’re going to improve the standardized test scores. Which is fine.
Except I don’t think we need to start in September and have a meeting every other week when the test takes place in April.
I know why this is happening. It’s because there is a certain small faction of teachers at my school that are incredibly stupid and everything has to be spelled out for them.
Just as it seems an issue is resolved in a meeting, one of the aforementioned teachers will raise her hand and ask a question that reopens the issue.
AAAAArgh! I’d enjoy teaching a lot more if I didn’t have to deal with any adults.

Gail
“Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend–
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again…”
-Steely Dan

#2

I cant believe it was bunch of those people who taught me in school. And I used to Idolize them? <shudder>

#3

regarding the lost/missing/stolen lunches:

  1. Label the lunch in a ordinary container.
  2. Put something in the lunch that causes extreme intestinal express.
  3. Never Ever EVER eat it.
  4. The guilty party will leave early that day, or be out the next day.
#4

The best and brightest lead. Everyone else chairs meetings. Where’s the principle?

#5

Oh, Hell. PrincipAL, pricipAL, principAL. A thousand times, principAL!

#6

Don’t feel bad Gail, my parents have been public school teachers for 30 years (just retired this year) and that is pretty much the way they have described teacher staff meetings for years. Glad I never had to participate.

Jeffery

#7

Most people find staff meetings Bor-ing. Ever read Dilbert? Watch Drew Carey?

#8

When I hired on at the largest company that took a chance on me, I was assigned to represent our department (of two) every monday morning for a staff meeting. Three to four hour coma-festivals. In the 52 staff meetings I attended I learned that my department and most of the other departments had no reason for being there at all and contributed nothing. It was just the same few who talked to hear the sound of their own voices. I stayed awake only by drinking lots of coffee for the first half and then squeezing my legs together to keep from peeing all over the floor for the second half. I asked my supervisor why I had to go, she just smiled a wicked smile stating, " I was being punished for something I didn’t get caught at."

God, I hated those damn things.

#9

Staff meeting hell is when you’re stupid enough to ask a question, which will be answered by the manager who used to teach high school and begins every answer with “let me give you a little history on that issue” and then searches for the dry-erase marker so he can illustrate it.

Guaranteed to make enemies out of your co-workers.

#10

Powerpoint. Freakin’ Microsoft Powerpoint. In my military days I had to attend our commander’s weekly staff meetings. The modern US military is in love with Powerpoint. Even if I had to just cover one simple topic or point, I had to have it in a freakin’ Powerpoint slide show. I fought the urge many a time to just go up before staff, grab an old AV projector and do my whole briefing using finger puppets and shadow pictures.

“…send lawyers, guns, and money…”

 Warren Zevon
#11

I’m with ChiefScott. It’s the responsibility of management to decide if you need staff meetings (can be morale boosters if done right), and to chair them properly.
There’s plenty of examples of efficient practice (have an agenda, limit speech time, take amendments in order etc.).
It usually comes down to a good chairman, although some people say ‘why do we have to have all these rules / submit things in advance etc.’ These people, immortalised in Dilbert, have been to the School of waffle, boredom and inefficiency.
The best meetings are held without chairs…

#12

Oh, I forgot. Take the average number of people who attend each meeting, multiply by the average number of hours each meeting takes and multiply by the average salary per hour. Multiply this by the number of meetings per year. A rough estimate will do.
Then ask management what benefits they get from spending this much money per year. (in case of humourless or inflexible management, have another job lined up…)

#13

And here I thought this was another theological thread.

Back in the days when I was attempting to be a “rock star,” and my band and I would set up and break down our sound system, I always joked that purgatory (if it existed) would be a place where people would spend thousands of years winding and unwinding speaker cables.

Even Phil, athiest he is, might find that an appropriate punishment in the afterlife.

SoxFan59
“Its fiction, but all the facts are true!”

#14

Staff meetings where I work are pretty meaningless. Most of what occurs can just as easily be accomplished through memos. On the other hand, without staff meetings how am I supposed to get any sleep?

#15

Sox, further along that line, heaven is a place where you don’t have to lug your own amps, instruments or drum cases. That’s a religion I can get behind.