Not to beat a dead horse, but I feel compelled to reiterate my position on meetings in the workplace.

They suck.

A lot.

I was called into one the other day that lasted an hour and a half, which means that I spent a good hour and twenty nine minutes bored out of my gourd. I wiled away the time by bending my thoughts toward questions such as "How would a Delta Force extraction team go about rescuing me from this situation?" or "When is someone going to invent an edible underarm deodorant?" You know, real "meaning of life" type shit.

Meetings are, for the most part, almost entirely evil. Not only are they usually a complete waste of time, but I'm pretty certain that every time a manger holds a meeting, a baby kitten dies. I mean, how heinous is that? These sick bastards gather together us peons in a tiny little room for hours on end knowing full well that some adorable little tabby will pay the price.

Unconscionable, I tell you.

Remember how Moses (of the Bible) broke the tablets handed down to him from God when he got pissed about gun control lobbyist or what not? I imagine that those tablets were more than the standard Decalogue we know and love today. I'm certain they must have had a couple more Commandments that didn't make it into version 2.0, such as: "Thou shalt not answer thine cellular phone whilst on the commode" or "Thou shalt not make a Speed 2" (thanks Bloodhound Gang) or perhaps most importantly "Thou shalt not hold pointless and boredom inducing meetings."

As an aside, Deuteronomy has to be the coolest name for a book of the Bible. Second place would have to go to Leviticus, which a friend of mine once gave as the wise-ass answer to my serious query, "What's the opposite of an exodus?"

I always seem to be asked to attend meetings which have very little bearing on the actual work I do (incidentally, if you asked my colleagues, "What is Kato working on?" the expected response would be, "Not much"). Invariably I am forced to sit there listening to people rattle off ideas and plans that are either way over my head, completely outside of my field of expertise, or in no way related to my work. As a result, I never have anything to contribute, and walk away without having gained anything from the meeting other than perhaps a few stolen minutes of sleep.

I'm of the opinion that anything that needs to be resolved or brainstormed can be done over e-mail or maybe--maybe--a phone call. Why pull a dozen people away from their desks just so you can touch base with only one of them while the rest fight off lapsing into a coma? Besides, nothing ever gets resolved anyway. The full first half of the meeting is spent reiterating what wasn't accomplished last time, and the second half is spent planning how it will all be discussed and resolved in the next meeting. And that's the other thing that makes them evil: they are self-propagating.

Unlike in the past, I did not take any notes worth sharing with you fine folk. If I did scan in my pad, you would be quickly reminded of the scene in The Shining where Jack Nicholson's character has written the same phrase over and over again on countless sheets of typewriter paper. Only in my scenario, the phrase isn't "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" but rather, "Dear God, please make the pain stop."

So please, please stop asking me to attend meetings, oh Wise and Powerful Gods of Management. I would much rather toil at my desk, blissfully ignorant of the workplace around me.

Unless you decide to give me a laptop.

Tags: Humor, Ramblings, Work