Meetings s u c k the life out of work.
I am not a big fan of meetings. I’ve experienced quite a few bad ones. I like this post from blackrimglasses.com
Why are meetings bad:
1) Its Not Me Its You Factor (INMIYF): Meetings usually are a way to offset blame. Meetings typically involve people who don’t necessarily work together, but rely on each other, or report to a common boss. Hence, they provide an easy point of transmission of blame, as after a meeting is over, you return to separate corners.
2) The Kaplan Family Dinner Factor (KFDF): like my family, everyone thinks that what they have to say is really important. So they say it, regardless of who is also speaking, and at what volume they need to speak to get heard.
3) Digital Identity Maintenance Factor (DIMF): Exemplified by everyone on their Crackberry’s, relentlessly maintaining their digital identities while their real world one languishes under the strain of market statistics.
There are more factors, but those are the three that bug me the most. Meetings start fine, as status updates or just getting things out there. Then they go into each phase in turn until it disintegrates into lunch. That is two hours gone, never to return.
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I’ve always enjoyed meetings. It is a great way to mingle and see people that you don’t interact with on a daily basis. Everyone has to go through them together so why not be positive and make due?
Shooey, I totally understand.
I read somewhere once that meetings are just an acceptable way for a group of co-workers to get together and socialize without getting in trouble with the bossman…my past co-workers used to do it all the time but we called them “staffings.” We’d toss out a random comment about a common case when one of the bosses was walking by. I don’t think we were fooling anyone, but we never really got in trouble for it!!!
My favorite meetings are the ones where I have to make like a 5 minute speech, but I’m stuck there for 2 hours listening to things I don’t want/need to care about.
mmm…k, your suggestion to “be positive and make due” is great in theory. but apparently you’ve never been in the type of meeting shoo’s blogging about. i have to not only sit through meetings first thing every monday morning, but i also have to deal with little mini-meetings during my lunch hour. i feel like it totally wastes my time when i could be preparing for my monday morning classes…and i feel like the lunch meetings intrude on my time.
if we were getting something done, i might not be so opposed, but these meetings are a waste of time in which everyone goes around in circles blaming everyone else (mainly administration) or yelling over one another, exactly as shoo described.
maybe i can have a take a k to school day some monday morning, and you can experience an inefficient and exasperating meeting.
I’ve only been in one meeting before in my entire life. The topic? Whether to have turkey or ham for our Christmas party at work. I mean, this constitutes a total work stoppage here. Serious stuff.
Shoo, I could not agree with you more. I hate meetings. If I have 3 in a week, I have a meltdown…and that is on the low end of my typical week. I have one sentence for meeting makers….Send me the memo.
btw…it’s nice to have you back.