No matter where you work, there's a good chance that you spend a sizable amount of time in meetings. These productivity killers come in different sizes, from the huge departmental or company-wide meetings, to smaller staff meetings, to individual meetings with your manager or parole officer. Every once in a while, you might learn something useful in these meetings, or maybe even take away a greater understanding of why things are being done a certain way. But for every one of those enlightening meetings, there are 100 other ones which seem to serve no purpose other than to slowly drain the life force from your body.
Let's start with the larger meetings. If you work in a small company, your "large" meetings might encompass a total of seven or eight people. However, if you work in a large corporation, these large meetings could hold several hundred people and require a sound system to keep the people in the back awake. If you have to go to a large meeting such as this one, you'll no doubt spend the next 60-90 minutes wishing you were Rosie O'Donnell's personal foot massager because that would be better than attending this meeting. But there are ways to make it through the meeting with your sanity intact.
The first key is to sit as far in the back as you can. If possible, in an entirely different room, especially if no one's paying attention. Do not, I repeat, do not sit near the front. Not only will you look like a suck up, but if there's even the possibility of unprovoked group interaction, who is more likely to be picked - the person sitting in row two, or the guy in the back of the room who can't be seen without a pair of binoculars? And don't worry about not being able to see - if there was anything vitally important being shown, they'd either hand out fliers or send an email with the information, they wouldn't expect you to memorize it.
The second key is to sit behind someone much bigger than you. Ideally, you want to plant yourself behind two people much bigger than you. This allows you maximum coverage from being seen by the speaker, thus allowing you to catch some z's during the meeting. And here is where it's important to sit in the back - if you're a snorer, you probably won't be heard by the speaker if you're in the far back. Not to mention the fact that you will definitely been noticed if you're nodding off in the second row.
Moving on, most of you have been subjected to staff meetings. These are usually meetings of 5-20 people who work with you, probably in a team environment. These meetings, while usually shorter than the large meetings, occur much more frequently and therefore are a bigger drain on your time and productivity, not to mention your sanity.
Most staff meetings occur once every week or two, or if you're one of the lucky ones, monthly. The staff meeting is usually led by your boss, or maybe a "Head Peon" or "Supreme Ruler of Peons" (read the archives if this makes no sense. Read the archives even if this does make sense). Often times, there is an "agenda," which is Latin for "Torture List." Your best bet for surviving staff meetings is to keep your mouth shut and don't look up. Eye contact is a big no-no. Any sign that you're paying attention or are at all interested in the subject matter will condemn you to participation. Ironically, one of the keys to surviving a large meeting carries over to the staff meeting - if you can find a large person to hide behind, you can catch a little shut-eye. Maybe not a full-blown nap, since your snoring will no doubt draw attention to yourself, but maybe an extended shutting of the eyes. Just be sure not to get caught; for some reason, napping during staff meetings tends to be frowned upon.
Finally, you have the smallest of all meetings - the individual meeting. Usually this occurs with your boss, or someone else in authority. The keys we discussed earlier on how to survive meetings are thrown out the window. There is zero chance of napping, zero chance of hiding, and a 100% chance of participation. You just have to suck it up and try to get through it unscathed and as quickly as possible. Things will usually go quicker if you don't ask questions or bring issues to your boss's attention. If you're lucky, these individual meetings occur once or twice a month at most. If they happen more than that, maybe it's time for a new job.
So what have we learned? We've learned that management would rather gather employees together to discuss things they perceive to be important instead of letting the employees do their jobs. We've learned that there are ways to survive these meetings. And we've learned that as disgusting as Rosie O'Donnell's feet probably are, it'd be better to massage them than to sit through another mind-numbing meeting.
Do you have any tips on how to survive meetings, or do you have any funny meeting stories? Post a comment and share them with us.
2 comments:
In my office, my team is split up, most of my team works in my building, and a few work at HQ about an hour away, including our team chief. So meetings for us are not only "productivity-killers", but for a few occasions every month, require two hours of driving just to attend one. For an example, the four team members at HQ drove up here for a 'no kidding' five minute meeting. So, if you are adding up man-hours, that would be about 8 hours and 20 minutes for a five-minute meeting. Not to mention all the information distributed at the meeting could have been sent via e-mail. I think Rosie O'donnell is sexy...don't you?
I remember a time when your boss new your name, birthdate and what you actually did.
A time when suggestions were a positive thing and you were reviewed on the efforts you
provided and the team work you shared. It was a time when the boss was not intimidated
by your initiative. However, now it's called, playing the game. Play the game and quickly move up the ladder. Question the ethics and do not pass go. Remember the
game, Mother may I... Welcome to the adult version... Manager, must I?
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