The Useless Meeting Wack Jobs

$$$$$exyGal writes "Have you ever attended a useless meeting? Are you the wack job who always ask the same (or random) question during an all hands with the hope that simply by asking, you're going to change something? Rands in Repose points out the difference between an informational meeting and a conflict resolution meeting."

Comments

My question

[savagedome]

I usually ask "Why are we having this meeting? No. Really". It never gets answered satisfactorily. Am I asking anything wrong??

Re:My question

[TopShelf]

Just keep asking, and a promotion is sure to follow. Then you can be the one at the head of the table, asking the same question...

Re:My question

[4of12]

I usually ask "Why are we having this meeting? No. Really". It never gets answered satisfactorily. Am I asking anything wrong??

Not at all.

Your question hardly takes any time and is the only source of entertainment at the meeting.

Re:My question

[imadork]

I usually ask "Why are we having this meeting? No. Really". It never gets answered satisfactorily. Am I asking anything wrong??

There's nothing wrong with that, unless you want to get promoted into management. Then I think your performance will be evaluated on the number of useless meetings you go to (and run).

I get invited to a ton of meetings every week, but always ask the person calling it if I really need to go. More than half the time, I was only invited because I was on the project distribution list!

Re:My question

[futuramarama]

I used to contract to a Fortune 500 company (though I didn't make anywhere near the money you'd expect from that), and we had these great weekly team meetings where our manager basically asked "Are you on target?" and we all just said "Yup, on target" (though we each had to phrase it differently to suit our individual personalities).

I never, ever, asked why... since it was easier to ask: 'ah, why not?'

Re:My question

[stilwebm]

The important thing with some meeting callers is not to ask, "Do I need to come?" but rather, "I may have a conflict, so how much does this pertain to me?" The conflict here is that you don't want to sit bored in a meeting when you could be getting ahead (or catching up) on a more important project.

Re:My question

[dotlively]

You could've been describing my last job. Except with that manager it was "Are we on track?"

If we answered with anything more complicated than "Yes" or "No" he would get all confused until we distilled it down to one of those.

We couldn't say we hit some snag that's taking a little longer and go on to describe what we were working on because then he'd respond, "So we're not on track." Then we'd say, "No, we are, it's just that ..." just to hear, "So we are on track."
Finally we'd just say, "Yes."

Meetings got shorter and shorter the more we understood about them. "Are we on track?" "Yep, sure are."

Why have meetings about projects if the managers really don't want to hear anything about the projects?

Re:My question

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

"The conflict here is that you don't want to sit bored in a meeting when you could be getting head"

I agree wholeheartedly.

Re:My question

[sql*kitten]

always ask the person calling it if I really need to go

How peculier. I always ask if there will be donuts...

obvious answer

[dan2550]

i think everyone hates meetings, but are too busy (attempting to)entainertain themselves to close their mouth and end the meeting. sorry to sound bitter. i am

Bingo!

[Channard]

Full House! Man, I love Buzzword Bingo... and that article pretty much filled my card up.

Re:Bingo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Full House! Man, I love Buzzword Bingo... and that article pretty much filled my card up.

It's not an "article." Journalists write articles. This "Rand" thing was some guy's "blog," which really should have been flagged as such by the presenter, thereby saving many of us a lot of time.

Re:Bingo!

[broller]

It's not an "article." Journalists write articles.

Let's look at the words, shall we?

Article: 1) Nonfictional prose forming an independent part of a publication

Journalist: 1) one who writes for a newspaper or magazine 2) Someone who keeps a diary or journal.

Welcome back to the new old journalism. When journalism began, it was much like definition 2. Some guy would write a treatise or his opinions of the world or society, and publish it for all to read. Years later this evolved into the traditional mass media, but the editoral page, or editoral minute from video news, remained. It is not enough to just present facts, readers want commentary too.

Generally traditional mass media publications are fact checked better, they check spelling and grammar better, and usually are more sucessful at hiding their [coporate] bias. If you're looking for facts only, taken with a grain of salt, traditional publications are the place to be.

In the last few years we've seen a resurgance of the original form of journalism. No longer is the independent journalist limited by what he can afford to publish or what the company's image will allow him to say. This is usually a rough style, whose facts shouldn't be taken at face value, but some would call it a more pure form of journalism.

If this resurgance of the old style wasn't considered valid journalism, Slashdot would be a lot less popular.

Meetings can be beneficial...

[bc90021]

...for instance, I've worked at companies that have them, and companies that don't. At the ones that don't, rumours and gossip often take the place of what little real information you would get at a meeting, and that can do a lot to foment discontent among the workers.

At the very least, at companies that have meetings, you have the opportunity to see people you might not otherwise see, maybe get some halfway useful information, and get some free donuts. ;)

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[b0r0din]

Obligatory "Mmmmmmm....donuts" reference.

I would disagree with several things about this article, though I agree about the wack job; he's always there. I had one at the last place I worked, he loved to talk and talk and ask extremely dumb and often went into a long story. Everyone in the room pretty much looked at each other like, "Jesus, won't he stop talking?" but of course that was useless...

I work in support, and I can say that meetings are good for keeping everyone up-to-date with policies, procedures, informing them of important deadlines, and encouraging everyone to work as a team to meet common goals and discuss areas for improvement. They aren't always a waste of everyone's time. There are obvious exceptions, of course, but companies are like ships; you have to constantly maintain them and avoid mutinies.

However, I'll also say that generally speaking, managers very seldom take others' input on anything, and when you make a suggestion, they often address it with a 'yes we're working on that' like you just tried to take their job from them by recommending something. If you're a manager, please try not being such an asshole. We're not trying to hurt your egos. We just want to help. This are why most people hate management.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[nycsubway]

I prefer rumors and speculation. It makes me think there is more to my job than there actually is.

_____________________________________

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[AppyPappy]

The worst is The Devils Advocate. He will argue one side and if he doesn't get the desired result, he will begin to argue the opposite side. These people are worthless and should be strangled as quickly as humanly possible.

When I worked at AT&T, we were given beepers. When we were called into a meeting (AT&T doesn't have small short meetings...they are always marathons), we would request someone page us in 10 minutes. If the meeting was worthwhile, we stayed. If it wasn't, we bolted. That was fine until everyone else started doing it and it looked like a bomb threat had been called in.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[lone_marauder]

At the ones that don't, rumours and gossip often take the place of what little real information you would get at a meeting, and that can do a lot to foment discontent among the workers.

This sounds like a version of the specious "communication solves everything" argument. The problem is that communication has no intrinsic value. The question is, how meaningful is the information being communicated? Consider this tidbit:

There are no plans to reduce staff following the merger.

How would you treat this information if you heard it in your current company? You would panic and flee. Why? Because most of us work for people who treat bullshit like it's an art form and avarice like it's a religious law. If we worked for people who were honorable, effective managers, then certainly more communication would be better, but it's plainly obvious that what's working in that case is not the communication, but rather the confidence.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[diablobynight]

The reason why we don't take your suggestions is because most people make them in an assaulting or inappropriate manner. Hey, I've got this problem, this is what we should do. Write it in an email, send it on, I'll read it when I have time and there in choose an appropriate course of action, possibly to discuss it in the next meeting. The problem is most people feel they have a right to their job, that it was owed to them, when in actuallity, their job is a priviledge.

Also, a fair amount of suggestions are horribly short sighted, or uninformed. Like, when IT suggest, well why don't we simply build systems in house for this job. Well because i have a contract with Dell saying I won't do that, and in return they cut the company a great deal on the other 300 pcs we have to buy and replace every couple of years, not to mention the parts and service waranties that automatically are updated to four hour on site, by having this contract.

We managers, in a finely tuned company, are supposed to have a better perspective of the whole than those under us, and I am not talking about operations managers, there just glorified paper pushers, essentially second lieutenants passing on orders from above and keeping track of payroll.

The employees have the view of a man in the field, as far as his eye can carry to the next hill.
front line managers, the lieutenants, at least get to stand on a hill, and see several of the hills in the battle, giving them the perpective of which of these hills to take.
middle management, Is far back, taking in all of the views of the liuetenants, and seeing the whole field, deciding which patches of the field to move the lietenants into.
Generals, upper management, are supposed to see the battle, like looking down from an aerial view, to see the whole countryside, and use their will and vision, to push the whole war in one direction or another.

This is how a company "should" function. Upper management has vision and direction with respect to the company in comparison to the outside world, middle management only sees enough of the outside world to understand the orders from above and how to carry them out, how to push that vision forward. Front line managers(operational), can't see the outside world, and only know the company, and of that they can see very little. The employees, they have their gun, their pack, and their told to charge up a hill, they see an easier hill to take to their left, and see many benefits to taking that hill in opposition of their orders and feel that their managers aren't making an appropriate decision, but that's only because they didn't know that the whole division just flanked left and their making it possible for the army to move forward as a whole.

sorry about all the millitary reference, but, I have a close connection to that kind of scenario.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[general_re]

The worst is The Devils Advocate.

You've obviously never worked for The Storyteller. The Storyteller will call a meeting, ostensibly as a means of assessing progress on the project du jour, and then turn it into a one man show about what he did on his vacation to Bimini, how his brother-in-law is particularly worthless, why he decided to go with forest green instead of black on his new car, the great/horrible movie he saw over the weekend, and so forth. Then, about 57 minutes into his one hour meeting, he'll glance at his watch and realize that time's almost up, at which point, he'll say something like "So, is everybody on track for this week?", which is everyone else's cue to lie about how well things are going. After all, The Storyteller didn't call this meeting to hear about your problems - he called it to tell you about some aspect of his personal life, and thereby tell you about his problems...

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Tassach]

The message "There are no plans to reduce staff following the merger" is a meaningful piece of information. You just need to know how to translate it from managereese into English.

In most cases, the proper translation is "We haven't made plans to lay anyone off yet because upper managment is still fighting it out. Once we figure out who won the power struggle, anyone hired by the losing side gets the axe." The other possible intrepretation is "We're so incompetent that we can't even figure out what redundant positions exist in the two organizations. Once we grow a clue we might be able to make some plans, if we can find someone with enough balls to actually make a decision."

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I worked at AT&T, we were given beepers. When we were called into a meeting (AT&T doesn't have small short meetings...they are always marathons), we would request someone page us in 10 minutes. If the meeting was worthwhile, we stayed. If it wasn't, we bolted.

I've had dates like that.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[pegr]

"Obligatory "Mmmmmmm....donuts" reference."

Reminds me of a sure-fire laugh getter for these meetings... After 2/3rds of the attendees arrive, grab two cinnamon roles from the donut pile, hold them vertically next to your ears and state "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi! You're my only hope!" Works for me, anyway... ;)

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Cutriss]

Also, a fair amount of suggestions are horribly short sighted, or uninformed. Like, when IT suggest, well why don't we simply build systems in house for this job. Well because i have a contract with Dell saying I won't do that, and in return they cut the company a great deal on the other 300 pcs we have to buy and replace every couple of years, not to mention the parts and service waranties that automatically are updated to four hour on site, by having this contract.

Well, if you actually tell your employees that, rather than throwing them some BS bone to go chew on, then you're already a few steps above most of the other managers out there.

Employees that can trust their bosses and feel like their bosses trust them have much higher morale (and productivity) than those who feel unappreciated or distrusted. If you just swat away your employees' suggestions with a careless remark or a counterpoint that everyone knows is BS, then you've become the manager that we all hate.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Vladimus]

Also, a fair amount of suggestions are horribly short sighted, or uninformed.

That's fine, but let employees know *why* the suggestion is shortsighted or uninformed. Don't just nod politely and say, "Uh-huh", then leave a subordinate wondering where their suggestion went.

Let us know. We're big boys. We can take it.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Jedi Alec]

He will argue one side and if he doesn't get the desired result, he will begin to argue the opposite side.

That's not a Devil's Advocate, just someone in dire need of attention. A Devil's Advocate is someone capable of anticipating what's not good about a plan, or what an opposing party might use as arguments in a discussion. Not that being a good Devil's Advocate is any better in terms of long term career opportunities than just being an attention-addict...

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[BryanQuinn]

I don't have a close connection to the military, but I find your analogy very accurate. Business is competetive and many of the skills honed in the art of war are applicable to business. Some of the best managers I've met were ex-military and could translate their skills to business.

It takes many things to have a successful business. There must be a clear strategy set by the top leadership. The strategy must be executed well by line management and middle management all the way down to individual functions and employees. A culture that allows for well-motivated and well-trained workers is essential for good execution. The organization as a whole must be disciplined to maintain this execution and focus. A company that is focused and disciplined applies that culture to its meetings and will meet for good reasons and run the meetings effeciciently.

If you think about Vietnam, one of the reasons that became such a disaster was that the military was dysfunctional in several ways: there wasn't a clear objective and strategy. Moreover, the military culture was stressed as many relatively unskilled draftees flooded into the system. With destabilizing pressure from the top and bottom combined with an entrenched defensive force, the US military was in a losing position. The objective wasn't clear, it wasn't even obvious they were losing for some time because it was too hard to measure.

If you find that meetings in your organization are a waste of time, there is something wrong: Either you are attending meetings you shouldn't be attending and you need to fix that, or your organization isn't focused enough to allow people to decide what meetings are relevant. It can be difficult to solve the latter problem as an individual change agent, unless you want to take a leadership position as others have said. The best path is to raise the issue with management, starting with your manager, but volunteer a solution instead of griping. Setting some meeting ground rules such as: clear objective, itemized agenda with time estimates, and defining a facilitator and note-keeper are key best practices. If you don't do these things, your meeting is at best a hallway conversation without clear action items. A meeting that has no action items is a waste of time.

Experienced managers will understand the issue and work to fix it. It does drive straight to the bottom line- more effective and efficient meetings means better use of time and that will equal better execution of the business model. If no one seems to understand the problem, you are in an immature organization and at some point you will have to deal with it.

The same analogy holds for a sports team. As a team you still need a good game plan, everyone needs to execute well, you need a culture, you have to communicate, and you absolutely must not waste time. This is all necessary if you want to be at your best and be able to win. If you don't want to be at your best and win, then why bother? Being unfocused and losing isn't any fun. So if your company doesn't understand this, you should look for a new company.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[GooberToo]

You missed the point. PHB's don't want to share the details with their people because soon, very soon, they will be making better, more informed decisions than the PHB. So, it's safer for their job to simply nod, feel good that they know more than you, and then completely ignore you.

Most PHB's may not know business or technology, however, they almost always know people. Which is usually how they got the job in the first place. By keeping their underlings ignorant, they can look better in the eyes of upper management. This works exctly as it did 200+ years ago. The kings prefer to have ignorant masses as they are much easier to manipulate and control.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[SharkJumper]

Amen. (couldn't resist)

Why? Why? Why?

I can follow orders like any other "soldier" in the company. But what I hate - really hate - is when I am asked to follow these orders blindly with no explanation. Tell me the Why of things. This will inform my future decisions. It will stop me from bringing the same types of issues to you all the time to await your royal decision. It keeps us from being at each other's throats all the time because we are both completely convinced that the other is a moron. And it is a good way to get your workers on track, thinking about the larger picture, aiming the company at that wonderful new mission statement that we had to learn about in a 2-hour meeting.

Also, it is a good way to start grooming your employees for their own management positions. Start training them for the broader view so that they will, in turn, be able to successfully guide their future employees and their little patch of company battlefield. Unless, of course, you are one of those that is so desparate to cling to your job that you are threatened by your own employees. If that's the case, I'd argue that you don't need to be in the position in the first place.

SharkJumper

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Moraelin]

In an ideal company, things would run that way. However, "real" and "ideal" are very often opposite directions on the compass.

In a "real" company, most often things are not like in your "but Dell cut us a deal on 300 PCs, translating into exactly X hundred dollars saved."

They're more like some manager declared a dysfunctional product as a corporate standard, because they got a 10,000$ discount. But that decision has cost the company about 2 extra man-years of expensive contractor programmer fees, just to work around the many bugs in that product. We're talking _hundreds_ _of_ _thousands_ of dollars lost, because of that 10,000$ discount.

Seen that happen twice. Literally.

Why did it happen? Because there that foot soldier knew the product and its limitations better than the manager. If the self-appointed "general" actually listened to the soldiers saying "this weapon can _not_ do that", things would have been far better.

You want analogies with the army? OK, I'll give you just two random examples:

1. The american civil war was a blood bath. Why? The minnie ball.

The grand strategic vision of the generals was built upon the past reality of the smoothbore musket. So everyone marched to the limit of the musket's effective range, neatly aligned, shot mostly for the suppression effect, then charged with the bayonets.

Now enter the rifles. An early rifle had three times the range of a smootbore musket. Not only that, but the hollow minnie ball would expand and break in the wound, causing a fist sized exit wound.

So those soldiers were ordered to march and align at a distance at which firing resulted in a bloodbath. Again, and again, and again. No matter how many times those soldiers saw the catastrophe happening, no matter how sickeningly high the losses, those "wise" generals stuck to their grand vision.

Maybe listening to a foot soldier wouldn't have been such a bad idea?

2. When France first got their Gattling guns, someone decided that it's an artillery piece. Based on its size.

So the soldiers were actually ordered to start firing it at 10 times its actual maximum range. By the time the enemy actually got in range, they'd be completely out of ammo.

Again: maybe listening to a foot soldier wouldn't have been such a bad idea?

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[cubicledrone]

There are no plans to reduce staff following the merger.

How would you treat this information if you heard it in your current company?

I would give up that entire year's salary if the announcement was made in a meeting of an entire department (or three). I would fold my arms and say (at elevated volumes):

"thanks for the information you lying cheat fuck bastard."

Then I would walk out.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[Austerity Empowers]

I understand the military analogy, I have however, never worked in company like that. I rabidly disobey orders that I perceive as stupid, and I not only continue to be employed but receive nice bonuses. I work in a company where I have to fix the managers mistakes. I think many people do.

My primary dysfunction with my current employment is that we are unable to undo the mistakes that matter, specifically the mistakes of upper executives who, in spite of our poor corporate performance, simply have not receive the cluons that their corporate strategy is flawed. They may see the whole battlefield as you say, but they see it as a tennis court, and the game we're playing is ping pong.

I am a manager now. I hope somehow I am able going forward to continue to keep the grunt perspective, because i think all truly good ideas in technology start there. I work for my employees, if 5 of them tell me I'm screwing up, I probably ought to think about it. That does not mean in meetings I have to immediately kowtow, but I should endeavor not to entrench myself in a position I will be unwilling to retract later.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[geekoid]

I worked for a story teller once.

3 hour meeting, entirley about his Navy experiences.
at the end he asks:
"So, why is everybody behind?"

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[geekoid]

funny, it told me there where going to be layoff before the merger.

Probably a deal with the incoming company.

Re:Meetings can be beneficial...

[sydb]

Of course the devil's advocate has to defend a position themselves. They have to defend the position of not doing what everyone else is blindly proposing. And if you can't see the benefit of analysing a proposal for flaws against the status quo, then I'm glad I don't have to work with you.

If everyone just went along with the flow then there would be all kinds of fuck-ups. Being constructively critical of a proposal can highlight serious gotchas, or expose a course of action as a management knee-jerk.

Last time I asked

[vpscolo]

Is this redundancy, they said no its a strategic realignment of the workforce to provide maximum efficency and flow. Then they made me redundant... Of course you can always play Bullshit Bingo
Rus

Uhhh...

[z0ink]

Is this a an Informational Thread of a Conflict Resolution Thread? You decide!

No mention of..

[Channard]

... the infamous 'Pre-meeting meeting' though.. *shudders*

Re:No mention of..

[eraserewind]

... the infamous 'Pre-meeting meeting' though.. *shudders*

You should set up a bi-weekly task-force meeting encompassing all departments to look into that.

Useless Wack Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't this refer to modding /. posts?

Most are Useless

[exi1ed0ne]

Meetings, in my experience, are "look at me!" sessions, or senior management telling you about the cool bill of goods some sales guy sold them that we have to now implement.

sure

[Thiago Ize]

All the time at Slashdot...

I always ask about outsourcing...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then subtly shift the discussion around to the dangers of the "heathen Chinee." It's such an archaic term that I can usually get half the staff agreeing with me before someone remembers a completely racist and crazy great-grandfather who used to natter on and on about "the yellow peril." It's fun watching people backpedal madly when they realise what I meant by "the wily vipers of the East." They always think I meant SCO or something and are harrumphing in agreement right up until I start raving about how no railroad was worth opening your shores to those shifty profiteers with their potions and inscrutable smiles.

God, I love being the boss.

Signed,
Your Crazy English Boss

Re:I always ask about outsourcing...

[Dun Malg]

then subtly shift the discussion around to the dangers of the "heathen Chinee."

Heh. I'm gonna try that one next time I'm stuck in a purchasing meeting. I reckon it'll take a long time for them to figure out what I'm talking about, since I am part Chinese.

Meetings, my experience

[heironymouscoward]

The good kinds of meeting:

1. For active projects, once per week to review status and plan work. Without face to face meetings, projects derail rapidly.

2. To solve problems, get the people or individuals out of their context, face-to-face for half an hour, give them attention, fix whatever's wrong.

3. To explain emergency situations: get the whole team to stop and sit down, listen, and work together on the next steps.

4. To sell an idea or plan: face to face with the customer, no presentations or power point, discuss the issues and use a flip board if you need to draw something.

And the useless kinds:

1. Anything with powerpoint.

2. Any meeting that is not for a specific project or problem.

Re:Meetings, my experience

[JaredOfEuropa]

A good list... I'd like to add:
Good ones:
5. Kick-off or alignment meetings. Basically just information exchange "So what is it we're going to do in this project?", and getting to know all key people involved. Very helpful, and doesn't need to be more than a quick rundown of the project and people introducing themselves in a few sentences. Go have a few beers afterwards with the group.

Bad ones:
3. Any meeting without an agenda. This applies to any type of meeting: whether you are discussing progress, issues, or just brainstorming, you still need an agenda.

The article goes on about how you're supposed to ferret out the agenda of a meeting, and how meetings often don't have one. Personally I have found the following method to be very effective: when the meeting starts, ask "What is the agenda? We don't have one? Lets make one first!". Jot down the agenda on a flipover.

I'm not a 'process' guy, really, but this particular method has won me over. It's a much more positive approach than determining which meetings you should get out of; instead, it will help you bring structure to otherwise hopeless and pointless meetings. The simple act of writing down the agenda for all to see, can turn a meeting destined for suckiness into a productive session.

Re:Meetings, my experience

[ClamBoy]

And just adding to this, the agenda needs to be an OUTCOME oriented agenda. Each agenda needs a target or result so that the person chairing the meeting can keep things on track. If your agenda item is "discuss x problem" you can discuss it forever. If you're intend is to solve the problem, then instead of "discuss" break and down and start the agenda with "identify probable causes of x problem". If you know what you have to accomplish during a meeting, then it makes it transparent who needs to be there, who doesn't and what they should be doing. Then when the meeting is over you can look back and see if you hit the target you needed to.

Re:Meetings, my experience

[Lozzer]

Everybody gets this confused. A good meeting is one without an agenda. A bad meeting is one without beer.

meeting for mission statemetnts

[Anonymous Coward]

The last meeting I attended was to decide our companies mission statement. I used something from Dilbert's mission statement generator and won!

My solution to "useless" meetings?

[CountBrass]

Easy.

Step 1, qualify all meetings before attending - do I *really* need to be there? Do I *really* need to be there for the whole meeting?

Step 2, if a meeting is drifting into uselessness - say something - eg "Are we finished dealing with (important things X,Y and Z)" people either agree we are and the meeting ends, or not and the meeting gets back on track.

Step 3, the ultimate sanction. If your presence at a meeting is doing neither you nor anyone else any good - don't be afraid to leave. You know, say you have some stuff to do, get up, and walk out.

And finally, never, ever bitch about useless meetings - people just remember you as a whiner - doesn't matter if you're right or not.

Re:My solution to "useless" meetings?

[Jetifi]

Also, never go to a meeting that has no agenda. If the meeting has a subject, treat it as a one-point agenda. Any offtopic points should be put on the agenda for the next meeting. This applies to all types of meetings.

betting pool

[Highlordexecutioner]

We take bets on how times my boss will say Action Item, Paradigm Shift and Mission Statement.

Re:betting pool

[gregarican]

I love Corporatespeak. The catchphrases and acronyms that are thrown out there to appear to be in the know. Here's a website that has something that I used to have up on my PC when the boss was on the phone with me. Trying to play the odds.

Alleviate the boredom

[Polkyb]

Bored during meetings? Why not try some of these neat little exercises, not only will it make meetings more interesting but your fellow workmates will become suddenly more alert and maintain a respectful distance:

During a meeting:

Discreetly clasp the hold of someone's hand and whisper "Can you feel it?" from the corner of your mouth.

Draw enormous genitalia on your notepad and discreetly show it to the person next to you for their approval.

When refreshments are presented, immediately distribute one biscuit to each of the attendees then systematically smash each one with your fist in front of them.

Wear a hand free phone headset throughout. Once in a while drift off into an unrelated conversation, such as "I don't care if there are no dwarfs, just get the show done!"

Write the words 'he fancies you' on your pad and show it to the person next to you while indicating with your pen.

Respond to a serious question with "I don't know what to say, obviously I'm flattered, but it's all happened so fast.

Use 'Nam style jargon' such as 'what's the ETA?', 'who's on recon?' and 'Charlie don't surf!'

Reconstruct the meeting in front of you using action figures and when anyone moves re-arrange the figures accordingly.

Shave one of your forearms.

Draw a chalk circle around one of the chairs then avoid sitting on it when the meeting starts. When someone does eventually sit on it, cover your mouth and gasp.

Turn your back on the meeting and sit facing the window with your legs stretched out. Announce that 'you love this dirty old town!'

Walk directly up to a colleague and stand nose to nose with him/her for one minute.

Mount the desk and walk along it's length before taking your seat.

Reflect sunlight into everyone's eyes off your watch face.

Gargle with water.

Repeat every idea they express in a baby voice while moving your hand like a chattering mouth.

Gradually push yourself closer and closer to the door on your chair.

Hum throughout.

Pull out a large roll of bank notes and count them demonstratively.

Bend momentarily under the table then emerge wearing contact lenses that white out your eyes.

Drop meaningless and confusing management speak into conversations such as:
'What's the margin, Marvin?'
'When's this turkey going to get basted?'
'If we don't get this brook babbling we're all going to end up looking like doe-eyed Labradors'

Produce a hamster from your pocket and suggest throwing it to one another as a means of idea-exchange.

Use a large hunting knife to point at your visual aids.

Announce that you've run off some copies of the meeting agenda for everyone. Then hand out pieces of paper that read:
My Secret Agenda
1. Trample the weak
2. Triumph alone
3. Invade Poland
Recollect them sheepishly and ask everyone to pretend they haven't seen them.

Attempt to hypnotise the entire room using a pocket watch.

Leave long pauses in your speech at random moments. When someone is prompted to interject shout 'I AM NOT FINISHED'.

Re:Alleviate the boredom

[CountBrass]

You forgot one off your list:

Pile your stuff quickly into a carboard box whilst security wait impatiently to escort you off the premises.

I remember Conflict Resolution. Pfeh.

[Faust7]

We had Conflict Resolution meetings in high school.

The "Conflict Manager," as they were called, actually followed a script for the meeting, from a paper in plain view of those in attendance (the two kids that were fighting).

I still remember the script (I had a lot of those meetings), and it went like this:

"So, you both agree that you are here to solve a problem?"
"Student X, what is it about Student Y with which you have an issue?"
"Student Y, what is it about Student X with which you have an issue?"
"Now, what can we do to resolve these issues?"
"Do you both agree to take the steps we have outlined here?" (Always "Yes.")
"Do you think we will need to see you two in the future?" ("No.")
"Well then, thank you very much."

And so it would be, until we fought again and were dragged into another Conflict Resolution meeting--held by a different CM this time, so as not to give the appearance of repetition. But like I said, I went a lot.

Useless meetings can be grounds for removal

[IV-Swamp]

My old boss was fired I believe solely on the basis that the engineering meetings we were having were useless. It was actually quit sad. He had the meetings mostly to just keep up with the progress of our assorted projects. The fact is all the projects were so distant from each other that most of us just sat around listing to
reports that had nothing to do with us for over an hour. If you manage well meetings can be kept to a minimum. Also their are so many project software packages out there (MS Project 2004 "shudder") that meetings are becoming more extraneous.

I love meetings

[kinnell]

You get to kick back and relax, get free coffe and biscuits, chat with people you don't normally see, and pretend your doing something important without actually doing the slightest bit of work.

Even better are foreign trips, which are the same, but you get an all expenses paid holiday to boot. And all this while earning a salary. It almost makes me want to become a manager.

Re:I love meetings

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

I wouldn't mind meetings like that. Seriously. what I get is no coffee, no biscuits, the people are people I see every day and I need to spend the time paying very close attention to make sure I don't end up with yet another job to add to my 4-dimensional priority-queue based schedule.

Refreshment-accompanied, novel, low work meetings would be job heaven!

my favorites

[jgabby]

My favorite meetings are the ones where the boss tells us "Okay, you guys get together and figure out how to do this." He then shows up to the meeting and proceeds to tell us what we're going to do. When we try to explain that there may be better options, he pulls out the "I've got 31 years of experience" card, and ends the meeting...

We just wait until he leaves the room and then get back to work :)

Try being a high school teacher

[secondsun]

Public educaiton in the USA is a wack meeting. First we teachers are given a few days of preplanning where we are at school working, but we have to go to about 8 meetings in 3 days to get caught up on the latest state imposed paperwork. Next you have the Superintendent showing up telling us what he would like to see without actually saying anything for about 30-45 minutes. Then when it is nearly over and he gets that I need a Subway look in his eyes someone raises her hand and asks the question... "Why do you think your ideas will change anything?" At which point any student caught pulling the fire alarm could easily get enough money from a collection from the faculty to hire a really scummy lawyer to get him out of trouble.

90% of the time spent in meetings..

[ArcticPuppy]

..could be used for something a 100% more productive. As a developer i get summoned to all kinds of meetings. I am one of the architects behind a rather large application that we sell to our customers. The most unproductive kind of meetings i am called to are the ones involving our sales people. About 20% of my time goes to sitting in meetings with our sales staff and prospects selling the solution. These are not prestudies, they are pure sales-meetings where a short demo is run, and some fancy acronyms get passed around. When confronted by the fact that i could spend my time far more productively doing my actual job, most of them stated that they dont feel comfortable on their own with our product (its moderatly complex). So this past week i spent a couple of afternoons teaching our sales-reps the system from the ground up, in the hope that they will be able to do things on their own from now on.
The other meeting time-sink are the weekly department meetings. Specifically the part where everyone has to tell everyone else what they have been doing the last week. This consists of 1-2 hours (we are 5 employees) of mind-numbingly boring monologues from people who like to hear their own voice. Please send help.

That's a good question

[Moraelin]

Actually, sometimes meetings serve a purpose. Or are planned that way. Sure, you could argue that we could have cleared the same question by email instead of having a two-hour meeting, but still. We could have just stuck to the point, explained the architecture to the client, or viceversa, answered a few questions, and been done with it.

But no. What I hate is the wiseguy that just has to ask _something_, _anything_, just to show participation. Among my "favourites" are(favourite poster children for euthanasia, that is):

- people who ask something that's been said before. Repeatedly. Bonus points if it's something obvious.

(Yes, for the 5'th time, we _are_ saving the data in an Oracle database.)

- people who, obviously, are stuck in a "misunderstand it" mental mode.

(E.g., no, just because there are two columns in the table, it doesn't mean you can only store two attributes. There's a reason why those two columns are called "key" and "value". It's for storing as many key/value pairs as you need. No, seriously. You can stop asking "what if we later need more than two attributes?")

- people who take some irrelevant detail -- often a tangent or metaphor used -- and, by Jove, they have to get that detail cleared out in detail.

(E.g., if we're discussing the workflow engine, you can jolly well stop picking on the exact font used in the dummy screenshots. Yes, you'll get any font you want, but you'll get it from the GUI team. Can we move ahead already?)

- the more extreme case of the above: people who ask something completely unrelated and completely irrelevant.

(Believe it or not, the "anyone else likes wood?" from a Dilbert strip actually happens in some real meetings. Just replace "wood" by some other completely irrelevant topic.)

- the client PHB who just is affraid to reach a conclusion, and instead just _has_ to show that he/she/it manages. So each time he/she/it will want something else wantonly changed.

(E.g., dude, we already gave you a template editor for those reports. Can we please, please, please not go yet again into whether to use landscape or portrait? Just use the editor and print them diagonally, for all I care.)

Re:That's a good question

[Short Circuit]

I guess you couldn't possibly work with someone like me.

I've got Asperger's (and a little bit of a chip on my shoulder), which is a form of mild autism that inclines me to do everything on your list except manage. ;)

You might suggest to your coworker that he get tested for Aspergers, and get perscriptions to help. I know mine help me a great deal. Of course, you're going to get an icy glare.

From personal experience, I'd guess that in person he goes O/T with every third sentence, even if you change topics with him every second sentence. He probably doesn't have much empathy skill (Mine aren't natural...I had to learn them from a therapist. She was overjoyed when I pointed out she looked preoccupied.).

If he does have empathy skill, or if he is attempting to improve himself, I can pretty much gaurantee he feels like shit every time he makes a mistake like the ones you mention. (It's generally a, "DAMNIT! I can't seem to do anything right!" internal reaction.) Give him a break. Offer him help. He needs it, even if he doesn't want to admit it. His self-esteem is artificially inflated, at best, and he feels it.

Hell, give him my email address. I'll talk with him.

Re:That's a good question

[lobsterGun]

(Yes, for the 5'th time, we _are_ saving the data in an Oracle database.)

That might sound like a dumb question, but I have worked ata place where they actually weren't saving the data. Oh, it LOOKED like it was being saved, but every couple of weeks disk space would get tight and one of the programmer/admins would purge the data he didn't think we needed. This went on for almost a year before anyone noticed what was going on. When confronted with his actions his response was, "Well I put in a request for more disk space, but never heard back about it."

And you know what happened to the guy??? NOTHING. He still works there. He's probably been promoted by now.

Re:That's a good question

[RetroGeek]

It's for storing as many key/value pairs as you need.

Some people just cannot grasp this concept. No, really.

Though I usually add a third column named "source".

Re:That's a good question

[surprise_audit]

My daughter has been diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, and you're right about the body language and social skills problems. Asperger's is essentially a brain "defect", where the brain simply doesn't have the same internal "wiring" as a so-called normal person and consequently she simply doesn't recognise other peoples' emotions or when she herself is being outright rude and obnoxious.

That said, there are side effects that *can* be treated by prescription. My daughter is something of a perfectionist, to the extent that she draws letters rather than simply writing, and she's constantly erasing and redrawing. This generally puts her behind with her schoolwork, which makes her anxious and then depressed. Since she started on Paxil, she's been much more stable, easier to "talk down" when she's uptight about something, and has been able to move from mostly Special Ed classes to mainstream.

Re:That's a good question

[ars]

It is possible to learn to read the facial expressions. There are various methods (flash cards) or use yourself for examples. Even if she doesn't learn all the expressions accurately, just knowing that they exist will be huge. It's like being able to hear after being deaf your whole life. Suddenly there's this whole other convesation going on in front of you that you didn't even know was there.

One other less commonly recognized symptom is difficulty recognizing faces. People may have a hard time telling if the person you are speaking to now is the same person as before (for example an employee in a supermarket). And TV is even harder. People close to you usually give more clues (voice, clothing, etc), and are not as hard. And forget about mug shots, or those lost kids pictures.

There is a specialized area in the brain for recognizing human faces, different from the one for recognizing objects. (So damage in the area for recognizing objects will not prevent someone from recognizing faces, and vise versa.) Aspergers clearly involves that area.

The goal is to learn to use the object recognition area on faces, specifically on body language. Which is possible, just learn the pictures as objects, meaning lots and lots of examples are needed, an example for every possible emotion, and type of face. (The number of variations you will need depends on how bad the aspergers is.)

As far as the perfectionisim goes, try to re-channel it. Get her to be perfect in something else about the paper rather then the shape of the letters. For example be perfectly on time, but not perfectly formed, or perhaps perfectly spelled. The perfectionisim is inate (it causes a great deal of satisfaction) but the specific thing to be perfect about is not. So you can pick something else - but something hard, or it won't count.

Saying things like - look you made a spelling mistake - all the words need to be spelled correctly, will start the process, then you need to actively not care about the shape of the letters. But be careful not to say "it's good enough", it need to be fine as it is, not fine despite how it is.

But be careful, so you don't wind up with both. How old is she BTW?

Re:That's a good question

[Short Circuit]

I was originally diagnosed with ADHD when I was five, and prescribed Ritalin by a doctor who'd been taken in by the hype at the time. They had be up to 20 mg three time a day before they realised it didn't do a damn thing for me.

When I was in 5th grade, I became suicidal, and ended up inpatient at a mental health clinic. They stripped me of medications and observed me. I was finally put on Risperdal(2 mg twice per day), Welbutrin and Clonodine. Within a year they'd switched me to Risperdal, Luvox and Welbutrin. Later, in high school, I was diagnosed with Aspergers, and I was switched to Welbutrin SR. (300 mg twice per day.)

I was delayed a year before entering primary school, since I was antisocial. I was in "Developmental Kindergarten", which other kids called "Dumb Kids." (They since renamed it to "Young Fives")

In primary school, I actively avoided making friends. (Hey, it was fun being miserable. All the people with authority felt sorry for you.)

In middle school, once I was on the Risperdal, I started becoming social. I made my first few friends. (People say middle school is hell for a lot of kids. It didn't seem any worse than elementary school, where I was trampled in a game one kid called "Smear the Queer")

In high school, I became good friends with most of my teachers. My freshman year wasn't any more painful than middle school was. In my sophomore year and later, other students respected me for my skills and abilities. I played a lead role in a play my senior year.

In college, I work as a student tutor. I like to think that all of my coworkers like me. I know I'm one of the most reliable of the tutors on staff, even if I am a bit vain in other circles. ;)

So there's my psychological medical history. Decide for yourself.

Re:That's a good question

[Anonymous Coward]

Har. Har. Responsibility and authority. The "guy" had the first, but not the second. He was responsible for keeping some HD space open so that whatever app could run. He did not have authority to fix the problem he needed to fix to do his job.

It happens to me all the time. A problem happens. I have a fix. I can't do it because it is not my call. Well, if it is not my call, why the **** am I responsible for fixing it?

Something like this happening is most often, IMHO, a sign of bad management. You've got incompetent manager here somewhere. Because obviously this guy's job was not setup correctly. Fix the manager and you will "magically" fix the problem. Strange, huh?

Except that in most cases, like in mine, the management refuses to be "fixed". They'd rather keep doing the stupid thing because they refuse to take professional advice from a professional they hired to dispense the advice. In the field that he is professional in. No amount of logic, written proposals, budget analysis, and common sense will budge them. ****** idiots. But then again, the business' clients are even bigger idiots so even if the stated purpose of the business has nothing to do with what they are (not) providing, money keeps rolling in. So yeah, who cares if thingamajig that is supposedly crucial to our job breaks. Who cares if the expert you hired to take care of the thing told you months ago, in writing, repeatedly, that thingamajig needs to be reset/fixed/replaced.

Blah. I am just somewhat annoyed. I was dumb enough to sign a yearly contract with my current employer. But in a few months, I am goooone. To a place that actually (gasp!) wants to know my professional opinion on things, and is giving the authority to fix things. All they want is results, and they trust me to give the results to them... :)

Re:That's a good question

[surprise_audit]

Sounds like you know more than most people about AS. She's now in 7th grade, was diagnosed privately while in 4th grade, but the school wouldn't even accept that there was a problem until we said the magc words "Due Process Hearing" to the State Board of Education. Suddenly they were falling all over themselves to get it sorted out and saying, "by the way, forget about due process and arbitration, we'll just agree to everything and ignore it because we don't have the funds."

She skipped most of 4th grade by refusing to attend school (and no, we couldn't have dragged her there without chaining her to a desk) but she still went into 5th grade with straight A's. Some semi-official home tutoring helped there.

She's done the thing with flash cards and is now reasonably proficient at mood recognition, though she still occasionally says something insulting and can't see why it hurts - after all, she just telling it like it is... As for channelling the perfectionism - she just made 7th grade Spelling Bee champion because her spelling is nigh-on perfect... She's also not averse to injecting some humor into her homework. Last night she was looking up and typing definitions for words, one of which was "irony", and she wondered why I started laughing. I told her to Google for "Blackadder" and "irony" - she found "irony - like goldy and bronzy, only made of iron", so that's what she used. She also added, at my suggeston, "It's ironic that dictionary.com has almost this exact definition."

Re:That's a good question

[lobsterGun]

Nope. That manager is long gone...but for a completely different reason. The guy had a temper problem. Eventually he blew his stack one too many times and was dismissed. It's long enough ago that I can't remember precisely what set him off, but the end result was him going bat shit crazy on one of the vending machines in the break room.

They changed the locks when they let him go.

Re:That's a good question

[sql*kitten]

This went on for almost a year before anyone noticed what was going on. When confronted with his actions his response was, "Well I put in a request for more disk space, but never heard back about it."

He did the right thing. Presumably, his job was to keep the system up and running, no matter what. He asked for the resources necessary to do his job, his manager didn't respond, so he did his best.

It's like blaming a DBA with no budget for tapes for not taking backups of the database. We're good, but we can't spontaneously create matter from nothing...

Re:That's a good question

[lobsterGun]

The problem with the situiation was more that he didn't tell anyone that he had been deleting their data and he didn't really follow up with the purchase request for the drive space. Had he done either of these things the situiation could have been resolved without nearly as much heartache.

Asking the same question.

[gregarican]

There's a quote I recall. Not sure of who the originator is. Perhaps a 12-step thing:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, only to expect different results.

This was always something I keep in mind when performing IT frontline troubleshooting. But thank God I am not one of the PHB's who need to keep this in mind when in pointless meetings. Which reminds me of another quote that was said during my days of working for a Fortune 500 company while at their CHQ in meeting after meeting.

Me: You guys have meetings all day. How do y'all get any work done in between?

PHB: That's the idea!

Regarding the useless,

[w.p.richardson]

Let us not forget the "team-building" meeting. Nothing like hanging out with people from work that I can barely tolerate during the work day on my own time. Yay!

Re:Regarding the useless,

[VdG]

Often, there'll be the offer of some booze as an incentive to people to attend with a show of willingness.

Of course, after a few beers you're that little bit more likely to tell your cow-orkers just how much you revere them.

Language IS hard.

[Aaron_Pike]

From the article:

Meetings are always going to be inefficient because language is hard.

As clearly demonstrated by the writing in this article.

This Rands person has some very good points. Still (and feel free to mod me down for saying so), it's hard to take advice on organizational makeup from someone who gets "here" and "hear" mixed up. (That being said, I think I'll carefully check my grammar and spelling before I post this...)

Depends

[Anonymous Coward]

It really depends on what people are attending the meeting, and that the goal is with the meeting.

In my firm (not mine, but I like to think so) - we conduct a friday meeting, where the different departments talks about issues, something to be changed etc. It's my understanding[1], that it's always the bosses that are talking, and even when they try, they really can't wring out information from the employees. Especially if it evolves feelings etc. (say a personal/professional conflict).

So it depends on people, and how much they 'believe' in the firm. Ie. are they ready to admit their faults/fault regarding a case, and are they willing to take a punch to get it resolved. Usually it turns out that the bosses have to spy around to detect such thing, or get the information from a third party.

The meetings I attend (which is mostly with the bosses) are on a different level. I have never attended such meeting without getting a issue resolved - simply because I do not fear for my position. I always have the studies to fully concentrate on, and the job salary after done studying is much better than my current. So the position of the employee matters a lot, and what personality they have.

It's strange, that in a small company like 'mine' (we aren't more than 12) - the communication is still lacking in many areas, and conflicts are allowed to reach an unpleasant level before steps are taken to resolve it.

[1] I don't participate in these meetings, since I'm studying at that time.

What I've learned about meetings

[pudge_lightyear]

I work for a meeting-happy fortune 500 company and here's what I've learned about it. The only way to stay out of pointless meetings is to not have them happen in the first place!

There are many people in depts that I work with who meet 8-5 monday through friday. These people constantly try to include you in meetings and frequently try to set up recurring meetings (the real beasts). You can sit through these things and try to be "cutting edge" or you can sleep... or whatever, but there's always the same outcome. Nothing gets done. This is because these people live to meet. That's what they identify their importance at their jobs by... "Whooo... it was a busy day... I HAD MEETINGS ALL DAY!!!"

Ok... here's how you do it. If it's a customer in the company (or another)... you HAVE to do the following:

1. ALWAYS APPEAR BUSY - of course you're not... but you have to give this impression. They know that as a developer, your time is important... and if they think that the meeting will really set you back, they're less likely to schedule it.

2. If it's more of a when can we do it meeting... take care of it (or start and have the answer to it) before you get there. This leads to shorter meetings. Then remind them... "I'm busy... I have to get back and work."

3. A recurring meeting is something you fight as though your life depended on it. These things will suck the life out of you... do whatever you can to convince the customer this isn't neccessary.

There you have it... not the complete list, but a good start.

I have a personal 10 minute rule

[spottedkangaroo]

I resent it when I get pulled into a meeting. People know this. So if they pull me into one it's usually for a good reason.

Now, here's my rule. If a meeting lasts more than 10 minutes it's wrong. If the meeting get's to the 5 minute mark and we have not yet accomplished anything, I take over the meeting, determine what needs doing and split it up. I then declare the meeting over.

You should never ever do something at a meeting. You talk about what needs doing, briefly and then go back to work.

My company is not very corporate... I'm told it's worse at big companies. I can't imagine how people can stand it.

that article felt like...

[dmeiz]

a pointless meeting.

Too much BS in meetings

[NLG]

My previous boss loved meetings because she never wanted to have to do any real work. A meeting was a place for her to gossip, chat, eat and waste other people's time. Anyone she didn't like would get chewed out or have crappy assignments piled-on during meetings.
It is my belief that most meetings really are time-wasters, existing only to reinforce the self-importance of those in charge.
When my boss was told to start rotating the chair for the Employee-of-the-Month selection committee between us supervisors, I ran them with an iron fist when it was my turn. Since I was also expected to complete all of my usual duties as well(salaried means no overtime), I interrupted anyone who got off-topic and brought them back to what we were doing. I may not have made friends that way, but I cut 3 two-hour donut-fests a month down to two separate 30 minute meetings per month.
When her boss found out from another department head who sat in on the meetings how I had taken charge, he decided he liked my methods and promoted me to another department. He apparently also told my now old boss to cut out all non-essential meetings and keep any meeting she had down to a half hour. Was she PISSED. :)

Meetings? Why not!

[oujirou]

In our company, which has several offices across the globe, meetings are the most longed-for events of the day. They last for at least three hours every day, and at least half of the staff participate.

Needless to say, meetings are held in yahoo conferences with an occasional videocam. Most view them as the everlasting Developers vs. Marketroids struggle, but I find them fun. Well, at least we can laugh all we want at them and they will never hear us unless we will use the mike, which we won't.

Not to mention that typing a lot is tiresome for many people and it's much more often that something really useful is discussed in a conference -- and the 'meetings' are all logged for future reference -- without all the bragging and self-show typical for live meetings.

Posted in my office

[COredneck]

I have a sheet of paper posted prominently in my office. It is a parody of holding meetings and shows my feelings about almost all meetings being a waste of time.

Are you Lonely ?

Don't like working on your own ?
Hate Making Decisions ?

Then Call a Meeting !!!!

YOU CAN...

• SEE people
• DRAW Flowcharts
• FEEL Important
• IMPRESS your collegues

All on Company Time


MEETINGS

The pratical alternative to work.

Two simple rules

[Dr. Evil]

(With bad project managers)

1. If you raise a point, you own it
2. Tasks are assigned to people not present (unless you raised a point)

So be sure to show up and be quiet. Pay attention or you may miss an opporutnity to have tasks assigned to somebody who isn't present.

the ARTICLE is as big a waste of time

[asr_man]

...as a meeting. If you want entertaining cynical hummor about how to suffer meetinghood, read the "Meetings" chapter in The Dilbert Principle. This article is a crude imitator's windy first draft by comparison.

And yes, 90% of the time is wasted if you take a narrow "information transfer" point of view. It isn't. Steven Pinker said it best in The Language Instinct:

" Human communication is not just a transfer of information like two fax machines connected with a wire, it is a series of alternating displays of behavior by sensitive, scheming, second-guessing, social animals."

(We might add superstitious, egocentric, paranoid, deluded, projecting, as the case may be.)

Re:Keeping informational meetings short...

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Not serving food or drinks cuts out the obligatory social time that takes up the first 15 minutes while we finish our danish

On the other hand, serving lots of liquids and having a "no bathroom break" policy can help cut meetings short...

Planted questions

[gosand]

Recently went to a mandatory *shudder* all-employee meeting because the VP was in town. Big, big company. Anyway, the morning of the meeting, the head of operations comes around, and he hands me a slip of paper. It has a topic on it. It seems like nobody asks questions at these meetings, so they decided to hold a "focus group" to come up with questions. Then they took those questions, and gave them to people to ask.

I was surprised by the whole thing, so I didn't get a chance to say no. I was actually given a topic, not a question. "The use of the rating and ranking system in the company" They use a ratings and ranking system in the company, commonly known as "rank and yank" where all the managers have to rank their people from 1 to N. Then all the managers get together and put their lists together, aka horse trading. Eventually, there is a top 15%, bottom 15%, and middle 70%. I decided that I wouldn't just ask what it was, I would ask them a hardline question about it. Something along the lines of "Why did we choose to implement a rating and ranking system, even though the only people it really benefits is upper management?"

Well, the meeting ran long, and some of the planted people got to ask their question, but not me. Wow, you could really tell that the questions were planted too, it was embarassing. So after the meeting, I talked to the op director and asked why they didn't just give the questions to the VP instead of making it seem like people were just coming up with them? He said that it was the VP's idea to plant the questions in the audience, and he did know what they were going to be. He just wanted it to look spontaneous.

I still can't quite believe it.

Worst sound in a meeting

[fr0dicus]

(with a nod to rands)

HLUAGHLUAGAGLHAUG

one hour

[plopez]

No meeting should ever last more than an hour. THe individual calling the meeting is responsible for defining the agenda, which defines the information and the problems to be solved. Everyone needs to know why they are there and what to expect. If neccessary discussion is moved off line once the stake holders are identified.

THese rules are so simple I can't understand why supposedly educated and experienced managers can't get it right. It is a simple organiizational task.

Sometimes an hour is too short and it dribbles over to 1 hour and 15 minutes. I don't think I have had a 2 hour meeting I was running in years.

If you are not the person calling the meeting demand an explicit written agenda, tell the person calling that you have some important tasks to do right after the meeting and if it is going poorly push to have the discussions taken off line of from sub-committess.

Simple organizational principals which work over 90% of the time.

Refuse to attend meetings with no agenda

[swb]

Parent is dead on, and I'd take it one step further: don't attend meetings that have no agenda if you can at all avoid it. There are some "crisis" meetings that cannot be avoided, but if you get called to a meeting ALWAYS email the meeting organizer and ask for an agenda -- "Reply to all" can be you friend here, because it puts the "public eye" on the meeting caller.

If they reply with something vague or don't reply at all, you're off the hook. If someone asks why you weren't at the meeting, you can just say that that you were busy with X and that the agenda had nothing to do with your projects.

There's no escaping some meetings (called by bosses, crises, etc), and sometimes a meeting without an agenda gets called specifically to submarine people who won't attend an agendaless meeting ("We met yesterday and discussed your project..."), but not participating unless an agenda is prepared can definitely help prevent yak sessions where nothing gets done.

Dog and pony shows of your stupidity

[austad]

I used to work at this company that had meetings all the time. People were meeting happy. I finally realized it wasn't because they actually needed to have them, but because everyone was extremely lazy and clueless and wanted to look busy enough not to be fired.

When something would break somewhere in the organization, *EVERY* manager would get on a conference call together. So you have 20 managers on this conference call, and no tech guys. So, you have 20 people, clueless about technology trying to theorize where the problem lies. Then, they would call random tech people and *MAKE* them reboot machines and network equipment until the problem went away. Even if someone found the problem, it was always "try rebooting first, that will fix it faster".

A meeting was also where it was decided that putting an IP Stack on the old Novell 3.51 fileserver was too dangerous, and they needed to continue to use IPX (and make me route it on their already fucked up network). But, they needed it backed up and the backup software needed the IP stack. So, they ran a script every night that installed the IP stack, did the backup, and then uninstalled the IP stack. Fucking brilliant.

Any meeting where a new project or new equipment was being ordered for something was attended only by managers. When one of them would make a suggestion, everyone would just agree because it sounded to them like a good idea. "Hey everyone, we're having trouble with this application we built which originally worked over dialup, but now that it's on the network, data comes back too fast and it crashes". So instead of just fixing their damn app by increasing the buffer size, they tell us (the network guys) to SLOW THE NETWORK DOWN for the app.

There's a poster on despair.com that says "Meetings - None of us are as dumb as all of us"

Under an hour

[jefu]

I've found that an effective technique to keep meetings under an hour is to schedule them right. Scheduling a meeting for 4pm doesn't work as people don't seem to mind sticking around late. But schedule a meeting for 11am and everyone wants to get out to lunch. Works like a charm.

Yes

[El]

I remember the CEO coming out to give us a pep talk on how great the comany was doing and that we should all just keep working hard. My one question was "So, are you personally buying or selling your stock in the company?" Not only did he not answer the question, he seemed downright pissed off at me...

If your bored...

[Bendebecker]

You can always play "Boardroom Bullshit Bingo". You get all your co-workers together and set up cards like in bingo. However, instead of the usual numbers, what you do is fill in each space in the sheet with a timeless phrase of managment bs such as "out of the box", "synergy", "maximizing potentional", or any phrase that has the word 'motivation' in it without the word 'money'. You then set up an agreed upon sign to alert the others when you have won (for example: tapping the table with your pencil) since shouting 'bingo' in the meeting would not only look odd but also would alert the management as to what is really going on. Then during the meeting you all sit and look like you're paying attention and wait for the manager/management to start the spouting. As each phrase is uttered, you cross it off and hope for the win.

Wow.

[mindstrm]

Let's not put too much blame on the guy asking the out of place question.. though I know we all focus our blame on him at hte time. If his question is out of place, it should not be answered at that time.. rather, the person with the answer should say "We don't need to do that in this meeting, come see me after" or whatever.

Meeting Tip # 4

[ubeans]

If the meeting starts with an Org chart, get the hell out.

Email is NOT always an alternative

[jtheory]

Wonderful parent post, though I'm going to argue for a different alternative to the big hopeless meeting.

Sure, you could argue that we could have cleared the same question by email instead of having a two-hour meeting, but still.

It depends on who you're working with, obviously, but I've found that often a meeting is a MUCH faster way to resolve something than email. An remotely complicated issue can be better figured out face to face.

People often don't realize their faulty assumptions, and will write out a whole email based on that one flawed idea -- and once they've spent that much time working out a solution, it's damned hard to rewind them all the way back to the beginning, ESPECIALLY in an email where you have to walk on eggshells to avoid insulting people (and you're going *nowhere* after that happens).

My usual answer is the "unofficial" meeting, where no invitations are sent and max 3 people are involved. Then as soon as the invalid assumptions get trotted out, I can offer up the confused-but-trusting look and tactfully sort that out before we go on. And I can MOVE ON as soon as I see that we're all on the same page again, which is also impossible via email.

I'm with you all about larger meetings... most meetings with more than 4-5 people are doomed unless the format is really locked down and there's someone running the thing who's really on-track and not afraid to shut down the jokers, the random-question-generators, the class-participators, the eternally-befogged, the story-tellers, the tangent-surfers, the argument-incitors, the pickers-of-nits, and all the other highly-valued team members that can't be left out because they're, well, on the team. Unfortunately, that's a rare occurance indeed.

Re:Email is NOT always an alternative

[Moraelin]

Well, it depends on what's discussed, obviously.

Some meetings really need to stay meetings. You're right there. And keeping it small and on track would be very nice too.

But, I don't know, IMHO there's also a lot of stuff could just as well be solved by email.

E.g., "unidirectional" meetings. I've been in meetings where only the boss talked for 2 hours straight. No suggestions were even expected, or even within our expertise. Same as watching the news on TV: you're not actually expected to voice your feedback.

While I definitely appreciate the feedback from above, I see no real reason why it needs to be a meeting instead of an email. Attach the powerpoint presentation to it, if you really must have one, and there you go. It's still the same information, it's easier to follow, and takes far less time for everyone.

Re:Email is NOT always an alternative

[HD Webdev]

Yes, it really does depend on what is being discussed or decided. Often though, it's difficult in advance to make the call.

Here is a nightmare example of an email meeting over a billboard (large outdoor) design.

Being new to the subtlties of email meetings vs face-to-face ones I agreed with my partner graphics designer to have the design emailed around until it was approved. A simple problem to be solved right?

No. This design was bounced around for 3 months with touch-ups and/or complete redesigns every 1-2 weeks. Then, the billboard in question was leased by someone else which meant the whole design was useless since our next available billboard was of a different size and shape.

After another 3 months of designs, modifications, etc... went on we FINALLY had the design that the principals liked.

One week later, I get an email that said (paraphrased) "The billboard lease company wants too much to use their board so go ahead and forget about the whole project".

Because of the case above, and with my experience now, I realize that the whole design & approval process could have been finished in one day. We should have created several designs in the morning and had a 2-3 hour meeting that afternoon. Those 2-3 hours would have been spent tweaking the chosen design at the meeting and approved immediately.

Instead, we ended up spended several hours a week responding to emails & making design changes only to find out the whole thing was a waste of effort.

The one thing I did like about what happened in that case is that for the short time before I quit that company, any time someone asked us why we were running behind on any particular project my answer would invariably be 'We're still trying to catch up from the 100 or so hours we spent on the billboard project'.

Another Obligatory Dilbert Reference

[Phemur]

Reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon:

PHB: We're having a meeting to discuss employee retention.
Dilbert: Tell them that employees quit because there are too many useless meetings.
PHB: We won't be getting into reasons at the first meeting

Phemur

So, like,

[Duhavid]

did they know there was this discount with Dell?

Prolly not. So, why do you have to dis them when they offer what looks like a good suggestion when viewed from their viewpoint? Why dont you share that "better perspective"? We are not dumb, you know. And you might get a few good ideas from it ( dont pass them off as yours, though, be man / woman / whatever enough to give credit where it is due. ). It's a whole lot easier to charge that hill when you know that the hill to your right is also being taken. It is easier to hold there in the face of resistance when you know there is another unit you are supporting. And what, aside from your ego, or making you look important enough to keep, is stopping you?

The reason most of you "managers" get where you are is not because you are inherently superiour. You got on the bus earlier, and where lucky enough to get a good seat. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but it is little different than the old "divine rights of kings" arguments handed out during the aristocratic days to support the failed notion that the King should rule.

As to the "right to a job", I ask you, are you any better? I'll bet you think your "management position" entitles you to a thing or two. Examine yourself.

RE: The military slant. It's all fine, but recall that the should be making sure that his/her/its subordinates have sufficient knowledge to step into his/her/its role in the case he/she/it is removed from that position. Anything less is not acceptable. Now in business, the need is different, but if you arent tring to bring along to your level those currently subordinate to you, then I would argue you are not doing your job. It only works because most of the other "managers" out there are not doing it either.

Also, you need to watch out for the command from the rear problem. The people at the front *know* what is going on in front of themselves better than you do, and Hitlerian rantings from your bunker about holding till the last man will kill morale and make your team far less effective.
Know why Rommel was such a good General? He spent a fair amount of time at the front. Yes, he spent time in the rear as well, but he moved down to the front to see what was going on before he made his moves. I would love to meet *one* business leader who did that. ( Yeah, and maybe you could live in a cubical, before you tell me that it is good enough for me. I *might* believe you then. )

Have an agenda. Period.

[silverbax]

Having worked for a few large and small coporations, one of the biggest indicators of the corporate culture is how the meetings are conducted.

For one company, when I was in a management position, it was drilled into us not to come to a meeting without a specific agenda. If there was no agenda, there was no meeting. Period. Do not call a meeting unless you are actually attempting to do your job better.

For another company, meetings followed no timetable. They would drift in and out of discussions, and often the people invited to the meeting shouldn't have all been in the same meeting. You can't have the marketing people trying to hammer out strategy while the tech guys are trying to figure out how to make the products link up.

Some companies only have meetings to convey information. Sometimes these are large meetings designed to look like town meetings, but just as the article stated, only a few idiots believe that. I try to avoid these meetings. You want me to get some information about the company? Send me an email. I don't care if nobody else reads it, I do and I don't lose two hours out of my day.

My meeting rules, from my personal experience:

1. Don't go to any meetings unless you have an agenda. It doesn't have to be printed out, but you need to have some goal for the meeting beyond just sitting and talking.

2. Do not have mixed dept meetings unless it's a getting-to-know-you meeting. If it's a meet-and-greet, then say so up front. Every time someone tries to divert the meeting, just say "Let's table that discussion for a more focused meeting". You don't want the sales people talking shop while the tech guys are staring into space and vice versa.

3. Some people work by talking, some work by doing. This isn't a statement of laziness; it's just that different jobs require different interactions. Programmers work by sitting at their desktop writing code. Marketers work by grouping together and talking through their concepts. Don't confuse meetings with work when it isn't,but also don't assume meetings accomplish nothing.

Some groups DO have meetings all day and they DO accomplish something. For most tech guys, any time away from networking or hacking is time lost.
But if you're a tech and you call a tech meeting to brainstorm architecture for a new project, that's still worthwhile work. It goes both ways.

How to get out of any meeting

[mr_resident]

As one of the few people in this corporation who is willing to get involved in fixing things, I'm often asked to sit in on meetings so the dept heads can "pick my brain", or as it more commonly know "take credit for my ideas".

I've gotten in the habit of responding to these e-mailed or phoned requests by saying, "I'd be happy to attend but, I was in an industrial accident some years ago. Many people find my appearance....disturbing."

Works every time.

Re:How to get out of any meeting

[Mandomania]

Diarrhea is another sure-fire excuse that can get you out of ANYTHING, not just work meetings.

"Son, I'd like you to come out with me and your future step-mother. I think you might have gone out with her older sister, so it'll be a blast!"
"Sorry, Pop. I'd love to, but I have explosive diarrhea and I'd hate to gross out anyone."
"Sure Son, we'll, um, get together some other time."

"Developer, we need you to come to our maximizing strategy meeting so we can shift some paradigms and build motivation."
"Sure thing, Boss. Can we make sure to get the meeting room next to the bathroom? I've got a terrible case of exploding diarrhea and I've had a couple of close calls today. I haven't crapped on the chair yet, but the day is young."
"Um, you know, if we have any questions we can just conference you in. Thanks."
"No sir, thank you."

Problem solved :).

Useless Meetings

[painandgreed]

I do desktop support and at one job I was asked to go to about 8 hours worth of database meetings each week that I had nothing to do with. For the first couple of weeks, I tried to pay attention and input my opinion, but I found I really had no opinion on what they were doing with the various tables. I was sort of upset that I couldn't actually be doing work during this time but the boss insisted that the entire team be there.

Eventually I settled into playing chess on my palm Pilot at all these meetings. Eventually, somebody raised a questions about what was said several hours earlier in th meeting and somebody said "Ask Marc, he's taking notes." While I was slowly realizig they were talking about me and came out of my chess game, my co-worker looked over at what I was doing and anounced "He's playing chess!" Everybody just shruggd and went back tot he meeting. From then on I stopped gong to said meetings and stayed in the office doing work and nobody ever ever bothered me about it.

Does it Matter?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Does it really matter if the meeting is useful or not? I get paied the same if I spend all day in useless meetings or if I spend the day being productive.

No meetings as awful as talk-show host mtgs

[ajd]

I was a producer at a public radio station in the Midwest. This means that every staff meeting was filled with middle-market talk show hosts whose one marketable feature is that they love to talk and talk. Those are some awful meetings. One goes on and on, then the next one feels they haven't been listened to then the next. Man, it's painful.

My favorite question to ask in a meeting ...

[pauljlucas]

... or anywhere really is: "What problem does this solve?" Back in my Bell Labs days, one of my mentors used to ask this question of me a lot whenever I proposed an idea. It used to annoy me, but I've come to realize the value: it cuts through all the nonsense of useless ideas. It forces the proponent to state the actual benefit and get to the bottom line.

When I ask this question of others, I usually at least get several seconds of stunned silence in response. Asking this question of others often tends to annoy and frustrate them just like it used to do the same to me, so it won't make you friends with them, however. But it sure cuts through the crap.

How to get out of meetings

[forkboy]

When I was a a tech for Global Crossing, we had text pagers that any servers we were responsible for would send error messages to. Most people kept them on vibrate as the beep was really annoying. I was on the security team, so the IDS also paged me when a certain threshold of suspicious activity was received.

Anyway, if a meeting dragged on for too long and seemed useless, I'd pick up my pager, look all freaked out, and hurry out of the room. This trick caught on with most of the admins. Management thought we were so dedicated to our network.

Missing Lines

[Nintendork]

"I still remember the script (I had a lot of those meetings), and it went like this"

Please allow me to fill in those gaps! *grin*

Conflict Manager: "So, you both agree that you are here to solve a problem?"
Conflict Manager: "Student X, what is it about Student Y with which you have an issue?"
Student X: "Student Y keeps giving me shit for using Windows and fueling the evil empire even though I didn't pay for it."
Conflict Manager: "Student Y, what is it about Student X with which you have an issue?"
Student Y: "Student X is a fucking tool and a n00b for not being 31337 enough to love the process of mastering Linux, FreeBSD, or any other Open Source OS."
Conflict Manager: "Now, what can we do to resolve these issues?"
Student X: "Nothing. Nothing at all. Student Y's bigotry will go on until he grows up and breaks away from the Slashdot herd mentality. Everyone being 'different' and 'noble' like some new age vegetarian in a futile, destructive effort to sculpt self image and core beliefs."
Student Y: "STFU n00b"
Conflict Manager: "Do you both agree to take the steps we have outlined here?"
Student X: "What steps?"
Student Y: "OMG, a future PHB!"
Conflict Manager: "Do you think we will need to see you two in the future?"
Student X: "That depends on how much abuse and belittlement I can take."
Student Y: "Not if n00b over there finally realizes that his kind is soon to be extinct as Linux continues to dominate the market and keeps making Microsoft ph34r!"
Conflict Manager: "Well then, thank you very much."

Please note that the poster does not have anything against Linux users. Rather, the poster (a former Mac evangelist and current NT, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris user) has something against people that are closed minded due to an elitist attitude. I could have just as easily replaced OSS with MacOS, BeOS, or OS/2 for that matter.

-Lucas

Playing Devil's Advocate to a Devil's Advocate?!!

[joggle]

Hurry, someone strangle him immediately!!!

quit or exit

[lacrymology.com]

I once attended a meeting where the PHMs spent 40+ minutes arguing over whether to use the word 'exit' or 'quit' for the product GUI.

I think we wound up using 'close'.

-m

Get to the point...

[chuckw]

So I read the entire article and then I realized... the joke's on us...

$100 an hour

[beforewisdom]

A time management list I subscribed to warned people about frivilous meetings( power point slides, meeting to be seen and look impressive etc )

A meeting of 10 people each each earning an average of 50K year costs $100 an hour.

This applies to email as well. I spend a lot of time typing out answers to questions in email ( everyone likes to have a "receipt for my answer")

IMHO any cost/efficency conscious business person should teach people to ask themselves the following questions when requesting information:

1. what do i want to know or what do I want to communicate?

2. what is the fastest way for me to ask/tell my point and what is the fastest way for those I am communicating with to respond?

Steve

Will anyone even see this?

[roman_mir]

I am posting too late for anyone to see but anyway. At my last job we had some useless meetings happenning sometimes so at one of them I just decided to stenograph, take notes on what people are saying. Of-course it is funnier to me since I know these people, but still, here it is:

Meeting: Architect, VP, PM, BA, Tester, DBA, QA Manager, Developer1 (me), Developer2.

1. Architect is going over the use cases, he is saying: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah, blah.

PM: What? OK.

2. BA: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

3. Architect: blah, bleh, bleh, bleh, blah, blah!!! WTF?

PM: What? OK.

4. QA Manager: Blah???!!! I have to do work? BLAH #)$! *twit @%@$!

5. VP: Blah, Bleh, Blah, Bleh, Bleh, Bleh, Blah, Blah, Bleh, blah, blah, Bleh, Bleh, Blah, Blah, Blah.

6. QA Manager: ?

PM: What? OK.

7. VP: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,
(goes on for 5 minutes)

8. Developer2: WTF?

PM: What? OK.

9. Architect: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, DAO, blah, blah, blah, EJB, blah, blah.

10. BA: Blah, blah, quering mechanism... (what???) Blah.

11. Architect: ?!!!

12. Developer1: ?!!!

13. Developer2: ?!!!

14. QA Manager: Buy on eBay! (his other business)

15. VP: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, (5 minutes) Blah, No Limitations, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, (5 more minutes)

16. PM: What? OK.

17. VP: Blah, Blah, Blah, (5 minutes) years of experience, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, (ten minutes)

18. QA: bbblllaaaaaaaabbbbbhhllllaaaaaalllllllbbbbb.

19. VP: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, .. (fifteen more minutes)

20. BA: blah......

21. VP: Blah, Blah, .... (another half an hour)

---

Can you guess whether we solved the problem in that meeting?

Keep Your Soldiers Informed

[Slider451]

I like your military reference. To add:

Straight from the U.S. Army leadership handbook, FM 22-100:

Keep Your Soldiers Informed

Knowing 'why' you're taking this hill instead of that hill will put a stop a lot of dumb questions and increase trust in both directions. Sometimes there's no time to inform everybody. But if you've generally done a good job of rumor-control your employees will give you the benefit of the doubt when you can't.

Re:Jesus Christ.

[Moraelin]

In fact, yes. Unless someone were to come at me screaming "die! die! die!" and waving a big old medieval axe, or something equally dangerous, I couldn't tell preoccupied from dumbfounded from annoyed, if my life depended on it.

However, that's also the reason why I prefer interfacing to a compiler than to a human. My boss says I'm even good at it. Of course, I can't tell if he's serious about it.

I can live in society, even have friends, mainly by having learned quickly stuff like "if you can't tell when you're getting on someone's nerves, better not say something which might get on their nerves." Or like "if you can't tell when someone's interested in your topics, do everyone a favour: listen first, and pick one of their own topics." Or like, "if laughing and screaming are the only two signs you can recognize, you might as well go for making people laugh." Etc.

Still, the issue remains: I can understand a compiler, I can understand assembly, but humans are somewhat of a black box to me.

So, as was said before, I find it hard to believe that mild autism can cause someone to be unable to follow more than 2 sentences in a row in a technical presentation. Autists are known to be bad with humans, but good with computers. If there was someone I'd trust the most to follow a spec and implement it, it would be another autist.

But again, I'm no medic. I wouldn't really know.

But, as I've said, you _can_, to some extent, use logic instead of empathy. Which is all I'm asking for in return. If logic tells you that there's not much reason why someone would really need to know the exact font size _now_, please do trust that logic, and don't waste everyone's time with that question.

You may not be able to empathically tell that I'm bored out of my skull. That's ok. So I'm telling you: those irrelevant questions bore me out of my skull. Now use that piece of information next time you think of showing some activity in a meeting.

You may not be able to empathically sense that everyone else would _kill_ to get out of that stupid meeting room after 3 hours straight. It's ok. I understand. So I'm telling you.

Stick to the topic and be prepared to make some concessions. Keeping everyone there while acting like a spoiled brat (whether it's "no, it's _my_ architecture and I'm not changing any bit of it!" or "no, _I_ want every single detail _now_, and none of you are leaving until _I_ am satisfied") is just boring everyone after 1 hour or so. "Informative" uni-directional meetings get boring even faster.

Now use that knowledge in the next meeting.

Spoken Like a True Manager

[lysium]

[SNIP] This is how a company "should" function. [/SNIP]

Yes, and democracy "should" be about the People's Will. Are you here to explain how this view differs from reality, or were you just sharing a worldview that, coincidentally, emphasizes the value of your current job in Management?

[SNIP] A fair amount of suggestions are horribly short sighted, or uninformed. [/SNIP]

And you as a manager do not feel the need to give your employees the correct information? What are the purpose of your meetings, then? Share the benefits of your elevated view of the terrain (to use your own terms) with your coworkers, instead of using it to assert your intellectual superiority over them. I'm sorry if I'm coming across sharply, but I've heard these justifications from so many piss-poor managers that it makes my head spin.

P.S. The workplace is not the military: lives are not lost when the company profits dip. People who think otherwise just make it more unpleasant for the rest of us.

==---------------==