Meetings about future meetings

[JodieWodie]

It's an endless corporate crud circle

I was sat there at work today, (council), when another wonderful email popped into my inbox
Apparently there had been a meeting this morning (a 2 and a half hour one marvellous) and from that meeting a further 2 meetings have been purged from it, to discuss that meeting
I mean... wtf
All everyone seems to do is have meetings...
Meetings to discuss meetings
And to arrange further meetings about that meeting
Or meetings to arrange future meetings and discuss the content of those meetings
And at the end of it all... nothing is achieved
Just discussion
And people being high from caffeine

I think people make up meetings to look important. All the lower bods don't have meetings they work

Another splendid email popped into my inbox at the end of the day too from my boss...Story>
Now, I have a task to do next month, a finance task. Never done it before, so have to do a half day training in a couple of weeks, then it will take me 2 weeks to complete the task as soon as I get back.
My boss knows this.
He emailed me the training day etc..
The email reads.."Lets have a meeting and discuss the approach to this task"
A one hour slot to discuss...
Sit on chair>
#1 - I train for half a day
#2 - I complete the finance task in 2 weeks as is already apparent
#3 - End

What a load of ol' bolloc*s. I wonder how much money is spent on people chatting over coffee in a locked room each year?
Meeting about paper
Meeting about carpet thinning on the corridor
Meeting about photocopying
Meeting about the toilets

I love this picture, a 'demotivator'
Just about sums the office up

JO x
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Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow"

[EuropeanNC30R...]

It's posts like this that make you think privatisation could be a very good thing.

[Whosthedaddy]

I'm so glad that I just go to work, do my job and then go home again.

Occassionaly I have 'link meetings' (never go as cant be arsed to go in on my days off or before work) and they just bellyache about this and that, more often going on about the minutes of the last one It is so unproductive
____________________
Current : MSX 125 Past : CBR 900RR Monkeybike : c50 LAC : ZXR750 H2 : FZR600 : ZX7R P3 : YW100 : TRX850: Trophy 900 T309 : GSXR 600 L0: Monkeybike : XJ6S Whosthedaddy

[Dazbo666]

Unfortunately this sounds all too familiar.

Some time ago at my place of work, they claimed to be actively trying to reduce beauracracy(sp?) and "red tape"...

so what did they do about it?? They set up a project team to have regular meetings about it....
a bit of a viscious circle there, eh?!
____________________
1st bike (Sept'06 - May'10) : 1991 GPZ500S / Current bike (since Nov 2009) : 2003 Suzuki Bandit 600N
Word of the day : DILLIGAF

[queen of string]

All council's have an underground agreement that nothing will ever be achieved in a meeting. They all go in believing this and lo, it turns out to be true.
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"Eat food, not edible, food-like items. Mostly plants."

[gemma1675]

I have always been particularly irritated by the concept of the "pre-meeting". WTF? A meeting to discuss the meeting we are about to attend?

Some people have too much time on their hands.
____________________
Suzuki SV650S K5

Nobody puts baby in a corner

[trevoriv]

The company i work for is moving into a brand new state of the art building. The building has 3 floors with one floor being made up entirely of meeting rooms

At least i won't be doing much work when we move to this new building, i'll be too busy in meetings

[TOM M]

Id love to be stuck in endless pointless meetings
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Now owner of a 1200 Bandit

[Mary Jane]

Bullshit Bingo FTW!!!

[Villers]

Always in meetings at work. Its a gag amongst the more laddish of us to have your own catchphrase and manage to fit it in infront of the most important people you can. Another is 'blading' where you put a dig in at a friend (again in front of the heirarchy).

They can be boring though and being the tech expert my main input is normally at the end or a presentation at the beginning of a two hour meeting. Nodding a lot helps though.

Popular catchphrases are

all day long

Nail it on

Bottom it out

touch base

and my personal favourite 'to re-iterate what you said {so and so's name}.......' followed by a nod with 'spot on'.

Worst thing we have is that no one deals face to face, its all 'ill email you this, ill email you that' if your computer breaks your bolloxed
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RS125 > CBR6 > SV650S > ZX636R > GSX1300RZ Hayabusa > 06 RSVR Mille > SV1000S > Street Triple 765 RS

[Louise]

*sigh* Since the new managers took over the Pub its been meeting after meeting. Oh, and we have a meeting tommorow morning
There is no need, I dont see why we have to have a meeting every fooking week. Oh, infact we have 2 bosses, 2 assistant managers - Bosses who I hardly ever see work, so maybe its just them trying to catch up
Might have a word and see what its really about - wasting my time on my days off

[Kickstart]

[tribal_tiger]

I think everywhere is the same!

My pet hate is the "Team meeting" Everyone in your department sitting in a room to discuss what you are doing and what you have done. I have a 30 minute team meeting every Monday and a 2 1/2 hour team meeting once a month.Most of the time is spent discussing the minutes from the last meeting and planning when the next one is.

The company i used to work for was even worse. They moved one step on from the meeting to the Video conference. It's just a meeting staring at a screen with what looks like lego men at the other end, and people speaking over each other as the time lag is so bad. It just ends up as a meeting on either side of the video link with a distracting noise coming from the lego man movie at one end of the room.

That said they did come up with good meeting ideas and how to make things better. A message was posted to the entire division of the company on meeting rules. Such things as

If there is no agenda sent out at least 2 days before hand, you don't show up.

If you are not required for all of the meeting, walk out. If the section you need to be there for is near the end of the agenda, only turn up at the time that section starts. If the meeting is running late, leave.

New meeting rooms were created. They could only be booked for 20 minutes max. They had no chairs, and the tables where about chest height when standing, they were also only big enough for a few coffee mugs. No white boards, no projectors, no plasma screens or phones. You went in the room, say what needed to be said and got the hell out. They were known as bird table meetings.

Stuff like that really did help, but there was still too much going on.

Still, it gave us a chance to move on to complaining about group emails, where people copy in half the company when there is no need, the person just wants to look important!
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How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could Chuck Norris?

All of it.

[tribal_tiger]

[trevoriv]

"going forward" is a popular one at my place.

[stinkwheel]

Democracy is well and good but when you need to get something done, you can't beat a good dictatorship.

Businesses should be like this:
The boss spends his time deciding what is to be done then tells his managers. He may not have the exact details of how this is to be done because that's not his concern. He employs people to work that out for themselves.

The managers tell the group they are in charge of what is to be done and people get on with it. If it was wrong, it is the bosses fault, that's why he is the boss and gets paid a lot more than everyone else.

If you think it is wrong, by all means pass it back up the line but in the meantime get on with what you are being payed to do (ie. what the boss says you do).

[killa]

Once we dicussed the dangers of opening a cardboard box that is taped up, with a scapel.

Don't cut towards yourself, you'll die!!



Meetings, i always need a red bull.
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Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Bike:- Yamaha TRX850 | Killas Biking History | Killas Gaming History | Killas autmotive history

[LustyLew]

Bullshit Bingo anyone?!
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Like a Yorkie - I'm not for the girls

[pa_broon74]

I work for arguably the biggest bureaucracy in the country, (can you guess what it is?) Below is an email sent out by our facilities Helpdesk, I can only hope they where being ironic:

Hello All,

We are experiencing some issues with the toilet use in various areas throughout **** Square.

Flushing Mechanisms

We are receiving numerous complaints regarding the time some of the flush mechanisms take to work. We would ask that when flushing you hold in the toilet flush button as long as it take for the toilet to begin to flush. We are currently working on providing a solution to the flushing mechanism problems throughout the building so we would be grateful if you could bear with us.

Personal use of the toilets

This doesn't really apply to the female members of staff, so if you are one, loo(k) away now.....

Gentleman, if standing to make use of the toilets, please do your best to ensure that no 'accidents' are left on the floor or on the toilet bowl. If there are any 'accidents' on behalf of other member of staff and not least, our cleaning staff, we would be grateful if you could clean it up. If all else fails....sit down !

Paper Towels

Can we also just remind staff that paper hand towels should not be flushed away down the toilet, but placed in the waste paper bins provided in each cubicle. Also please use toilet tissue itself in a manner which is not going to lead to blockages.


You co-operation in these matters is, as always, much appreciated.


In December another email was sent out about a recent fire drill berating staff about the time it took to vacate the biulding. The fire marshalls had a meeting and advised us all that we should use the stairs atleast once a day so we could practice using them.

I avoid meetings, I just can't handle them. If I had to choose one phrase, its the rocket science one, just so patronising. I know I had a go at someone on here, but its always annoyed me...

[Annabella]

[nc30 chick]

I think we need a meeting to discuss these issues

[Mary Jane]

[LustyLew]

[J0Al1]

Meeting are what companies do when they have nothing better to do. If your going to a meeting the your 'clearly' very important (said with a Bridget Jones tone).

I work for a private firm that support the council. We dont have enough meetings & generally i dont have a clue whats going on. Whereas our customer 'the council' live in meeting so we can never get hold of them.

It's all hoitey toitey hooo haaaaar

[JodieWodie]

I love this thread!
I thought I was the only one on the planet that endured the pain of the 'meeting to discuss meeting'
It is good to see so many others wallow on my corporate misery