For the Last Time...I Don't do Meetings

I'm sure you've all been to many meetings in your day, most of which are exhausting, pointless, and detrimental to your health. How can someone ask you to sit in the same seat for two hours and listen to them talk? It should be illegal. Corporate punishment or something...

I've recently decided that I'm not putting up with it, and lately have discovered a few moves which have worked to perfection. In my company at least, most of the more important meetings are scheduled weeks in advance, giving you ample time to come up with excuses to miss them. Lately, I've been claiming that I have a meeting with one of my clients at the exact same time as one of our corporate meetings. And for my company, a meeting with a client supersedes anything else that could possibly be going on. If there's a giant python loose in our office and you're the only employee with snake handling experience, but also have a client meeting in five minutes, then that python will have to wait.

That's why I schedule one of these client meetings whenever I see a conference with my company that has the words "Quarterly", "Training", "Corporate Structure", "401K", "Gene's Birthday", or "Shareholders". If the meeting has anyone else's birthday listed, or sounds like there could be free pizza, then I will attend despite it being against everything I stand for.

When I do attend a meeting, as I've discussed before, I will print out the Washington Post crossword puzzle and sneak it into my blue 'meeting folder'. This folder has three blank sheets of paper, and about 250 unfinished puzzles. If anyone actually looked into the folder they would think I have a mental disorder of some kind (may not be far from the truth these days). For some reason when I gather with a group of my constituents to talk about the company and our goals and blah blah blah, I can't keep my attention span focused. It reminds me of being in college attempting to listen to a Physics lecture, and focusing more on the attempt to stay awake then on the actual material being learned.

It's been nearly four weeks since I've attended any meeting with my company, and I'm certain that no matter what client I claim I'm meeting with, my boss will force me to reschedule. Of course, when that day arrives I will be ready with a doctors appointment, jury duty, my great-aunts wake, or shingles. No matter what, I'm not going back into that conference room.