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January 16, 2006

Posted on 01/17/2006 by Penny Profundo
Viewed: 198 times

Just open the !@#&$ candy!

Just open the !@#&$ candy!

This is what I wanted to yell—among other things—in a corporate meeting I attended today.

They never reveal real life corporate meetings on television. We should all be thankful for that because, after all, television is supposed to be entertaining—which is far from what meetings actually are in the corporate world.

When I was younger, I used to watch Dallas every Friday night, with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of lemonade. Later in the evening, I would lull my youthful mind to sleep by dreaming of the day when I could dress fashionable like Sue Ellen and attend important corporate executive meetings like J.R. Ewing.

On television, everyone appears focused in meetings, pulled together. Attendees sip coffee with no sound effects, everyone takes turns talking and the room is filled with well-dressed, attractive attendees. Television meetings are shown as quick, precise and to the point, mixing in humor and purpose. That truly isn't the case and I thought I'd take this opportunity to shed truth on "Reality Corporate Meetings" and enlighten you with what really goes on behind those doors.

First, the boardrooms you see on TV with large puffy leather chairs, scratch free high-gloss mahogany tables, and 50 inch video displays are usually only similar to those reserved for presidents and CEO's in Fortune 100 companies. The meeting rooms used by peons in the corporate world usually lack a few chairs on any given day, have broken telephones that only work in speaker mode and normally have a dirty whiteboard that is stained from years of use and from idiots who used permanent marker instead of dry-erase. Don't bother trying to plug in for a network connection, you'll never figure out which communication jack—out of the possible 20—you are suppose to plug into; and incidentally the various color coding of the jacks have no meaning at all. The window shades are half up, half down, some are bent and the windows are brown with a haze of dirt (or possibly aircraft secretion), semi-washed by a recent acid rain.

Our meeting today was scheduled for 10:30. I arrived at 10:29 with four others, and we had time to choose our chairs. I always choose the chair closest to the door in case a quick exit is necessary. For the purpose of daydreaming, a window view is nice but occasionally the opaque dirt film hinders that possibility. Others trickled in at 10:31, 10:33 and three individuals came at 10:35. They ended up having to borrow chairs from other conference rooms, which took an additional 2 minutes.

Reality #1: Meetings never really start on time!

Our meeting finally got underway at 10:37 but the real meeting didn't start until 10:45. That's because we spent the first 8 minutes talking about Robert's son, Cathy's dog, and Jane's-sister's-neighbor's cat. I didn't chime in and I purposely sat with a bored look on my face hoping someone would get a clue and get to the point of our gathering.

Reality #2: B.S. is always the agenda: get used to it!

The meeting organizer did most of the talking this morning and it is common that the organizer of the meeting actually enjoys listening to him/herself talk, which is probably why this meeting was called in the first place. I hate "megotistical" people. They are the type of people who take control of a meeting and base every topic around themselves, their project, their deadlines, their way of doing things and their accomplishments. They are the "professor bulk heads" that reference wise sounding sayings like: "compare apples to oranges", "garbage in, garbage out", "extract the data for data extraction"
, "think out of the box", and “focus on focused detail" —all of which really don’t amount to anything substantial.

Megotistical meeting organizers are marker addicts and I believe they love to smell their own drawings—drawings which have absolutely no purpose or bearing on the contents of the meeting. I haven't yet determined if they think they have a nice "arse" and they want to show it off or they enjoy getting high from the marker fumes and the more they inhale the smarter they think they sound and the better they think their drawings look.

Reality #3: Keep yourself busy to pass time!

I lost concentration from the topic at hand only 20 minutes into our meeting and diverged from the boredom of the Megoman to look around at the meeting attendees. I wanted to see how everyone else was getting through the intense detailed graphs and charts—an end result of the Mego's delusional marker high. I spotted a typical sleeper, the one guy who nods off to sleep, but fights it. The eyes roll back revealing the white part, they nod their head back and forth, then drool and wipe it with their sleeve for a grand finale. When they finally wake from the nap, they grunt and cough as if they've been alert the whole time. I wondered how anyone could sleep in that meeting with the guy at the end clicking his pen over and over, or with the exaggerated slurping noises.

It was interesting to watch those going to great lengths to stay awake by slowly sucking their hot coffee for a quick caffeine fix, singeing their lips and taste buds. It then dawned on me why people can actually tolerate the cafeteria food; a daily routine of scorching taste buds in boring meetings leaves one with no taste preference at all. I wanted to yell, "For God’s sake just let the drink cool off first so you don't sound like a sow drinking out of a trough!" but I didn't. Maybe if we had had pitchers of iced water, like they show on TV, we could all cool our coffee down with a cube or two.

I’ve always had the urge to yell in a meeting—especially the meetings that have about a hundred people and everyone is so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Sometimes I wish I could win the lottery but still work and just do things that people who rely on a paycheck don't have the guts to do. Instead, I conform, knowing I am one of those people who rely on a paycheck.

I doodled because that is what everyone else was doing around me. Occasionally, I'm lucky and the window cleaners appear out of nowhere and I can analyze any spots they miss. I find the suction cups and rope a very fascinating way to do a job in this century, but it is winter outside so I resumed my doodling knowing there was no chance in seeing the modern day spider man. Doodling is clever and I'm sure John Hancock did his fair share while working out the terribly boring details of our Declaration of Independence. A creation of our forefathers, we all take pride in every scribble. Doodle drawings are beautiful, and I secretly compared mine to others around me, which was a great way to pass a good 3 minutes. I felt compelled to tell the more talented doodlers to quit their day job. I myself can never get the 3-D lines just right on the box. What's in the 3-D box anyway? How come nobody draws in the box, they just draw box after box and tree after tree.

All my pondering made me forget why I attended the meeting in the first place and I think others had forgotten too. I was brought back to reality out of doodleland when I saw the guy across the table reach in his breast pocket and retrieve a Worther's Original.

I wondered if he had brought some for all of us, but then hesitated wondering if I would actually eat something that had been nuzzled in his warm pocket all morning. I saw him slyly move the piece of candy under the table, where he preceded to try and open it as discretely as possible—which, in the end, ended up being more annoying than if he had obnoxiously opened it right on the table in front of everyone. All I could hear coming from under the table was the intolerable sound of plastic being twisted and turned, "Tssssss. Tssssss." (pause) "Tssss. Tss. Ts. T." (long pause) "Tssss." I wanted to yell, "Just open the !@#&$ candy!", but I didn't. Again I heard, "Tssss." I could see his face go slightly flush. I could tell he was irritated because he couldn't get the candy wrapper open and I swear he almost started to drool like the sleeping man. Finally, he gave it one last long pull and the suffering was over. I could tell he finally had the piece of candy in his hand and at that point he slowly lifted his hand out from under the table and covertly moved it toward his mouth and slid the candy in. But then both hands were on the table and I was wondering where he put the wrapper; did he honestly throw the wrapper on the floor? The torture of the candy wrapper was over for both of us, and while he enjoyed his caramel treat, the rest of us had to endure the noise of his candy swishing against his teeth, almost rhythmically coinciding with the monotone chant of the Megoman still chatting at the white board.

Reality #4: Always have an exit plan!

I had had just about enough of the annoying meeting and decided to do my own covert operation under the table. I quietly reached for my pager and slid it under the table and text-paged my own number an emergency message. Shortly after hitting the "send" button, I secretly slid my pager back on the table where it laid silent for a minute until it vibrated and spun on the worn tabletop, making an obvious but not so annoying sound. I grabbed my pager with a surprised look on my face, read the page with a very talented, distressed concern, gathered my items and walked toward the door. I knew I'd never know the demise of the candy wrapper. As I opened the door, I could smell the freedom of fresh air, and as I exited the room and closed the door behind me, the Megoman's squeaking marker was muted.

Reality #5: Place blame!

I tend to place blame for getting sucked into the corporate world because it makes getting up in the morning easier if I have a scapegoat. I envy the gardener as I walk past him on my way into work. I'm jealous that he gets to bask in the sun with the flowers while I have to face the wrath of boring meetings all day. I wonder if I can sue the television industry for false advertisement, for misleading me into the business world under the impression that I would get an office, a puffy chair, and a liquor cabinet behind a framed Mona Lisa print. How come I never saw cubical desks in the Ewing Oil office building? And why haven't I ever seen a liquor cabinet in an office in the U.S.? I suppose all of that would be irrelevant if we could just pull together and devise a plan that would eliminate all meetings from the corporate world. In honesty, the honcho devises his mego-plan in advance, so to save agony and resources he should just draw the pictures and graphs on his own time and send a memo telling us to review the whiteboard at our earliest convenience.

In the end, meetings truly are the most annoying part of business. But if we had liquor cabinets behind whiteboards, it may just make our ideas and conversation as interesting as the meetings shown on television. We might actually show respect to what the Megotostical's have to say and meetings would be much more productive.

I think I should have chosen a career in acting so I could indeed sit in the oversized leather chairs, have a gin and tonic with my feet up on the table, eat the fruit next to the iced water, exaggerate sighs, and yell "Cut" in a meeting whenever I want.

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January 16, 2006

Just open the !@#&$ candy!

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