1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night. 2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings." 3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." 4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. 5. You should not confuse your career with your life. 6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. 7. Never lick a steak knife. 8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip. 9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time. 10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment. 11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven. 12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. 13. A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person . (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.) 14. Your friends love you anyway. 15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic. 16. Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
I HATE meetings with a passion! If it can't be covered in 20 minutes then the odds of anything useful happening decrease rapidly. I have the attention span of a gold fish. Combine that with many years involvement in search and rescue, where if you are not moving you should be sleeping, because you may not get another chance for a while. I have to doodle and sketch and plan or I will fall asleep.
The thing that I hate about meetings is that they never, ever, end early. I'll set one up for an hour, but I'll get all the answers I need in 20 minutes. But I can guarantee you somebody else will fill up the entire remaining 40 minutes with something that's probably not important. And then magically, at the start of the next hour, somehow they have everything they need and it's time to move onto the next meeting. I think some people just hate the thought of having a few minutes alone at their desk.
Only meetings I attend now are on a stump in my processing area. Critters come and go during the meeting and we take whatever time we want............................
My meetings are now held with me, myself, and I. We're pretty agreeable on most stuff, so things get done how we want. The ones with my wife are usually fairly productive too. She gets what she wants.
I worked at a plant that had morning meetings and during the meeting the salary folks would begin setting the agenda for their next meeting - it was maddening. When the VP asked if I'd consider going back to the plant 6yrs later - I said as long as I can fire a few duplicate employees and end meetings about meetings - kind of got one of those confused looks, then and head nod and smirk
I have to visit our plants quite frequently, and sometimes will sit in on their meetings. I have noticed that same thing, where the folks on the floor are very direct, say what needs to be said, and then head straight back out to their line. Their part of the meeting might take 15 minutes, tops. The folks in the office on the other hand, will stick around for another 45 minutes rehashing the same things, and then bring up some random topics and talk about the need for other meetings that need to be taken "offline" to cover those topics. It's crazy the differences between hourly and salary lol.
Meetings make some people feel more important - simple as that. The more time you spend in meetings, the more important you are (or so they think).
