The Black Holes Of The Workday
In yet another example of how I reign supreme as the Queen of Passive-Aggressiva, I found this article in the NY Times about how utterly pointless meetings are...so, I printed off a copy and left it at the printer, lying face up so that everybody could see...but more importantly, my supervisor.
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June 18, 2006
The Count
Endless Meetings: The Black Holes of the Workday
By HUBERT B. HERRING
Like so many things that go terribly wrong, it started as a reasonable idea. "Let's sit down and talk about it," someone said innocently long ago in a candlelit workplace, and the meeting was born. From that humble beginning came today's multi-PowerPoint monster, the workday's black hole, sucking precious time and energy into its ravenous jaws.
Well, perhaps that's overstating it, but American workers do indeed question the value of all the time they spend in meetings, according to an Excel survey for the tech company PolyVision.
Of workers who attend meetings each week, fully 75 percent say that those gatherings could be more effective, the survey showed. That means a lot of unproductive time, because 91 million workers spend time in meetings each week. For most, it's one to eight hours, but a hardy 11 percent of men (men are far more meeting-prone than women) somehow survive 13 or more hours of meetings a week.
Are the meetings worth it? Better have a meeting to discuss that.
----------------------------------- I'm listening to "Have You Forgotten?" by Red House Painters --- thanks to Music Girl for the suggestion! And if you're reading this, I have a massive email heading your way because I've been writing it in bits and pieces.
This is the kind of song that kind of captures today...the kind of grey, wet, listless day. I guess it's more of the guy's tone when he sings, 'cause the kind of exhaustion I feel today feels like the sort that no amount of sleep could ever cure.
That's pretty much it.
Sometimes, it's like, you get sick of hearing yourself (or in this case, reading yourself) circle the block in terms of the things you go on and on about, you know? So, it's sort of like --- in a way --- you're really just sick of yourself.
Ah. The track has now skipped to Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World". Another sad-sounding song.
June 18, 2006
The Count
Endless Meetings: The Black Holes of the Workday
By HUBERT B. HERRING
Like so many things that go terribly wrong, it started as a reasonable idea. "Let's sit down and talk about it," someone said innocently long ago in a candlelit workplace, and the meeting was born. From that humble beginning came today's multi-PowerPoint monster, the workday's black hole, sucking precious time and energy into its ravenous jaws.
Well, perhaps that's overstating it, but American workers do indeed question the value of all the time they spend in meetings, according to an Excel survey for the tech company PolyVision.
Of workers who attend meetings each week, fully 75 percent say that those gatherings could be more effective, the survey showed. That means a lot of unproductive time, because 91 million workers spend time in meetings each week. For most, it's one to eight hours, but a hardy 11 percent of men (men are far more meeting-prone than women) somehow survive 13 or more hours of meetings a week.
Are the meetings worth it? Better have a meeting to discuss that.
This is the kind of song that kind of captures today...the kind of grey, wet, listless day. I guess it's more of the guy's tone when he sings, 'cause the kind of exhaustion I feel today feels like the sort that no amount of sleep could ever cure.
That's pretty much it.
Sometimes, it's like, you get sick of hearing yourself (or in this case, reading yourself) circle the block in terms of the things you go on and on about, you know? So, it's sort of like --- in a way --- you're really just sick of yourself.
Ah. The track has now skipped to Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World". Another sad-sounding song.
1 Comments:
Love that song :) Lookin' forward to the e-mail, and Queen of Passive Aggressiva or not I'm so amused by leaving that out for people to see.
If you feel like a pick-me-up to spite the weather, go with Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" and think of Duckie in Pretty in Pink dancing around, what I'm listening to now and it always works for me :)
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