We've got to stop meeting like this
July 2010
In quiet moments of solitude I have occasionally wondered how things will end for me. I know this may sound like a very morbid thing to say but I’m sure this thought goes through everyone’s mind from time to time.Sometimes I become very conscious of my own mortality. I’m generally not scared by the idea of death but there have been occasions where I’ve thought ‘crikey, I’m really going to die one day’ and have felt somewhat humbled by the notion.
Given that I spend a good proportion of my time whizzing around race tracks at insane speeds in little more than a seat attached to a few bits of metal, I guess the chances of my demise in an unfortunate meeting with a concrete wall are not in the least bit unlikely.
Sure there have been many occasions where it’s nearly happened too. Over the last decade I’ve been upside-down and landed on my head, had someone else land on my head and even hit my head against a wall. I’ve broken my ribs twice, sprained my wrists, injured my back, suffered major concussion and been buried under a pile of tyres. I’ve had brake failure at the end of the fastest downhill section of a circuit and there have been a few times where I’ve been involved in a shunt and had other drivers pile into me at high speed.
It’s not just limited to the race track either. I’ve nearly met my maker dozens of times on my bike as a result of some stupid driver not paying attention and almost sending me flying into oblivion. There were numerous occasions in my youth where I saw my life flash before my eyes during some crazy stunt over an enormous hill on my mountain bike. There was also the time in Tenerife when I was a little too over exuberant on a quad bike and nearly drove off the edge of a 500 foot cliff.
There was the time in Germany when I forgot they drive on the wrong side of the road and nearly got mowed down by a speeding car because I looked right instead of left when crossing the road. Then I repeated the same stunt later in the day and nearly got squashed by a tram. The number of times I’ve nearly been hit by cars at that apparently difficult to see Zebra crossing just outside my local supermarket must be well into the hundreds by now.
Then of course there was the time at college when my mate was so excited about having just passed his driving test he insisted on taking me out for a joy ride only to skid on some loose gravel down a country road and almost imprinted me onto a tree.
The time my oxygen tank sprung a leak when I was scuba diving 30 metres under the Atlantic Ocean was certainly an interesting experience and one that made me appreciate that breathing is generally under-rated.
Still, despite the most obvious ways I’m likely to go, I never thought for one second that I might meet my sticky end in a business meeting; in a dull and lifeless office where I suffered the painful experience of being well and truly bored to death.
Business meetings have to be one of the most tediously mind-numbing things in the world. In fact in terms of preferred ways to die I think I would choose drowning or burning alive over being forced to spend hours being talked into a coma by a bunch of suits who are all full of their own self importance and wear more aftershave than can possibly be healthy. People who spend their time in meetings are all the same. They all have coffee breath and procrastinate monotonously about nothing at all rather than getting to the point – probably because there isn’t one. They all use phrases like ‘blue sky’, ‘lateral thought’, ‘bottom line’, ‘touch base’, ‘synergy’ and ‘game plan’. What the hell are you talking about?
Sadly I have been spending more and more time in business meetings over the last few years and each time I’m forced to listen to someone drone on and on, repeating themselves over and over again and explaining even the simplest of things in the most roundabout way possible I die a little bit inside.
And why do some people insist on regular meetings? I’ve had people request a weekly or monthly meeting so that everybody is kept ‘in the loop’ with the ‘strategic game plan’ and to ensure we are all ‘on the same page’. Why for goodness sake?
Fine, if you want to meet up every week understand that it’s my time you’re wasting and I’m going to charge for it. Suggesting this to people gives you a good indication of how important a meeting really is because I guarantee every time I mention a cost, they will suddenly decide they don't want one any more. Nobody in the business world likes parting with money so forcing them to pay for what they see as basically a long-winded chat over a thousand cups of coffee tends to confuse them somewhat.
Why should it be so hard to grasp? Just think about the time and money I’m wasting. Firstly I’ve got to travel to the location of the meeting so I have to factor in the cost of petrol. If the meeting is being held a long way from where my office is I have to factor in the cost of accommodation. Then we have the time. It’s not just the time I spend at the meeting, it’s also the time I spend travelling. Time I have to spend preparing for the meeting. For every hour I’m not in the office doing proper work, it is an hour of potential income I’m losing. Time is money people!
Then there are people who insist on having a meeting to discuss things that could just as easily be explained over the phone or via email. This is the beauty of modern technology. Why do you need to see my ugly face? If it’s that important to you, simply buy a web cam and we can ‘blue sky’ over a video conference.
So here it is in plain English for all you silly business type people. Meetings are things that people have when they don’t have anything better to do. They are simply a means of getting out of doing proper work. People like me have better things to do with their lives and don’t wish to die a slow and painful death listing to your voice. Sadly, however, during a recent meeting I used the phrase ‘thinking outside the box’ so now I’m dead inside.
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