This is the part where I pretend to be witty.

But I’ve only had one cup so far. I couldn’t make Little Bear grin if I had a handful of bacon.

I feel like Pointy-Hair Boss this morning – and indeed have for the past few days, which is why posting has been so lame.
1697.strip

I once had a job where I suffered through a great many meetings just like this one. My pointy-hair boss was convinced of the importance of meetings. I was convinced of the importance of getting work done and meeting deadlines, but I didn’t get a vote.

It was the sort of job where at least once a week you’d find yourself asking, “What would Dagney Taggart do in a situation like this?” And the answer would be at least as good as anything else you could think of, and better than most.

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.
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6 Responses to This is the part where I pretend to be witty.

  1. MamaLiberty says:

    I hated “meetings” with a serious passion, and was always in trouble for skipping them… But one I remember vividly. All the nurses were gathered for a “very important meeting” to discuss the staff shortages and how “we” might resolve the problems.

    I said something like… well, we could start by getting up from here and going out to actually see our patients, instead of just talking about it. Then, if corporate would do what it takes to hire more people, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation at all.

    My boss was not amused. And, of course, it is actually more complicated than that. Corporate didn’t have much option with the insane Medicare and other regulatory BS that made it almost impossible to operate rationally or economically. Not that they were actually able to understand any of that, mind you. They seemed to like the idea of nurses (and others) working 24/7, but without bothering them about paying for overtime or such nonsense.

    You can’t get there from here, mostly, but sitting around talking about it didn’t help either.

  2. Judy says:

    All managers, in all arenas, must of been taught by the same bunch of academia yo-yos that never held a real job or had to produce results from their labor. We were forced to sit through the same meetings in aircraft manufacturing.

    Sending me a memo would have been smarter on their part. I could have read the memo, groaned at the lameness and keep right on working.

  3. Bear says:

    I recall a meeting which was really a pep rally to make us feel better about the company, and convince us it wasn’t really going bankrupt. The VP gave this great little speech about how wonderful projected revenues were. He finished, I raised my hand. “About those projected revenues. Does that included the thousands of ex-customers we’ve been billing for months after they dropped us?”* The room went silent, except for a few muttered comments along the lines of, “Holy Sh_t, he actually said that?”

    The VP fidgeted, mumbled, harrumphed, fidgeted some more, then said, “Yes.”

    And that was the last meeting I had to go to. Did wonders for my productivity.

    After I quit, the company did go bankrupt.

    ======
    * One poor woman: She had Caller ID. Every time she got a phone call, the system hit her a charge for the ID message and Caller ID installation charges. She showed up with a bill for more than three grand, begging someone to help her.

  4. Bear says:

    Added: I should mention that when the CEO came touring through the office not long after managers stationed themselves strategically to ensure he never got within question range of me. That was fun to watch.

  5. Keith says:

    I’d better issue a warning about some very strong triggers.

    Be ready for emotional flashbacks possibly including:
    entirely justifiable homicidal rage,
    manic laughter, or
    finding yourself in a vehicle exceeding the speed limit, with no idea of how you ended up eighty miles away from the last place you remember being

    http://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg

    H/T Knotted Prop

  6. “What would Dagney Taggart do in a situation like this?”

    Get a rich boyfriend?

To the stake with the heretic!