meeting madness

picture this....

a 4-hour meeting scheduled from 11a-3p. that alone will stop you in your tracks. you'd think we're trying to solve global warming or something meaningful and important like that. but, no, the duration of the meeting is not what set us off. get this -- the meeting notice specifically said to "prepare to either bring or buy your own lunch". oh, and p.s. there's no mention of if (or when) there will be a lunch break.

WTF?!!? it's a conundrum of the worse kind!

the meeting notice caused quite a stir among my cube farm neighbors. even after finding out we'd be granted a whopping 30 minutes to make a run for it (OOPS, I mean, to get our lunches). the banter covered a range of anxiety-ridden chatter (some of it, just in my own head)...

• why would anyone schedule a lunch that goes through lunch hour and not provide lunch? isn't that just one of those unspoken rules of engagement in corporate america?! you schedule a meeting that goes through lunch; you buy lunch for the meeting.


• not only that, the meeting is gonna be so long...you can't not eat and think you'll just have a late lunch. unless by "late lunch" you mean "early dinner" at 3p.
  
• wait -- 3p....is that when happy hour starts? just wondering.


• who are we kidding! the meeting's probably going to run over. come on! did you see that agenda?!? a full-day's worth of topics, crammed into 4 hours! aargh!


• are we suppose to fetch our food and scurry back to the conference room and all eat together while attempting to "work through lunch"? what are YOU gonna do for lunch? bring or buy?
  
• how is 30 minutes enough time to go out for food? if the meeting's at 11am, then let's see... we'd have to leave at 10 to get lunch. but wait, it'll get cold by the time lunch rolls around. hey, what's open for lunch at 10 anyway?!?!
  
• if I bring my lunch, who knows if I'll even have time to wait in line for the microwave, heat my food and eat
  
• etc, etc, etc....you get the drift

well, long story short, here's what went down:

• meeting started late by about 10 minutes. pretty typical around here, so no surprises, no demerits.


• meeting ran a bit over, just by about 5 minutes (not bad). no time left at the end for discussion or Q&A (not good).


• did have lunch thanks to a gracious cube farm neighbor, The Professor, who kindly picked up some yummy vietnamese sandwiches on the way in to the office in the morning. (p.s. the secret to non-soggy sandwiches...have the moist fixin's -- peppers, carrots, onions, cilantro, etc -- provided separately in a bag to add to sandwich just before eating)

so, productivity and overall effectiveness rating for the meeting: 5 out of 10. let's face it. 4 hours is a really long time to do any one thing at work, especially when it means being sequestered in a conference room that's too small for the number of attendees. bottom line: no matter how interesting the topics of discussion are, inevitably, people's minds wander.

mine did!