Conference Room Meetings

I'm not big into formal meetings at work. The kind scheduled in your Microsoft Outlook Calendar. The kind that give you pop-up reminders 15 minutes prior to the meeting start time. The kind that have agendas and objectives and anticipated outcomes. The kind that have action items for everyone at the table. I hate those work meetings.

So today I'm in one of "those" meetings at work. It started at 1 p.m., just after lunch and involved four or five people (I lost count) on a conference phone call as well as six of us in the room. First agenda item: listen to an hour-long recitation of 43 PowerPoint slides. I hate, hate, hate these kind of meetings. About half-way through I'm daydreaming. Disengaged completely. Then the worst happens...I get drowsy. The three Ds of at-work, post-lunch conference room meetings. There I am struggling to keep it together, trying to stay alert and making sure no ones notices that my eyes are mere slits with sleep taking over.

The only solution is to participate in the meeting. I sit up, clear my throat and start interjecting comments here and there. For example, on-the-phone call leader is wrapping up her eighth minute on ONE PowerPoint slide. She says, "And so, if there aren't any questions, I'll segway into the recommendations part of the presentation."

"Seg-a-way," I say to the room. This little comment prompts some laughter and someone even says, "I've never heard that before. Seg-a-way. That's funny." The people on the conference call just don't get the reference.

Still, I scored humor points with five co-workers who I see every day. All in all, not a bad takeaway from a work meeting.

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