Oh, business meetings, how we loathe thee. Here we sit, cursed with the meeting being lead by someone who doesn’t know how to lead meetings. Who cannot stick to the agenda. Whose agenda is terrible to start with. Who cannot control the grand-standers and blow-hards, the completely-off-topic-ers. Who cannot keep a clock.Here we sit wondering if our clothes are right. If maybe we made a bad tie selection. How much it matters that we are the only person of our gender in the room. If we can excuse ourselves to the bathroom because it’s half an hour now that we’ve REALLY needed to go.
Here we are at a meeting that involves food. It’s nice to have the food, we were starving. We’d really like to chomp down on this sandwich we have assembled from the buffet, but crumbs, on the side of our face, and all down our front. Oh god, we knew we should have skipped the mustard. Oh god, here comes Very Important Blow-hard, aimed right for us, we’re going to starve to death, aren’t we?
Here we are in a meeting in a foreign country, oh god, is that their national anthem? They’re all standing up, we’d better stand up too. Oh god, they’ve got their hands on their hearts, is this some sort of oath of allegiance? We can’t recite along with them, we don’t know the words, and we’re pretty sure we don’t want to swear unknown service to our host country, however much we want to do business with it. Maybe if we just sort of stand here trying to look respectful.
Still in the foreign country, we are paralysed, we don’t move, we have heard horror stories about inadvertent offense caused by a body gesture we’re not even aware of having made. We keep our head still until our neck aches, since we never did get our brains wrapped around the nod-shake-waggle business. What was that about not pointing the toe of your shoe at someone? Was that here, or somewhere else? Now our feet are firmly clamped to the floor. Our back and our ankles ache.
Oh god, business cards are being handed out. We’re sure we read something about accepting them with, um, reverence, since they’re a big deal here, an extension of the person’s identity. Can we tuck if carefully into our chest pocket and pat it and smile meaningfully at the person, is that ok?
Oh god, the meeting is breaking up. Should we grip-and-grin with everyone here? What if we miss someone important? Uh oh, they’re all going off in the same direction. To dinner? Should we go too? Were we invited? We don’t remember. Are we expected to go to a restaurant and eat and drink until midnight? Please god no. We’re so tired, all we want to do is find a bed, any bed, and go to sleep.
Or maybe we could find a quiet corner to spend a few minutes on Crass, sharing tales of woe in the workplace, subsection: meetings that made me want to quit the job there and then.
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