The Joy of Meetings

One thing that jobs in the public sector all seem to have in common (common to all of the places I have worked in anyway) is their love of long, boring meetings. If you can say it in an e-mail, in a few words or in a quick meeting, then it will be said in a long painful meeting. There will be power-point (or death by power-point as it is known here). There will be handouts which will languish for years at the bottom of our drawers. There will always be one person who has to speak up at “any other business”. And I will spend the whole hour(s) stifling yawns.

The yawning is rude enough, what’s worse is my tendency to daydream. I lack the ability to concentrate on one thing for long (a product of my pop-culture and sound-bite obsessed, fast-paced, shallow cultural upbringing) unless it is really incredibly absorbing (my lunch). It’s mortifying to sit there trying to concentrate only to zone out without realising and zone back in ten minutes later without having taken in a word.

So here’s my list of top ten things to do in a meeting:

1) Practise my drawing. I can’t even doodle, but I fancy myself (in my dreams) as an artist.
2) Day-dream, free-associate and let your mind wander and see what it tells you. Just don’t get caught.
3) Write up your to-do list (work, home, chores, things you just haven’t got round to)
4) Think up henna patterns (much like 1)
5) Plan your dinner (and tomorrows)
6) Pull faces at your colleagues, wink at them. Just don’t get caught.
7) Do some brain-storming/mind-mapping for ideas for your blog, book, crafts or
8) Watch the black spot in my vision, if I look at it, it drifts across the room.
9) Stretch your toes
10) Look at other people's shoes

Just off to a meeting.


"I'm never bored anywhere; being bored is an insult to oneself." - Jules Renard