Meetings: the 4th email

My Dear Niece Snakeash,

Today, I wish to discuss the very thing I am not paying professional attention to at this very moment, and instead focusing on my emails. Yes, I am talking about meetings.

You have seen the sitcoms. You have read the comics. You know the memes. But you will soon learn that there is more truth here. Comedy often is the last recourse of the miserable and in this troupe, there is plenty of material to mine.

What is strange is everyone knows it too. The joke of meetings is oft retailed throughout the workplaces of the world.

“Hahaha, meetings to have meetings, hahaha” is not an infrequent refrain of the frequently deranged.

But in further proof of the tried truism of the ‘definition of insanity’ the even more common refrain is to schedule’ schedule a meeting to talk about the abundance of meetings’.

Funny satire, right? Wrong, it’s another meme. We have ALSO acknowledge our propensity to solve the issue by liberal application of more meetings.

And yet we do nothing?

What’s truly curious is the first instinct, when upon confronted with an issue, is not to address the issue—but to schedule a meeting.

Oh, the myriad of psychological analysis we could ply with this!

In our own Realm, my dear niece, meetings are an effective tool for gutting motivation out of people.

Have an idea? Get on my calendar.

Need to make a complaint? Check with my assistant.

Want to have a meeting? Let’s break that up into two.

-AUNT TOUTLIPS

Meetings are just one of the many fantastic tactics we have for breaking the will of the lowly employee.

The basic, underlying fact it is WE who set meetings—not they.

We define the times, content, and location of their miserable lives.

Therefore, DO NOT, and I cannot stress this enough—do not indulge employees by accepting their invitations.

If you did not create the meeting or direct a cloven-hoofed underling to do so—do not hit ‘yes’ and actually mean it.

You can, of course like every other aspect of your profession, say one thing and then do another.

I feel the best course for the new human resources profession is to always give a ‘tentative’ reply.

It just seems right to leave everyone guessing at all times.

Aunt Toutlips

Would you like to schedule a meeting to discuss the derivative joke of meetings to plan more meetings? Email DP's assistant at nomaplebar@gmail.com, and he'll get something on the calendar.