Monday 20 August 2018

i Meet, you Meet, we Meet

I've been pretty busy the last couple of weeks working on a couple of stuff. Besides the panels that have thankfully been completed and which are now sent for clean-up, there've been meetings, meetings and more meetings.

There've been meetings that I've felt are constructive and useful and necessary, but there've also been meetings that I've wondered what the heck they were for.

We all hear of meetings whereby people gather and hold discussions for hours on end, but I've since discovered that there are meetings that do run overboard and yet lack even the basic quality.

Look, I don't mind sitting for hours in real discussion and clarification. I don't mind meetings where there's proper contribution in getting the work done. What I don't fancy are meetings where there's all the d**k waving and yet gets nowhere. Sure, they might be a part and parcel of everyone's working life, especially if you're in a corporation, or a start-up, but I do quietly question the validity of it if it accomplishes nothing or turns into a gossip session.

I'm not interested in gossip.

I honestly don't give a f**k if the investor is like this or like that or whether the investor has enough coming in.

That is not my problem, and listening to drivel  that does not push the work forward only wastes my time.

See, people emphasize on the productivity of meetings, but we don't often ask ourselves why we even have the meeting in the first place.
 
Productivity at the workplace isn't measured only by efficiency and effectiveness. It is also measured by logic and structure. And if both elements are missing, when one has no answer as to why the meeting even has to take place, then it borders on inefficiency and it means it is only rote and nothing more. 
 
It doesn't help that there's no definitive structure either. Who is supposed to do the collecting, the collating and the closing? Who is designated to do it, and why? It doesn't matter who does it- anyone can- but someone has to be the anchor somewhere, otherwise it is just a bunch of people sitting around sharing, which amounts to nothing when it comes to the cold, hard facts.  

The past couple of weeks have been occupied dealing with the aftermath of such a lackadaisical approach, and  trust me, it hasn't been the happiest of working times. I've questioned the validity of needing to answer, I've questioned the reason behind such an approach, and I've even wondered whether it were worth my time to be raising such issues.

I raised them anyway.


Some things just have to be said- rehearsals or no. Some things just have to be placed on a firm foothold. And some things have to be arranged in such a way that there's a clearer line of thought, and maybe more transparency altogether. I certainly don't appreciate very much to be told that there needs to be more huddles when I don't know what I'm huddling for.

It don't help nothing.

Nothing at all.