pre-attended meetings
If you are like me, you treat meetings like dentist visits – you’re happy to go if you have to, but you’ll need Highlights for Children to survive. But how do we minimize time spent in the meeting itself? I propose the “pre-attended meeting.” It’s kind of like a pre-owned car. For a small fee, you can get a coupon excusing you from the meeting. The person issuing the coupon has attended exactly this type of meeting and can vouch that the buyer doesn’t have to show up. For example, if you are trying to avoid a meeting about the need to repaint the department front office, your coupon might say:
To Whom it May Concern,
Professor X is excused from attending the upcoming meeting on front office repainting. Having attended many of these meetings in the past, it is safe to say that at least one person will propose a nasty 70s avocado green. This person should be ignored. Then, the committee will gravitate towards a few safe colors, like institutional beige, or a nice powdered blue. The committee will choose the color that is cheapest and hasn’t been done in a while. Since we know what the decision will most likely be like, Professor X does not have to attend. S/he expresses his preferences with the color chart below and gives the committee chair his/her vote should his/her prefered color (fuschia) not be chosen.
Sincerely,
Dr. Geraldo Edley
Class of ‘22 Thomas Kincaid Professor of Interior Design
Ideally, the office decoration committee chair could then collect coupons from the whole committee and just make the decision. Committee chairs would accept coupons issued by authorities on certain kinds of meetings. In an efficient system, people could trade coupons on an open market and minimize the population of meetings. You have nothing to lose except your meetings.
Are you serious? There are meetings about paint?! Kill me now.
Avocado green is nice as an accent color. Like my teapot. My walls are swiss coffee, I believe. Thus, my home is what you might call “institutional beige.” Hmm, how I have internalized the norms.
Thomas Kincaid calls himself the painter of light. I have always wished that he had an evil twin brother who was the sculptor of darkness.
Belle Lettre
May 9, 2008 at 5:14 am
Your proposal assumes that the objective of meetings is to make decisions in an efficient manner. This may not be the case.
Peter Klein
May 9, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I agree with Peter – call me cynical, but aren’t meetings sometimes scheduled simply to “signal” to others that work is being done to address something else?
As far as colors go, in the words of George Clooney, “They say taupe is very soothing.”
Samir Nurmohamed
May 10, 2008 at 5:18 pm