I’ve yet to meet someone passionate about meetings in their current form. Maybe one day I’ll meet this sadistic, twisted, puppet master who is just clamoring for another staff meeting or status call, but I won’t hold my breath.

In the meantime, I’ll continue the list in my notebook of things that make me laugh, or that always happen, or are just plain quirks of the current meeting ethos. Here are some of them.

Fighting to get the right conference room Having 4 people in a 30 person conference room because it is all that was available Kicking squatters out of our reserved conference room Squatting and being kicked out of a reserved conference room Awkward introductions at the beginning Whiteboard markers that never work But apparently they did at one point, and you need to clean the board, but the eraser is missing How we always forget about the one guy who is dialed-in to an in-person meeting Everyone, always, not paying attention and instead staring at their phones, laptops, or into space Side conversations Tracking down Bill, the IT guy, because the projector/phones/whatever won’t work That look on the poor soul’s face who didn’t really need to be in this 2-hour “planning session” When everything communicated in the meeting could have been done through a short email Spilling anything Being stuck in-between the Polycom and the boss PowerPoint presentations in all 12 point font Anyone eating anything Sitting next to someone sick Screen spying The formal trading of business cards when we all have each other’s contact info anyway Being the first to stand up at the end and then having to sit back down

Working at Attentiv.com, I feel like I’m doing my small part to eliminate useless meetings and make the necessary meetings more productive with better organization and clear-cut decision makings. Join us in this revolution against bad meetings.