Meetings

A few posts ago I claimed that most of the work teachers do is a complete waste of their time. Meetings are a good example.

As a teacher, I used to have to regularly sit through an hour's excruciating tedium as one person after another asked for some minor clarification of a totally unimportant issue, or asked a question that had been answered only 5 minutes previously. Somebody would always be using buzzwords, management speak or stock phrases which meant nothing to me. Somebody else would always raise ludicrous objections to the most obvious of improvements. I would watch the clock hands creep round, trying desperately not to scream with frustration as my life ebbed away and my soul was devoured by the unrelenting mediocrity of it all.

Now that time is money, meetings are short and effective. They are only held when necessary, everyone says what they want, a deal is reached and usually everything is wrapped up in 15 minutes. It's not because we are particularly efficient, we just have better things to do with our time.