On Meetings

At some time in the past, someone smarter and funnier than me - well, sure that's false modesty, does anyone really think there's anyone smarter or funnier than they are? - must have written down the universal time-suck equation as it relates to meetings. If you have a reference to it, please e-mail me immediately.

In the meantime, allow me to point out some of the complexities the equation must acknowledge. First you start with an inverse proportion whereby the number of people involved in any meeting simultaneously lowers the aggregate IQ and extends the length - in minutes, or hours - of the meeting. Note that this is actually a recursive function, because as IQ is lowered, meeting time is also increased because you have to keep explaining things for the dimwits. It's like calculating compound interest.

Next, you factor in the newbies that need to be brought up to speed. Multiply the introductory time factor by the number of people who have never attended any meeting on the subject, but who are now insinuating themselves onto your project because it might look good for them, or they want to generate the appearance of doing work by glomming onto yours.

Don't forget to account for the time/salary/availability relationship. This is a function which states the lower your salary, the move vulnerable you are to being "made available" to any wing-nut above you who decides to drag you into a room with other clueless people. A general rule of this function also states that the lower your salary, the less time you actually have at your disposal for this kind of crap because you spend your days doing the work of the people who spend their time in meetings.

Finally, you need to adjust for the politico-sexual modifier, which means that anyone deliberately trying to (a) kiss ass or (b) get ass during the meeting also impacts meeting duration. In case (a) meeting duration is increased indefinitely because public ass-kissing is usually the root instigator of all meetings. In case (b) the duration of the meeting can actually decrease depending on the potential success of the operators of the function.

I will refer to this only as my special theory of meetings. Only after more exhaustive testing will I be able to create a more useful general theory of meetings.

Until then, I've got to go to another damn meeting.