perfidy

I have two meetings I attend every week.

One of them is the staff meeting for just the folks from my shop, all three of us. It never lasts under an hour, which is not my fault because I never have more than about 2 minutes of stuff to say. The other meeting is for the major folks but both my boss-lady and my boss-man like us represented there, so I'm usually there. With the boss-lady there too, more often than not, so it's not like she's shamming or anything.

At the latter meeting, I rarely have anything substantive to contribute. Not because I don't work, but because everyone pretty much knows what I do. They also know that if anything I've done the previous week had any bearing on them, they'd know about it by then. So unless I have a report or other knowledge that relates to a majority of the group, I don't say much. But again, without contributing to the madness, this meeting lasts an hour without trying. One recent session was closing in on the 2 hour mark, which is about when I start wondering about either chewing my leg off to free myself from the conference table and making a bloody, lurching try for the door; or just waiting for the hypothermia to finish me off quietly, in a boardroom that is always 10 degrees colder than the coldest spot in the building.

But even if I might be a touch taciturn at the meeting, it doesn't mean I don't do anything. Like last week, when I calculated how many hours per year I spend in meetings.

Granted I had to go with rough numbers and a few estimates. I also nearly forgot about the monthly full staff meeting, which is often a reprise of one of the other meetings I'd been to; I just get to hear it again but a longer version, earlier in the morning, and with doughnuts.

So based on my best guess, I spend at minimum 72 hours annually in meetings. I did make some guesses about vacation time, holidays, and postponed or cancelled meetings, but even if everything broke against me, it shouldn't edge past 80 hours.

In essence, nearly 2 weeks of paid work time annually is sitting in a conference room listening...ok, pretending to listen...to alot of stuff that has little impact on my day-to-day existence.

I'm not really complaining, so much as I'm sharing my surprise at my findings.