Office meetings…ugggh….everyone hates them whether or not they admit it. You have to sit there in a room that is generally too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Not to mention you always have to smile no matter who sits next to you, even if you can’t stand the person. Unfortunately they are essential in the 9 to 5 world. My experience with office meetings is actually a pretty long one. Office meetings are really just long lectures, like the kind you have in college. Sometimes you give the presentation, sometimes you watch, but always you’re thinking “I could be doing anything else than this”. But there are ways to get through it.
Now I am not telling you that all meetings are useless, there’s always some measure of attention you must pay to a meeting. They wouldn’t call them if there wasn’t something that they specifically wanted you to hear. However, some offices *ahem-mine* have a habit of calling staff office meetings every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. For an entire hour of my life I’m stuck in a room where most people just repeat what they said the day before. Here are some amusing tips to get through them.
Multi-task thinking: View meetings as unofficial social mixers where men and women of all levels get to come to check each other out while pretending to do business. Here is where you try to form a coherent sentence while at the same time imagining the most random, obscure things about the other person. For example, try explaining your recent project (for the ump-teenth time) to a colleague while at the same time imagining that person nibbling an earlobe, or dancing The Macarena.
The busy-bee: if you’re one of the few that receive a company blackberry, send yourself a million texts and leave the phone on vibrate. Make sure that there is an appropriate amount of time that the phone rests on the table by making sure that it doesn’t go off in your hand. Keep reaching for it, and clicking one button and then putting it down immediately. People will always thing you’re super busy if your phone is always going off.
Attention rush: Some people get the urge to sleep after hearing the same information again and again. This is actually natural, as the brain when stimulated with repetitive information will filter it like your spam filter in your email. The natural response to this, since you’re sitting down, is to go into temporary standby phase. The trick to not slumping down your head and napping make eye contact with anyone! You’re less inclined to fall asleep and you look really intense as you stare into the speaker’s eyes and make your coworkers think that you’re onto something new.
Gym-Gym-boree! : Work on some muscles baby! Flex those buns, tighten those abs! Not only will you stay awake, but most people won’t even notice that you’re doing a mini-workout.
Bring a notebook: Bring a notebook to the meeting and start scribbling. This helps if you have bad handwriting since no one will even attempt to read your notes. But, you’ll look super productive and get brownie points for making whoever is talking feel important, and whoever is watching like an ass. Of course you’re really writing about anything but what the person is talking about
Have fun: girls….rub, release, rub, release…repeat. Dare to go as far as you will. Sorry guys, but just know that at least ONE girl in the room is doing it, let your imagination soar.
Spin your pencil: You may drop it a million times during the meeting, but you’ll have a super cool skill that everyone else around will want to do. I’m serious! Try it, swirl and spin your pen around your fingers like a baton, pretend you’re only interested in what the speaker is saying and take side glances at the people around you. You’ll notice that they’re starting to twirl their own while watching your movements.
The busy-bee: if you’re one of the few that receive a company blackberry, send yourself a million texts and leave the phone on vibrate. Make sure that there is an appropriate amount of time that the phone rests on the table by making sure that it doesn’t go off in your hand. Keep reaching for it, and clicking one button and then putting it down immediately. People will always thing you’re super busy if your phone is always going off.
Attention rush: Some people get the urge to sleep after hearing the same information again and again. This is actually natural, as the brain when stimulated with repetitive information will filter it like your spam filter in your email. The natural response to this, since you’re sitting down, is to go into temporary standby phase. The trick to not slumping down your head and napping make eye contact with anyone! You’re less inclined to fall asleep and you look really intense as you stare into the speaker’s eyes and make your coworkers think that you’re onto something new.
Gym-Gym-boree! : Work on some muscles baby! Flex those buns, tighten those abs! Not only will you stay awake, but most people won’t even notice that you’re doing a mini-workout.
Bring a notebook: Bring a notebook to the meeting and start scribbling. This helps if you have bad handwriting since no one will even attempt to read your notes. But, you’ll look super productive and get brownie points for making whoever is talking feel important, and whoever is watching like an ass. Of course you’re really writing about anything but what the person is talking about
Have fun: girls….rub, release, rub, release…repeat. Dare to go as far as you will. Sorry guys, but just know that at least ONE girl in the room is doing it, let your imagination soar.
Spin your pencil: You may drop it a million times during the meeting, but you’ll have a super cool skill that everyone else around will want to do. I’m serious! Try it, swirl and spin your pen around your fingers like a baton, pretend you’re only interested in what the speaker is saying and take side glances at the people around you. You’ll notice that they’re starting to twirl their own while watching your movements.
I will probably think of a few more while in my own staff meeting
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