The Butt Ugly Weblog

When others get to consistently prioritize their use of my time over my own use of my time, life sucks.

But I don't (well,rarely) feel the need to lie... I'm not that much of a coward!

"Sorry, my kids are more important than your need to have yet another meeting about your pet work project!"

Nope, no trouble communicating that at all.

--AnonymousCoward, 07-Apr-2006

Then you're one of the few enlightened people who have their priorities straight. Good on you!

However, in my experience many people aren't. Especially the young people...

--JanneJalkanen, 07-Apr-2006

Meetings are often the biggest waste of an organisations time. I know of companies that have conference calls involving dozens of people, for several hours, REGULARLY. Conference calls are worse than meetings because people don't fully engage, it's like the mobile foreground/background thing. Every now and then your name is mentioned and you struggle to remember the last 30 seconds of conversation in order to make a relevant comment. Structured meeting agendas tagged with the relevant words might be an idea to ensure that we only have to attend the portion of the meeting that we want to (and it would make it more difficult for people to call a meeting!) I also want to have a calendaring application that allows me to opt-in to meeting times, rather than opt-out by making up fake excuses. Monday afternoon is a time I don't mind having meetings, so I mark that space as 'available for meetings - but only with the relevant tags!'

--Paul Jardine, 19-Apr-2006

Paul, that's a really great idea!

--JanneJalkanen, 19-Apr-2006