A friend of mine had to go to a meeting today. He said they were supposed to talk about some software that he wrote, and the meeting ended up taking longer than it did for him to write the software in the first place.

Wifey and I were out with a group of friends last night, and the topic of meetings popped up in conversation. One story involved a few guys sending pager notifications to somebody who was sitting in a meeting, while they themselves were watching from another room. When they called the pager, it asked to enter in a phone number so the guy can return your call. They entered an 800 number for some adult phone service, and then sent the code that means "urgent, call back immediately". So the guy gets out his cell phone, excuses himself to everyone in the meeting, and then calls this 800 number. Apparently his reaction was pretty funny to watch from outside of the meeting room, and he continued to entertain by calling the number back and listening again.

Another funny story was about Meeting Bingo. Before the meeting, someone would discreetly pass around special bingo cards for business meetings. Instead of numbers, they had marketing buzzwords and phrases, like "paradigm shift", "integrated solution", "consolidated environment", "business process automation", "unprecedented performance", "value proposition", "e-commerce", "action item", "cutting edge", "enterprise solution", ... I could go on (and on, and on). As the meeting progressed (hmm, does that mean that meetings make progress?), you kept track of your bingo card. Every now and then somebody would blurt out, "Bingo!". I know that these buzzwordy phrases have a useful meaning and save time while trying to communicate business ideas, but when I step out of a meeting and leave the office, the last thing I expect to hear from somebody out on the street would be "integrated solution". Could you imagine how funny that would be at, say, a Starbuck's? They could re-brand the simple cup of coffee as an "integrated solution", since it does include a spill-proof top, as well as a heat-protecting sleeve. It would be great, you could walk in and order a "GLM" (Grande Latte Mocha, of course) from the "Integrated Solutions" menu (aka, "carry out"). Just think of how much time that would save!