The well kept secret of Longetivity

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:09:02 GMT

Over the past few weeks, I realized the secret of a happy and long life is not collagen or any other miracle drug. It is quite surprisingly long boring meetings. I cannot elaborate enough on the life and sanity saving properties of such meetings. However like they say too much of a good thing is bad. You have to exercise caution while experimenting with this revolutionary fountain of youth and mirth.

Next time you open your calendar and see a long meeting scheduled, don’t cringe. Instead if possible open that bottle of champagne and drink to the health of the one who called for the meeting. Make sure you arrive at least five minutes late to the meeting, throw on a French accent and do an impersonation of Clouseau from Pink Panther.

[walking around the room] It is... lovely weather we are having. I hope the weather continues.
[chops curtain, table, etc., usually breaking something] The area is secure.

Please do not attempt to do this if anybody with hiring /firing permissions is an attendee or if your company does not tolerate lunatics on the pay roll. But this is a good way to set the mood for an informal bak-bak meeting. Usually the like of status updates.

I understand that usually this is not a very practical opening. You can try one of the following options. In my office, we call ourselves the SAM (Survive a meeting) tactics

Get your laptops or mobiles and on the pretext of taking notes, chat with friends and fellow sufferers. It usually works well if the topic of conversation drifts to slight mockery of the speaker at the meetings. You can catch all the innuendos and broadcast it to the chat group . Caution: debar any giggly creatures from the chat group. They can prove fatal to your career.
If you have an artistic bone in you, you can try sketching or capturing someone at the meeting (usually your boss) in a cartoon or caricature. It can be even more amusing, if you can take a nap of this on your mobile and transfer it via Bluetooth to your friends
If you are pitched in to the battlefield with no friends and you are surrounded by foes, you can try noting down every single syllable being uttered in the meeting, including burps and farts if any . That can be a fun transcript to read later.
Of course, my favorite SAM tactic is to day dream. I imagine the likes of an alien invasion of earth and that we were meeting to discuss the counter attacks and measures.

The best part about meetings is that you can always blame unfinished work on never ending meetings. Meetings are God’s gift to working people. So get going schedule a few meetings right away

Chalk , Cheese and More ...: Entertainment

The well kept secret of Longetivity