Hard Labour

AUCKLAND, Sunday: “Meetings can be hard work in that they stop you from working at all,” wrote Herald on Sunday business columnist Paul Catmur. Hard work, indeed!

“Hopefully,” he reckons, “before long we will get away from the awkwardness of wearing pyjamas to online video chats and return to the good old days of meetings about meetings.

“They may be a much-maligned forum for exchanging gossip, germs and cracked water glasses, but without meetings where would we be?

“We all need a day full of back-to-back aimless talkfests to remind us of what business is all about.

“We all need a day full of back-to-back aimless talkfests to remind us of what business is all about.”

“Here are a few basic principles in case you’ve forgotten how they work:

The venue?
Tradition dictates that all meetings be held in an inappropriately small room with a faulty air-conditioning system.

“There should be one chair less than the number of attendees and preferably another that collapses 10 minutes into the session.

“The audio-visual system should intermittently crash requiring somebody called Graham to ‘come down’ and fix it. Graham will eventually turn up, press a random button and the system will work perfectly.

“Sixty seconds after he’s gone it will break down again.”

• Read on, here