Inspired by another blogger

The beautiful arrival of summer a few days ago has quickly dropped back into the stuff we seem to have experienced for the most of the spring season that just ended.  Some rain, some drizzle, some scattered showers, and some thunderstorms/showers have once again taken over our area.

And I'm selfish, my body doesn't like any of it.  At least we have some hope for improvement beginning Sunday into next week.  But it seems like weather forecasts change with each rendition.

I've been retired for 15 years and no longer have to attend mandatory meetings that totally wasted my time.  But I do remember those painful sessions which most attendees honestly believe are solely for the purpose of giving boss types and management types an excuse to exist.  I was told once that one of the purposes of the meetings was to give us peons a feeling of belonging, a feeling that we were contributing to the decision making process.

I can't say nothing had ever come from these meetings, but I'd be very hard pressed to remember any changes or improvements as a result of them.  Not one of us required to attend one particular session will ever forget it, and I must say right up front, it wasn't necesssarily typical.

At least a hundred of us assembled to hear one of those high priced consultants give us an inspirational talk about something, and I honestly don't remember what it was.  In fact, at the end of the seemingly three-day speech, only two or three people could remember its topic.  In the first five minutes, I started chuckling under my breath while watching the attendees' heads in that "I'm fighting sleep" nod.  After another five minutes, very few were even trying to hide their dozing.  Even people sitting in the front row were long gone into dreamland.  I don't remember much further than that.

During the next hour when consciousness almost returned, we were able to notice that the speaker was just droning on and on, apparently oblivious to the reaction of all those people facing him.

I could tell you many stories about these sessions, but one thing we didn't have to endure was what apparently is the modern meeting.  Apparently management puts meeting material on computers via something called Google Docs or the like.  I've never experienced them so can't comment on those, but a fellow blogger has posted a good report of one such meeting she had to attend, and it seems to support my memory of meetings.

Sheepish Annie is a teacher in Southern Maine and you can read her account here.

Not all meetings are bad, however.  Occasionally some are held to teach participants a new skill or technology.  Most of those meetings, at least the ones I attended, were voluntary with a specific purpose.  It was through some of those meetings that I learned about computers way back in the early 80s.  I eventually became a computer network administrator.

I hope you have a super weekend.

Gator