Can we talk about it?

Meetings - the practical alternative to work.

The higher up the food chain you get in business, the less actual time you spend doing anything as opposed to talking about doing things.

If meetings had been about when the wheel was invented we'd still be at the design stage now, wondering what colour it should be, what demographic it would attract, how to market it, whose department would have to pay for it and generally living in subservience to the Ants.

If you are invited to a particularly boring and pointless meeting there are games you can play to pass the time.

1) Pass the buck - see if you can get through the whole process looking like you've been highly pro-active, but without actually getting any work put in your direction. Doing a hard-day's work only annoys other people and is best avoided. It's always the slackers and the loudmouths who get the attention and the promotion. Lean forward purposfully whilst someone is in full-flow, point out how wrong their proposition is and sit back as they spend the next 6 months fuming in an attempt to put it right. You'll get all the glory - they'll get all the work

2) Most likely to - you can set your own categories for this one. Most Likely...to be fired before the next meeting, Most Likely...to get an undeserved payrise etc.

3) Effective doodling - take in a big book, make every appearance of making intensive notes - but in actuality spend your whole time playing hangman with the attractive man/woman sitting next to you. The main thing is to look busy, without actually being so.

At the end of most meetings you will notice a recurring pattern - you and your colleagues will feel that you have made progress without actually having decided a thing. The world will keep on turning, your job will still be rubbish - only now you have an extra spreadsheet to complete everyday that no one ever reads.