Let's Meet

Everyone has their most annoying part of the work day. For some it might be when a coworker bombards you about how your weekend/evening was and you've barely walked through the door, let alone, put down your bags, set up and/or poured your first cup of coffee.

For others the most annoying part of the day might be going into the communal kitchen fridge and seeing that someone has taken their Diet Pepsi/leftovers/Greek yogurt, thus forcing their hand to write a passive aggressive note about PLEASE Respect Shared Spaces!!!!!!!!!

For me, the worst part of the day is being stuck in meetings. And unfortunately, I'm invited to A LOT of meetings. It's not atypical for me to be in meetings from the moment I get into work straight through the end of the day, sometimes straight through lunch. I actually did have to have a meeting with my boss about the fact that I have too many meetings and I was getting overwhelmed.

I've taken to bringing my laptop with me to meetings for two reasons:

1) being in so many meetings during the days was severely hampering my ability to actually get ANY work done during the actual work day, so during lulls in the meeting, I answer other emails and do more of my quick writing assignments.

2) I cannot be away from gchat and Twitter for too long or I get twitchy. I have hilarious thoughts I MUST SHARE BEFORE THEY GO AWAY.

The only time I don't bring my laptop is when the client is physically present OR when we're having some kind of formal presentation.

I like sharing these kinds of thoughts during meetings, like the time we had a conference call with one of my coworkers who was out of the office.*

• 10:06 a.m. - [coworker] is 6 minutes late to the meeting. let's get this show on the road!! #livebloggingmymeeting
• 10:11 a.m. - finally! [coworker] calls in. #livebloggingthemeeting
• 10:13 a.m. - traffic, vacations, the weather. we've talked about every thing EXCEPT why we're actually on the call for. small talk results in small pieces of my soul dying. #livebloggingmymeeting
• 10:16 a.m. - and we're off! #livebloggingthemeeting
• 10:20 a.m. - we are getting REALLY hung up on page 4. #14pagestogo #itsgonnabealongone #livebloggingthemeeting
• 10:24 a.m. we just FLEW through pages 7-8. YESSSSS!!!!!! #almostthere
• 10:29 a.m. we are almost at page 11. my portion of the presentation is coming up! #LBMM
• 10:34 a.m. I know my boss is gonna say something to me AGAIN about slowing down, but MAN can I talk fast!!! #letsgetthisoverwithalready #livebloggingthemeeting
• 10:37 a.m. last page!!!!
• 10:39 a.m. we're done!!! #meetingadjourned!
• 10:43 a.m. GAHHHH!!! like the killer in the last reel, they keep coming up with ONE MORE THING to talk about. #whenisthisover?!
• 10:48 a.m. ok this is like the part of the party where you're saying good-bye for two hours. we've said everything already. now we're just repeating ourselves.
• 10:53 a.m. DONE. 7 minutes until my next meeting. what can I eat? #livebloggingmymeeting

*this is purely a sample. I've written it just for my own amusement, this is SO not something I would be doing. In the event of an actual, live meeting, the sound you would hear would be me nodding and murmuring in total agreement with all the points made.**

**you believe me, right? Because when you agree, meetings are over quicker.***

***Har har! If any of my bosses are coworkers are reading this, you know I'm a jokester! I LOVE meetings!****

****It's been scientifically proven that coworkers cannot read past 3 footnotes. Especially in mouse type. You guys know the truth!!!!!!

Today we had a meeting and one of my coworkers took photos of me, unbeknownst to me, at least for a little while. These are the results:

Here, I can presume I'm updating my status on gchat. Hilariously, I might add. 

[I look so serious though!]

Here you might think I've noticed I'm being observed. But no, not yet. My amused expression is coming from either reading someone else's, or most likely my own status, and laughing. This is better than the occasions when I literally LOL at funny statuses or exchanges with a friend and look like a crazy person in the middle of a not funny meeting.

A-ha! I noticed that I'm being photodocumented.

So now I'm doing my I'm Staring Wistfully Into Space Because I'm Deep And Mysterious Look.

Some observations: I have nothing on my lips here. My natural color is so pink-ish! Also, was a little heavyhanded with the blush. Might need to cool that. Finally, candid photoshoots from your friend might be the only thing that makes meetings worth it.

Because meetings suck otherwise.