« I hate meetings they make me sick

March 18, 2010 • ☕️ 1 min read

It’s 5 AM, I am awake, coughing. I’m ill again. 
You may think it’s because I’ve got a cold or a flu. 
No, I had too many meetings in the last months, that’s why.

Yesterday I’ve successfully skipped one: I’ve quickly grouped the people right after the stand up telling them straight on, shall we just stay here and stand?

It worked: rather than lasting an unknown amount of time, it lasted less than five minutes, people hate to stand up, especially after a stand up!

We also saved time in:

gathering people : 5 to 10 minutes
gathering coffee : 5 to 10 minutes
finding missing people : 5 to 10 minutes (assuming you wait only 10!) 
sitting comfy on the sofas : it varies, let’s say it has a 5 minutes impact
talking before the meeting about the last champions league/cricket/rugby game: 5 to 30 minutes

Which sums up in min 25 minutes to one hour of pure waste.

In fact most of the meetings lasts 30 minutes to an hour, the decisions (if you are lucky, if it happens) are usually taken in 5 minutes or so.

So far in all my entire carrier I can’t recall a meeting where the team took so important, vital, useful decisions, the only thing I recall is the cough I have now, meetings make me sick.