Meetings

One of the disadvantages of my job is that I am required to attend meetings. We sometimes have meetings to plan meetings. There is an advantage to this, however. Attending meetings can consume large parts of the work week so that there is little actual work to be done. I think there is a corollary of Murphy’s Law that says something like, “the expectation of actual production diminishes in proportion to the number of meetings required to discuss production.” Or, as one of my colleagues says, “The only thing that comes out of meetings is people.”


This is not entirely true. Meetings can be profitable if you work at it. Listed below are actual statements made at meetings I’ve attended this year. I wrote them down immediately when spoken. None were made up. I will give context where necessary:

Misquoted wrong – “I was misquoted wrong.in the newspaper.” Then does that mean it got it right?

Unthawed – “We have several turkeys unthawed in the freezer,” In English, we say “frozen.”

Unloosened – “I had to unloosen the lid so it wouldn’t spill.” If it is unloosened, it is still tight so it won’t spill.

Free gift – Aren’t all gifts free? If I have to pay for it, it’s not a gift.

Over exaggerated – Are there degrees to exaggeration? Can you under exaggerate?

Under the weather – I hear this often. But, aren’t we all under the weather, except for those people on the orbiting space station. If they get sick, are they “under the stratosphere?” or under the Van Allen belt?”

Lowered down – yeah, gravity is a bummer.

Reflect back – because it’s really hard to reflect forward.  

Reiterate again – Whew, I’m glad he’s not being repetitious.

In the future moving forward – because you can’t move forward in the past; but then again, if you are in the past then forward is the only direction you can go. Hmm. I think I need a souped up DeLorean and 1.21 jiggawatts to figure out this.

Reduced down – Who wants to gain pounds on a weight reduction plan?

I anticipate more fun to follow as I gleefully attend meetings this year.