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The Meeting Cut-Up (or Reason #158 I’m a Bad Employee)

August 4, 2017 by Jon 3 Comments

Of the things I miss least about working for others, perhaps the biggest is the staff meeting. God, how I loathed the staff meeting! And it’s not because I wasn’t interested in pertinent news from our leadership about where we were headed in the near, medium and long term – I was! And it’s not because I didn’t want to hear about what my colleagues were working on and where we might have opportunity to collaborate – I did!

It’s because so frequently those ostensible reasons for a staff meeting to exist in the first place took a backseat to the meeting’s real purpose – providing a forum for a frustrated amateur comic to unleash his or her (but let’s face it, 99% of the time we’re talking about his) shopworn jokes and blisteringly unfunny zingers on a captive audience. Worse, the perpetrator of this eye roll-inducing ad hoc open mic night holding everyone hostage was often whomever led the meeting. There must be something irresistible about the power of knowing people cannot leave until you tell them to, a power even then more irresistible to abuse.

In my last corporate gig, I grew to harbor remarkable disdain for one of the company’s leaders who, in general, was extremely disorganized, and, worse, treated every meeting he ran like we were on the couch at a frat house ballbusting each other. The first 30 minutes of every meeting were spent grabassing, carousing, and generally holding forth like a juvenile jackass. Certainly, there were those who enjoyed this approach, but I cannot imagine I was alone in grinding my molars wishing I was anywhere else, or, failing that, for a meteor strike that would end life on this planet just so I wouldn’t have to fake laugh and pretend to smile in a way that I feared might make my head split open and my brains to fall out.

I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but it’s hard to convey properly the depth of my annoyance with this. I remember reading an interview with Bill Murray in Esquire a few years ago where he was sort of obliquely addressing his reputation of being tough to work with. He said:

“When I work, my first relationship with people is professional. There are people who want to be your friend right away. I say, ‘We’re not gonna be friends until we get this done. If we don’t get this done, we’re never going to be friends, because if we don’t get the job done, then the one thing we did together that we had to do together we failed.’ People confuse friendship and relaxation. It’s incredibly important to be relaxed — you don’t have a chance if you’re not relaxed. So I try very hard to relax any kind of tension. But friendship is different.”

I identify with that probably a little too much. If we’re working together, I’m not going to be your friend right away. Can’t we just do the fucking work? And once we’re successful, then maybe we can be friends. But the fucking meeting cut-up wants to confuse the order in which I believe these relationships are supposed to happen, which in my mind sets us all up not only for project failure, but for hurt feelings and a misplaced sense of a broken friendship. Fuck that. We’ve all got a job to do, so let’s cut the bullshit and do the fucking job before we all start smacking each other on the ass.

On a less existential level, my annoyance with the meeting cut-up is two-fold: 1) You’re undermining the efficiency of this meeting; and 2) Your shit ain’t funny.

On point the first, assuming you’re working in at least a semi-functional organization, we’ve probably all got plenty of irons in the fire, so let’s group together as quickly as possible so we can return to the tasks associated with the presumable reason we all get paid. This meeting where we’re all stopping whatever we’re doing better have a strong purpose, otherwise we’re just pushing the time where we can just finally go home even further away.

In the case of the PR firm where I worked, our leadership gave each of us the opportunity to lead a staff meeting any way we saw fit. Having grown frustrated with the state of things as they were, when my turn came, I made the staff meeting standing only. I took all the chairs out of the conference room, moved the tables to the back, and made everyone stand.

Then to further facilitate efficiency, I went to each member of the staff beforehand and asked them for their updates. Each meeting had a number of topic areas, and I made sure to hit them all with each member of the staff – Client updates, clients in/out of the office, staff in/out of the office, business development updates, personal news and notes, news from management/organizational updates. Then I wrote them on the whiteboard in the conference room so everyone knew the agenda before and during the meeting as I checked them off one by one.

The staff seemed into it, and standing in a circle in an interior conference room on the 18th floor will short circuit anyone’s designs on turning into Henny Youngman, but it had the unfortunate side effect of alienating me further from my management. I think they appreciated my balls, but disliked the implicit commentary I was making on their leadership style. Reflecting on it now – I was 27 when I did this – they’re probably right on both counts. I made my point, and while I probably could have been less of a shit about it, I’d still do it again. Most efficient meeting ever.

On point the second, I’m not opposed to a well-crafted and well-placed zinger, but if you recognize the personality type I’m bitching about in this piece at all, you know these are folks not noted for their restraint. It’s always some dusty old cliché they blast out in response to every fifth sentence they hear from a colleague. “Wow, Pam, why don’t you tell us how you REALLY feel?” Har har har! “Hey Chuck, at least buy the client dinner first before you give him a frisking like that!” Hee haw!

I first recognized this way back during my time in college radio at KCSU where we’d have mandatory monthly staff meetings (you could get suspended from your show if you didn’t attend at least two per semester) populated by insecure college kids all elbowing for time slots, and evidently a disproportionate number of them thought being “hilarious” during routine staff meetings would earn them additional kudos. I grew to despise this behavior so much I started to make up shit to get out of going to the meetings. Usually I was outright lying, but I earned my excused absences and saved everyone from my angry glowering face sucking the “fun” out of the room.

I’m not a tough laugh, but at least come correct with some freshness if you’re venturing into the waters of comedy. I realize at this point 1200 words in, and especially after the previous sentence, I’m probably alone (or nearly alone) in my irritation with this type of thing, and that’s fine. Kristin explained my personality to me once when she said, “You’re not happy unless you’re explaining your Halloween costume to everyone.”

I found that incredibly insightful because it hits me in so many of the places I live. I’m a bit pretentious. I have esoteric and unusual taste. I’m ludicrously self-aware. I have high standards for the people I interact with. I strain for real connection. And, at heart, I’m probably a complete pain in the ass. Of those traits, one that has great utility is my high level of self-awareness.

Anyone who’s listened to the podcast for any length of time has probably heard me say I’ve had a problem with basically every boss I’ve ever had except for one, and that at some point I realized my problems with them weren’t actually their problems. The problem was me, and a hierarchical situation such as the one that, by necessity, governs the way virtually any organization is run internally, is probably not a good fit for me.

So, having removed myself from this structure, I’m much happier. Conversely, I’m sure most of the people I worked with who had to endure my sourpuss during these meetings are probably happier that I’m not there, too.

Occasionally I’m dragged back into regular ass meetings, and from time to time I get a pang of existential dread about them. But mostly I just sit quietly and smile politely when the poor man’s Shecky Greene shows up and farts out some trite joke knowing I don’t work there and I get to leave this place shortly.

And maybe that’s what it was all about in the first place. Not only did I feel I had no agency in terms of deciding how my time was spent; I was trapped there with unfunny, tryhard dingleberries, too. Yuck.

TL/DR: If you think you’re funny in a staff meeting, 99% of the time you’re not. Also, I’m better off not in a corporate environment, possibly a killjoy, and impossibly pretentious.

Filed Under: Annoyance

“I Just Came Here to Read the Comments”

June 27, 2016 by Jon 2 Comments

“Am I the only person here who loves to watch a couple together that hates each other’s guts?” begins a Dane Cook bit from his album Retaliation. Entitled “The Nothing Fight,” Cook shares a (probably fictional) anecdote about a couple he overhears in the grocery store arguing about something completely inconsequential and how he spies on them with voyeuristic glee from around the Entenmann’s display at the end of the aisle.

Although listening to it again, I don’t think it’s aged well. I found it uproarious upon its release and part of its relatability has to do with the familiarity of past failed relationships and remaining with someone you actively disliked as you continuously fought about any number of irrelevant things. The other part, the more interesting part, is Cook’s ghoulish schadenfreude delight at this couple having it out in a very public way. To whatever extent, most people take some guilty joy in gawking at a public altercation.

You used to have to leave your house to encounter something like this. With social media, it’s easier than ever, which brings me to this meme:

"I just came here to read the comments" is an internet meme that promotes the absolute worst internet discourse, and Deft Communications argues for its end.

You’ve probably seen this in the thread of a Facebook friend who’s posted something controversial, political, or otherwise of public concern. And given your friend list, you probably know which of your friends tend to bring their flamethrowers to conversations, and it’s not unexpected, or even necessarily wrong, to take some pleasure in seeing how they’ll react this time. I understand this.

But flatly declaring your rubbernecking intent via this meme and that “I just came here to read the comments” is just plain gross.

I believe one of the most powerful ways we evolve and grow as people is by spending time with those whom we don’t always agree, and having civil conversations about the issues of the day.

I flew to Philadelphia recently with my friend Adam, and we ended up spending the whole flight talking about politics, policy, religion and whatever else came up. We came at the issues from slightly different angles, and while I didn’t necessarily change any of my opinions, I evolved them in a meaningful way as a result of involved discussion. I know I left the conversation feeling much stronger in my knowledge about the subject at hand, and by virtue of having listened to my friend without any preconceived agenda of the net result of that conversation, I ended up with a deeper sense of empathy.

For the record, one thing I will never concede to him is his ludicrous assertion while flying over the Delaware River that seeing it rendered George Washington’s crossing of it unremarkable since “that’s not that big, really.” GO BACK TO ENGLAND, YOU TURNCOAT! USA! USA! USA!

I recognize that a long, engaged conversation with someone you like and have liked and respected for more than a decade is different than sparring with a quasi-stranger on Facebook… but imagine if we treated the two interactions the same way. Imagine seeing something on Facebook, and instead of loading up with your best ammunition and firing at will, you instead sought greater understanding. That by understanding them better – no matter how unfathomably wrong you initially perceive them to be – you listen and you dig in, and by virtue of that effort, you actually understand yourself better.

I also recognize that some people are just wired to be jerks, and this utopian dithering I’m peddling isn’t universally practical. But I wholly believe elevating the discourse is. And for my money, the best way to start is getting these prurient bridge trolls who live to watch strangers combat each other to piss off.

Just to summarize the intent of these meme-posting jackals: Not only are you not here to contribute anything meaningful, you’re wishing for the absolute worst of the bottom-feeders to hurl Molotov cocktails at each other for your personal amusement. And you’re fully okay with declaring your intent as a grotesque sideshow patron. Swell.

Were you one of the kids who egged on the two school bullies to kick each other’s asses and get suspended while you cried innocence in the aftermath ignoring your culpability in making the environment more incendiary? Were you in Michael Vick’s backyard, too? Were you there with Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer in the back of Marcelino’s bodega at 3 in the morning to watch Little Jerry fight another rooster to try and get Jerry’s bounced clown check removed from the front counter? Did you buy one of those abhorrent Bum Fights videos?

You are the curiosity delay on the highway when there’s an accident going the other way that screws up everyone’s commute to work. You are the reason we have TMZ. You are “The Fappening.” You are the Huffington Post’s idiotic policy of covering Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as “entertainment,” and look where we are now on that front.

In short, you are the worst. Stop posting this.

Better yet, meme or no, stop doing this.

Filed Under: Annoyance, Culture Tagged With: Comment Threads, Commentary, Deft Communications, Denver PR, Facebook, I'm Just Here for the Comments, Internet Culture

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