It’s Sunday. That means that we’re starting a new workweek in the Middle East. It also means that we’re starting a week that will most likely end with a spat because of customarily useless meetings. Our bosses and co-workers sure like to discuss “status updates” too much, don’t they? The struggle is quite real. Here are some of the most infuriating business meetings that we hope you won’t be subjected to this week:
When your boss asks you in to check on “how things are going”:
Let’s start with the most common and obvious one. When we’re facing a tight deadline or trying as hard as we could to fulfill the always elusive KPIs, our bosses usually call us into their office just to, umm… check on things. Usually, these meetings end up wasting an inordinate amount of time that could’ve been better allocated to actual work.
Preliminary joint business meetings:
These bad boys are the bane of every PR or advertising executive. We understand their intended purpose of getting the teams of the involved companies acclimated to each other. However, in reality, these meetings just end up wasting everyone’s time as they’re full of niceties and useless information-sharing. If our company was really thinking about going into business with yours, for instance, let’s just say that we won’t need to know how long you’ve been in the market or how you believe that social media is truly the way of the future. 10 minutes on Google would definitely be more useful than a two-hour meeting, but that’s just us.
“Team meetings”:
Oh boy, where do we even start? In an ideal world, team meetings are supposed to crystallize common goals, resolve any and all chemistry issues and generally get everyone on the same page. In reality, though, they usually do none of the above. And that’s not because there’s any inherent communicational difficulty in these meets, it’s just that it’s really hard to take a meeting seriously when it could just as well be had without anyone getting off their desks. Let’s work together to change that!
HR meetings:
Seriously, like seriously, has anyone ever had a useful, routine-changing sit-down with a member of the HR department? Don’t get us wrong, working in HR is one of the hardest occupations out there, and we’re extremely appreciative of how much of our stupidity HR representatives take on a weekly basis. But really, though, HR meetings are the worst. From useless HR interviews in the hiring process to inevitable working hour reminders to equally unavoidable “company policy” addresses, it is simply not possible for HR meetings to have a productive outcome.
But that’s on us as much as anything really.