Wanna Meet on This? No!

 

During the mid-summer months, Ernie Banks, the legendary infielder for the Chicago Cubs, who were often mired in last place, used to fire up his teammates by bellowing “it’s a beautiful day for a ball game, let’s play two!”

Years later, I worked for a company that had adopted a Banks-like mentality – only not to play a doubleheader, but to conduct two or more meetings on the same day.

Our publisher at the time had a simple mantra for seemingly every issue that surfaced, “I think we need to meet on this.” The company, I kid you not, used to have meetings to schedule meetings. I believe my personal record for one day was five meetings. Let me repeat that for emphasis, five.

One late Friday afternoon in July, he sent out an 11^th hour memo announcing a pop-up but mandatory meeting at 6 pm that day. Employees were forced to delay weekend plans, cook-outs and similar activities to attend. I’m certain I could have retired that day had I received $1 for every four-letter word that was uttered by my colleagues.

When we got together, he revealed that we were not having an official meeting but was curious to see how quickly we could get together if we had to. Luckily for him, most hand-held objects like staplers and hole punchers were not in close proximity or else they would have been used as primitive Scud missiles.

I bring up these meeting vignettes only because I came across an article that examined how the corporate meeting culture had changed since COVID. Not that there was a noticeable decline in frequency, in fact many companies working remotely admitted to meeting more, but the sessions were shorter in length by as much as 20 percent.

Zoom and Microsoft Teams supplanted overcrowded conference rooms and the often-maddening logistics of trying to secure a time through the company administrator that aligned with everyone’s schedule. And I do not mind telling you that wearing polo shirts and shorts while logging in beats a shirt and tie or business casual every time. Luckily for many, the computer cameras only capture most folks from the mid-chest level on up. If you’re like me that is all you want to see on most people.

However, Zoom or not, I’m still not a fan of meetings and likely never will be. I have always believed they hindered productivity. However, they are far easier to digest these days.

Just don’t ask me to play two.