meetings

One of the tasks of my job is to attend meetings.

Meetings in boardrooms and offices,

meetings that I fly to,

meetings that I drive to,

meetings that I have on conference calls.

I have a lot of meetings.

My arsenal of meeting survival skills are as follows;

please note that I seldom share these handy survival techniques but

should you find yourself preparing for a meeting,

be it long or longer, near or far

these tips will help you make it through.

Degree of importance or urgency of the meeting has no bearing on

how useful these tips will be.

Firstly, read the pre-meeting notes or previous minutes about an hour before,

preferably on a plane squished in a window seat

(note to you: when flying to a meeting,
always get an aisle seat for a quick exit).

Reading the notes just before hand will help you stay alert
throughout the meeting for fear of missing something

or being asked something relating to the previous meeting
or Action Points,

otherwise known as APs.

9 times out of 10 you have done all previously raised APs

so don't worry to much.

Secondly, seat yourself opposite a window.

This will help you hold onto the illusion
of air, space and imminent freedom.

Do not be fooled but these small comforts are sometimes
what you need to get through.

Thirdly, take writing implements that you can play with
without being obvious.

My favourite are Millennium Hotels pens that have their trade mark
(fake) tiny licorice allsorts

suspended in liquid inside the column of the pen.

It's time consuming and quite a skill moving the three little licorice allsorts

up and down the capsule,

using the air bubbles to separate them or herd them together as needed.

Please note: once, a longtime ago I was working on
the World Potatoes Congress

and we had the great idea of putting mini potatoes in the pen

but really that would have looked like three little poos floating in the water.

We did not go ahead with the potato pen idea.

Lucky.

The fourth is not something you can use all the time

(Please note: this piece of advice is not to be used at Church meetings

and should be restricted to meetings with those you do not come
in everyday contact with

but I will leave that up to your discretion).

When things are desperately boring, long and tedious,

you can pull out this final and most powerful survival skill.

Mags and Val please stop reading now,

there is no need for you to continue.

The fourth survival skill should only be used in times of desperate and epic meetings,

especially ones in which you are only required to participate

in a small portion of the meeting and then

have to sit through the rest of the meeting.

This tip will keep you looking interested and engaged.

This survival skill works best when there are a diverse group of attendees.

So this is what you do...

you carefully analyses each candidate's potential as a sexual partner, 

in my case I select only men but you can mix it up if you so choose.

Then rank your choices and you have to include and explain each option available.

It's quite interesting when you are faced with an array of very average looking candidates.

 Sometimes it's a stretch and other times it's easy as.

Keep in mind I do have two day meetings with Young Farmers who are in their 20s

and are used to physical activity, be it work or play.

Other times it is an opportunity to find something positive about each person,

sometimes it's quite an effort that requires much concentration and imagination.

Please remember this isn't necessarily a case of imaging yourself in compromising situations

any one of the meeting attendees in particular,

it's a case of seeing what is physically attractive about each person.

And sometimes it is about practicing telepathy,

as it was last week.