The Meeting About Nothing
every week morning, I set my alarm ten minutes earlier than usual. Not because I want to get ready for the day, but because I know what's coming. At 9:00 AM sharp, fifteen of us pack into Conference Room B for something called the "Operational Alignment Sync." I still don't know what that name means. Nobody does. If you asked anyone in that room what the meeting is actually for, they would probably just shrug and keep sipping their coffee. The room itself is nothing special. It's got that cheap gray carpet that every office seems to have, and a long table with chairs that squeak every time someone shifts their weight. The air conditioning in there is broken in the worst way possible. It's always blasting cold air, no matter the season. I've started keeping a sweater in my desk drawer just for weekdays. My coworker Dave jokes that we should wear our winter coats to the meeting, and honestly, some weeks I think he's not joking at all. We all show up right on time. We have to. If you're even two minutes late, you get a polite but pointed email from HR reminding you about "punctuality expectations." So there we sit, fifteen tired adults, hugging our coffee cups, waiting in a cold room for a meeting that hasn't even started. And we wait. And wait. Our boss Susan is never on time. Never. She strolls in about twenty minutes late almost every single week, holding her phone in one hand and a giant mug that says "Boss Lady" on the side. She never apologizes for being late. She just breezes in like she's right on schedule and we're the ones who got confused about the time. Once she sits down, she doesn't jump into the meeting. Not even close. She spends the first ten minutes talking about her morning. Last month it was her commute, how there was construction on Route 9 and she had to take a detour past the old mall. Another week, she spent the whole ten minutes telling us about a documentary she watched on bees. She actually said, "Did you know bees can recognize human faces?" Nobody responded. We just sat there, nodding along, waiting for her to get to the point. She never really does. After her little story time, she finally opens up a folder on her laptop. It's the same file every week, and it's outdated by at least two years. I know this because I've seen the numbers in it, and they don't match anything we've worked on recently. She squints at the screen like she's seeing it for the first time, then looks up and says, "Okay, let's go around the room. Everyone, tell me what you're working on." This is the part that gets me every time. All of that information is already sitting in our project management system. Susan has access to it. She could pull it up in two clicks. But instead, we go around the table one by one, repeating things we've already typed into reports that nobody reads. A few weeks ago, I decided to test something. I wanted to see if anyone was actually listening when it was my turn to talk. So when Susan pointed at me and said, "Sarah, what are you working on?" I just started reciting song lyrics. I picked an old song, something slow and kind of sad, and I said the words in a normal, steady voice, like I was giving a status update. Nobody blinked. Nobody looked confused. Susan just nodded along and said, "Great, keep up the good work," and moved on to the next person. That's when I knew for sure. Nobody is listening. Not even a little. While all this is happening, you can see exactly how everyone really feels about the meeting. My coworker Jen, who sits across from me, spends most of her time with her laptop angled just enough so Susan can't see the screen. She's usually shopping for furniture. I caught her scrolling through dining chairs for almost fifteen minutes one week. She even leaned over at one point and whispered, "Do you think the gray one looks too modern for my kitchen?" I didn't have an answer for her, but I appreciated that she asked. Then there's Mark, one of the managers. He sits near the end of the table with his notebook open, like he's taking important notes. But if you glance over, you'll see he's actually doodling. Little boxes, swirly lines, sometimes a cartoon face. He's been doing this for as long as I've worked here. I don't think he's written an actual note in that notebook in years. Every single week, the meeting runs at least thirty minutes past when it's supposed to end. What's supposed to be a one-hour meeting turns into an hour and a half, sometimes longer if Susan gets extra chatty. This throws off my whole day. I walk out of that room already behind on my actual work, the stuff that pays the bills and keeps the company running. I end up staying late at the office just to catch up, which means I miss dinner with my family more often than I'd like to admit. My husband has started saving me a plate and putting it in the microwave, because he knows weekdays are a lost cause. Last week, I finally said something. I don't know what came over me, maybe I was just tired, but when Susan asked if anyone had any suggestions for improving our meetings, I raised my hand. I said, "What if instead of meeting every week, we just sent a quick email update? It would save everyone time, and we could use that time to actually get our work done." The room went completely silent. I mean dead silent. No coughing, no shuffling papers, nothing. People looked at their laptops, their coffee cups, anywhere but at me or Susan. I could feel my face getting a little warm, wondering if I'd said something wrong. Susan looked at me like I had just suggested we cancel Christmas. Her eyebrows went up, and she tilted her head slightly, the way you do when you hear something you don't understand. Then she said, in this calm but firm voice, "We need the face time, Sarah. It's about building trust as a team." I wanted to ask her how staring at a wall while she read from an outdated file was building any kind of trust, but I just nodded and said, "Okay, got it." So we sat there. For another hour. Susan spent the extra time explaining her new system for organizing computer files, color-coding folders by project type. Nobody asked questions. Nobody took notes, except Mark, who I'm pretty sure was still just doodling. By the time I got back to my desk, it was almost 11:00 AM. My whole morning was gone. I had emails piling up, a report due by end of day, and a to-do list that hadn't moved an inch since 9:00 AM. I just sat there for a second, staring at my screen, feeling that familiar mix of frustration and tiredness. soon, I know exactly how it's going to go. I'll grab my sweater, walk into that cold room, and wait twenty minutes for Susan. I'll listen to a story about her weekend, watch her open that same old file, and go around the room repeating information everyone already knows. And at the end of it, I'll be thirty minutes behind, rushing to catch up, probably eating a cold dinner again. It's exhausting, but at this point, it's just part of my day.