More meeting crap

We had big meeting today to discuss organizational changes. Basically someone got promoted and the powers that be wanted all 36 of us in my department together so we can all fake laughs and congratulate the new person we will be reporting to.

Now did we need to take an hour to do that? No. But people in my group like to meet for the sake of meeting. The new director is not someone new. We've all known her for years. So I'm not sure what all the hubbub was about. We all reported to her anyway in some capacity. I think this was just a meeting of mutual, 'I'm okay, you're okay' chatter. Various people chimed in to wax poetic on the virtues of our new boss and what a great job she's going to do.

Do I give a crap? Nope. I still have a job and the chain of command just got one link longer. Someone asked if were going to get a new 'org chart.' Do you really need a Powerpoint presentation on where you fall in the food chain? Will that enable you to do your job better?

Someone else said, 'I'm excited for all the organizational changes and the opportunities your leadership will bring.' Wait a minute, is that a sucking noise I hear or is that puckering? Either way it's not like our newest boss is William Wallace and we're all gonna paint our faces to meet death by primitive impalement on the Scottish Highlands.

While everyone shoveled there shit in heaps of praise on our new boss I took a look around the room. There were 28 women and 8 men. Of the 28 women only 3 were doable and one was kind of sexually ambiguous. Number one is of the short haired variety and looks like a picture out of Vogue when it comes to style. Number two is whiny prat but cute at times. The sexually ambiguous one could be cute if she didn't reek of sex change in Thailand forgoing the Adam's Apple removal to get that discounted rate advertised in Sex Change Daily.

What about number three? I'm glad you asked. She had on glasses of the librarian type! She was sweet like an over ripe mango. Her pouty lips made her look like an unpaid extra from a scene in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. She made the meeting was almost worth the lost hour on my timecard. Unfortunately she couldn't balance out the usual makeup of a meeting.

What's in the makeup of a meeting? It's a cast of characters in every meeting in my world. The cast is made up of the following:

• The Joker - This person makes a joke out everything. More times than not they aren't funny except to him. It's usually a male, balding, computer paunch (the kind of stomache you get from sitting at a computer all day and leading a sedentary lifestyle), and relives his high school glory days in stories about, '...if the coach had only put me in the 4th quarter we'd be state championships.'
• The Talker - This one is a female. Her hair only looks good on the days she gets it cut and styled. Every other day it's feathered and exposed roots. She talks incessantly while someone else is talking.
  
• The Naysayer - Comes in both the male and female version. This person is always screaming that the sky is falling and can find the negative spin on anything.
• The Laugher - Again, male or female here. This person laughs after everything they say and as they laugh the try to talk again only to raise their voice a few decibels, raising the hackles on all neighborhood cats within earshot.

And you wonder why I hate meetings. Maybe I should rethink that because meetings do bring me such enjoyment from people watching.