If you're like most office workers, you spend more than six hours per week in meetings, according to a Microsoft Office survey. That's almost 40 days per year stuck in meetings!
Anyone who has been around an office knows that office meetings don't always go so well. In fact, 27 percent of workers in an Office Team poll said that meetings are the biggest cause of inefficiency and lack of productivity in the office.
Mariah Ramirez, a former employee of a large insurance firm, can vouch for this. "We were five hours into a staff meeting, and I suddenly realized that because of our wishy-washy manager we had only covered one agenda item out of eight--and, at this rate, I would not see my children that night," she says.
And office meetings aren't just about wasting time. Office meetings can go awry for all kinds of reasons. Here are some real-life meeting fails.
A shocking revelation
Jenny (not her real name) recently attended a meeting "that went from mildly boring to disturbing to embarrassing." During a discussion of electronics and phones, "the big boss started cheerfully reminiscing about how he used to tie up his baby sister and torture her with the leads from the crank generator. ... He was serious." His aghast employees barely got through the rest of the meeting.
Cuffed and stuffed
Dan Seidman, the author of the book "Sales Autopsy," tells about Steve, who hired a man he met at a resort as his national sales manager--and did no background checks because the two got along well. During an important meeting, a stranger walked in, jerked the new hire out of his leather chair, slammed him face down on the boardroom table, cuffed him, and brought him to a waiting police car. It turns out he had various outstanding warrants, including one for drugs and one for spouse abuse.
Doughnut difficulties
Jason Lee worked for a company that had weekly Friday meetings with doughnuts and coffee as refreshments. One week it fell upon him to get the doughnuts. "I brought in the doughnuts, and this usually normal coworker starts freaking because there were none without glaze. She yelled, 'What kind of idiot are you? How could you be this stupid? Not everybody likes their doughnuts covered with dried sugar water, you fool!' I thought she was going to hit me." She gave him dirty looks throughout the rest of the meeting, and skewered him during his presentation. "Worst meeting of my life," he says.
Not-quite-the-people's-choice award
Susan's (not her real name) boss had left the company, and the CEO called a big meeting to announce the name of the new boss. Everyone was upbeat. "Then she announced the name, and the mood instantly changed as everyone collapsed in their seats, gasped audibly, or closed their eyes in silent prayer. Arguably the best reaction was me actually bursting into tears." Awkwardly, the new boss was in the same room playing witness to everyone's response.
What's in a URL?
When Geoff Simon, now of Disney Interactive Media Group, worked for an Internet search marketing company, he gave a presentation in a meeting during which someone asked him about an old search engine called HotBot. He went to bring the site up on the projector, but instead of a "t" he typed a "d," resulting in "HotBod." The results were decidedly non search-engine-like. "Needless to say, we did not land that account."
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