Meeting Haiku

Well, this is a blast from the past. I was doing some cleaning in my apartment today, and I found an old notebook that I used to carry with me at work, several jobs ago (we’re talking circa 1999 here), that I would use to jot down notes on various things that needed doing.

Before I just tossed it away, though, I decided to flip through it a little, and I stumbled across a page titled “MEETING HAIKU” that was full of little haikus I had written during the course of a day-long (yes, you read that right) staff meeting — complete with consultant “facilitator” — we had to suffer through. They made me chuckle again reading them now, so I figured I would share them with you.

Big U-shaped table
Consultant with a laptop
I hate long meetings

Vivid descriptors
Consultant-speak words that mean
“Say the obvious”

Often I wonder
How much Pepsi one can drink
Before one explodes

You would be surprised
How finely a large work group
Can split one lone hair

Magic document
Save us from the muddled minds
of those who pay us

Cultivate patience
True peace flows through staff meetings
The Tao of Dilbert


Comments

Bryan Alaspa

August 23, 2006
12:42 pm

So funny to read that. I do that all of the time too. We just had another long boring meeting today. I wrote a few…here are a few of my favorites:
Boring man talks now
>
> Makes all of us move closer
>
> Now I will doze off
>
>
>
> Nothing but numbers
>
> Makes my sitting here torture
>
> Oh when will this end?
>
>
>
> Does anyone care
>
> What this man yammers about
>
> I fall sound asleep
>
>
>
> Oh numbers, numbers
>
> Oh how I hate those numbers
>
> They just mean nothing
>
>
>
> So many buzzwords
>
> Those words amount to zero
>
> Makes big guys feel good
> That woman has long
>
> Toenails on her feet, oh yuck
>
> Why does she not groom?