Work and non-work

It is going to be a long day. A very long day indeed. As I sit here, men­tally steel­ing myself for a five-hour ‘busi­ness event’ that is surely going to be the 21st cen­tury equi­val­ent of one of Leni Riefenstahl’s films of a Nazi rally — only slightly less enjoy­able, and with none of the shiny-buttoned uni­forms — some phrases ran­domly pop into my head:

• Team-building.
• Net­work­ing.
• Brain­storm­ing.
• Long-term budget fore­cast­ing.
• Five-year plan.
• Pre-meeting meet­ing.
• Post-meeting meet­ing.
• Break­out ses­sion.
• Think­ing out of the box.
• 360 degree project.

And then I won­der: whatever happened to the lost art of just quietly get­ting on with one’s job? Anyone?

Comments: 18

    I trust you’ll be cas­cad­ing after­wards? I need to know how this will impact and effect build­ing pub­lic value in my silo.

    petemaskreplica | 12.06.07, 13:11

    Sorry. I’m too busy lick­ing cus­tomer ass to inter­face internally.

    clarissa | 12.06.07, 13:52

    *scratches head*

    andre | 12.06.07, 14:11

    I can see you’re really throw­ing out the anchor with regards to touch­ing base with the same hymn sheet. If only I had the band­width to facil­it­ate a SWOT ana­lysis on your massive-aggressiveness. *sigh*

    Jack | 12.06.07, 14:11

    *still has no clue as to what is going on*

    *sits at the back eat­ing candyfloss*

    andre | 12.06.07, 15:25

    Oh deary, deary me.

    Sounds like you feel, in the box?

    Which is entirely dif­fer­ent to being, in the zone.

    NAGA | 12.06.07, 16:53

    *settles next to andre and pinches candy floss*

    Angelalala | 12.06.07, 17:12

    you for­got the cre­ation of state-of-the-art premier dynamic action­able plans/strategies (add half-assed adject­ives at your leisure)

    kermit | 12.06.07, 18:18

    *kicks an office chair*

    Ani | 12.06.07, 19:12

    smother it!

    smother it now!

    Miles Away | 12.06.07, 20:20

    You can’t say “Brain­storm­ing” any more as it’s insult­ing to people with men­tal health issues. Appar­ently. You have to say “Mind-Mapping” instead.

    andyritchieshairline | 12.06.07, 20:34

    Petem­askrep­lica — You just said “build­ing pub­lic value”. Please wash your mouth out.

    Clarissa — I do hope you are not inter­fa­cing intern­ally with your cus­tom­ers’ ass, though. That would be wrong.

    Jack — You do that scar­ily well. Are you the man­ager of my depart­ment, by any chance?

    Andre — Don’t worry, dear friend. I’m sure the above com­menters will be only too delighted to join me in explain­ing what I am going on about. It’s a four let­ter word begin­ning in W and end­ing in K, which is far less enjoy­able than the one you’re now think­ing of.

    NAGA — You are very right.

    Angelalala — Don’t encour­age him, please.

    Ker­mit — ‘Action­able’ is just a wrong word, isn’t it?

    Ani — Calm down, dear, you’ll give your­self an ulcer.

    Miles Away — I am actu­ally kick­ing it. Far more satisfying.

    Andy — Wel­come. No no no, believe me, I know the dif­fer­ence between ‘men­tal health issues’ and ‘mind-mapping’ all too well.

    An Unreliable Witness | 12.06.07, 20:50

    yes. so wrong that i imme­di­ately star­ted put­ting in a half-assed effort at work when my boss reques­ted that i write up a “dynamic action­able strategy”. i could have for­given her for hav­ing trained as a law­yer until that fate­ful day.

    need­less to say i no longer work there. there was no com­ple­ment­ary gin/booze to make the days more pal­at­able. and my resolve to res­ist pho­to­copy­ing my own butt was really tak­ing up too much energy.

    kermit | 12.07.07, 00:55

    Escape is only a turn of the mind away. This doesn’t need to be a trod in the mud. Just pre­tend it’s all import­ant like every­one else, but revel in the know­ledge that it is abso­lutely mean­ing­less. You are able to elab­or­ate and con­trib­ute to a com­munal joke, which may enrich all your lives. Where’s the dread and angst? Do we not require these things in jux­ta­pos­i­tion to add con­trast in our lives? Blah?

    2ndhandsoul | 12.07.07, 03:41

    Yes I am.

    Now stop doing that thing under your desk and get back to work immediately.

    Jack | 12.07.07, 11:41

    You’re in grave danger of turn­ing into a large Czechoslov­akian cockroach…

    Gregor | 12.08.07, 17:07

    Ker­mit — Pho­to­cop­ies of one’s own back­side are often prefer­able to offi­cial work-related doc­u­ments, frankly.

    2ndhandsoul — The dread and angst will be fol­low­ing along shortly, as per usual in these sur­round­ings. I do, how­ever, find that my poor read­ers some­times require a break from it.

    Jack — Doing what under my desk? I was doing noth­ing of the sort!

    Gregor — Me old mucker, Greg! How are you, Greg? Long time no see!

    An Unreliable Witness | 12.08.07, 18:04

    can I men­tion the Moth yet?

    andre | 12.08.07, 23:37

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