shadowspar

There is a Rant, Gentle Readers, that I have long avoided subjecting you to; a Rant about how Certain Persons, helpful though they may be, invariably fall upon my Domestic Goodes, steal them away, and turn them to Ends such as Home Improvement, from whence they never return. I speak, for instance, of having all Laundry Baskets and Plasticware Disappear from the Laundry Room and Kitchen, respectively, only to make their reappearance in the Storage Room or Garage, having there been Converted to Storage Containers; or of Finding one's Prized Corkscrew, long having Vanished from the Kitchen under circumstances of Great Mystery, bravely serving in the Shed as an Opener of Painte Cans, and covered in Various Wondrous Shades of Latex Painte therefrom.

Tonight, however, I am not Ashamed to say that I had My Retribution, in that I had opportunity to Abscond with an unattended Painte Tray, and turn it to mine own Devious Ends; namely, the Storage of Rags having been Used for Cleaning as they wait upon the Chance to make into the Laundry for Washing. Vengeance!

While the best improvement is probably not having any, Esther Derby's piece on improving meetings is very constructive and helpful.

Sometimes, stronger measures are called for, though. A favourite from a former workplace was the sound clips that made the rounds to be played on conference calls -- most notably, the one that'd be heard whenever discussion got sidetracked onto stuff that should really be dealt with outside the meeting ("♪♬ Rrrrraat Hoooooole! ♫𝅘𝅥𝅯")

Personally, I'd like to see meetings required to use Parliamentary rules of order and address. It'd reemphasize what a waste of time the meeting is repeatedly throughout its duration; possibly best of all, anyone can move to end the meeting and if a simple majority agrees -- done! Besides, wouldn't your meetings be more tolerable if they were punctuated by bits like "Mme Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege!" and "The Hon. Leader of the Database Team has the floor"? =)