I noted something down in my PDA a couple of nights ago. It was a phrase which I came across somewhere that I wanted to post and maybe talk about (or around).

Meeting Culture.

Thursday evening I was looking for some information about a project I was working on. I was pretty much kicking my heels up without it. So I dropped someone an IM to remind them I was waiting on the details and that it was now holding me up. Now as it turns out there was quite a bit of confusion on the issue and the request I had originally been given wasn’t very clear and was in fact wrong. We talked it over for a couple of minutes and weren’t getting anywhere. The guy in question said lets leave it and we’ll set up a meeting in the morning with everyone involved to talk about it.

Now it’s about 4:30 and I need that information to do anything else so right off the bat, that’s not all that helpful to me. Secondly what I need is so very simple, it doesn’t call for a meeting. I need three four digit numbers and a running order for them. That’s all. They are pretty standard numbers too, stuff which 18 months ago I could have run off without a thought and a hell of a lot more than three of them. Since then the numbers have changed and I don’t even know the criteria to go and look them up.

So anyway at this stage I’m getting a little annoyed and it’s probably showing. I said there was absolutely no need to hold a meeting about this, to just please go away and get me the numbers. Stick them in an email to me and I’m good to go. After a few minutes sorting out the confusion I got the numbers and got back to work.

Now, it’s not all that uncommon to have meetings to talk about things. Meetings are in general good things. I’m down to two conference calls a week for the next while as I concentrate on some other stuff but I’d normally be involved in at least six and often many more than that. But, each one of them is for a reason and we know going into the call what the agenda or the point of the call is. Of course there are regular or semi regular team meetings, but these often take involve heading out for a coffee or the like. Some people won’t go to meetings without agendas and a number of people are right *unts about
having full agendas or the like before they go into meetings. Some of those are so anal about not doing anything without an agenda and a fully detailed one at that. Of course in the real world, things rarely follow an agenda. About the only meeting I go to which follows it’s agenda are bug scrubs where the agenda is to simply scrub the bugs.

Anyway that’s some work stuff for a Saturday afternoon post, and here’s some more.

Came back from what was pretty much a week off work to find there was a lot of change. We’ve known for a while that my boss is moving on in the company, came back to find out that the manager of our sister team is also moving on and as of yesterday they are both in their new roles. So this left both teams a little um lost shall we say? My team in specific has known about Dave leaving for sometime and been worrying about what was going to happen and not being told anything. Anyway we have now merged into one team which to be honest makes perfect sense and is something we’ve been expecting for some time. We will be getting a couple of senior developer positions (ha) and a new team manager sometime in the future.

So yesterday we went out to a nice Persian restaurant for a long lunch and then last night to the pub to have some drinks. It just had to be done. Played quite a bit of pool down there, Dave and I got into a little competition (as we tend to do). Pushed the others off and monopolised the table for a while. Played for first to 5 and Dave came back from 4 – 3 to take two in a row and the night. It was all good fun. There was a (mainly) good crowd down there, so there was a lot of pool and a lot of fun. Ok some was not so fun but that’s not a subject for discussion.

Reading some comics this morning, Exiles volume 3 and 4 were ok, some good stuff in there. Bruce Jones’ third Hulk trade wasn’t great but it was ok I guess. I’ll give the next one a try and see how that one does. I have Daredevil: Typhoid Mary to read today and other than that, no plans. Cinema tonight maybe, Bruce Almighty looks kinda funny