Little Things Make Me Happy
I readily admit to being a business geek. I have an MBA. I read business books for fun. I easily get immersed into conversations about COGS (cost of good sold for you non-business geek types) and ROI (return on investment).
There's one facet of the business world that can drive me crazy, however. It's the "Meeting".
Meetings can be incredibly painful in the business world and in so many ways. I can't stand the folks who think we have to go for a full hour because that's how long we booked the conference room for. I go nuts when someone feels they need to recap the recap. I think it's a phenomenal waste of time when someone goes off on an unproductive tangent. And, don't get me started on people who are critical to the meeting but show up late so there's a room full of people sitting on their arses doing nothing.
Today, we had a great meeting. It was a Marketing Director, Marketing Analyst, one of my IT Project Managers and me there wearing two hats as the IT Manager and Database Administrator in the room.
I won't bore you with the details but, it was one of the most productive meetings I've been to in weeks.
We brainstormed, reviewed and designed processes, looked at and explained data, argued and finally came to a workable consensus. It was a lively, invigorating and intelligent conversation. I walked out totally jazzed about what we were doing and feeling like we actually accomplished something.
It was cool.
Afterwards, I was IMing the Marketing Director and I told him that was fun and we needed to do it more often.
He told me I needed to get out more.
First of all, I could hardly get out more unless I become completely homeless. Secondly, even if I did get out more, it wouldn't be in that same scenario. The true business geeks just can't find that sort of fun while out and about. OK, that may be a lie. I often end up in business conversations even when I'm just passing the time talking to a waiter or bartender or retail store clerk.
I guess you just can't take the business geek out of a person.
There's one facet of the business world that can drive me crazy, however. It's the "Meeting".
Meetings can be incredibly painful in the business world and in so many ways. I can't stand the folks who think we have to go for a full hour because that's how long we booked the conference room for. I go nuts when someone feels they need to recap the recap. I think it's a phenomenal waste of time when someone goes off on an unproductive tangent. And, don't get me started on people who are critical to the meeting but show up late so there's a room full of people sitting on their arses doing nothing.
Today, we had a great meeting. It was a Marketing Director, Marketing Analyst, one of my IT Project Managers and me there wearing two hats as the IT Manager and Database Administrator in the room.
I won't bore you with the details but, it was one of the most productive meetings I've been to in weeks.
We brainstormed, reviewed and designed processes, looked at and explained data, argued and finally came to a workable consensus. It was a lively, invigorating and intelligent conversation. I walked out totally jazzed about what we were doing and feeling like we actually accomplished something.
It was cool.
Afterwards, I was IMing the Marketing Director and I told him that was fun and we needed to do it more often.
He told me I needed to get out more.
First of all, I could hardly get out more unless I become completely homeless. Secondly, even if I did get out more, it wouldn't be in that same scenario. The true business geeks just can't find that sort of fun while out and about. OK, that may be a lie. I often end up in business conversations even when I'm just passing the time talking to a waiter or bartender or retail store clerk.
I guess you just can't take the business geek out of a person.
