Meetings

In 30 minutes, I'll be going to an hour-long meeting to plan for next week's three-hour meeting. In 3 1/2 hours, I'll be going to another hour-long meeting to discuss issues raised at last week's two-hour meeting and yesterday's one-hour meeting. These issues were raised at a series of three earlier two-hour meetings, each of which had been rescheduled exactly once because the meeting times conflicted with other meetings, some of which were held to plan for the second and third of the three two-hour meetings.

This is where I work.

Wasn't e-mail (which was invented by a former professor of mine - or so he says - in his Orange County beachfront apartment in the mid-80s) supposed to reduce the need for in-person meetings? Can't intra-office communication and document sharing be done electronically? Can't the guy who calls all of these meetings walk up a few flights of stairs if he has a question for me? Can't he pick up the phone and press 5 digits? I'll pick up. Even if it's him.

But the real culprit in all of this is Microsoft. Specifically, their e-mail program Outlook. The reason that the frequency of needless pointless formless meetings has not been quelled by the e-mail revolution is that Outlook includes a feature called Calendar. The Calendar program makes meeting scheduling seamless and easy. Invite everyone to your meeting with a couple clicks and a few keystrokes. Then cancel it with a single click 30 minutes before the meeting and AFTER I've taken an early lunch when I wasn't hungry. Then reschedule the meeting for the next day. Go ahead, Man With Four Names, go ahead and play with your little Calendar program all day long in your doored office with a view of the Hollywood sign. I don't care.

But the screenplay is shaping up beautifully.

All it took was swapping the main character for the dynamic character. Cate Blanchett and her evil eyes will pray for this role. Kate Winslet and her perfect teeth will beg for this role. The two of them will likely wrestle in an Olympic Boulevard below-ground parking lot just for the chance to play this once-in-a-lifetime character. My money's on Kate. Somewhere in the Valley, Louise Fletcher is smiling.