Minutes of Meetings (MoM)

There is no such fun like a meeting where you play a responsible part and a set of dummies report to you and look upon you as the sole savior. You keep giving them instructions and learnings from your side. You see enthusiastic faces beaming at you (Beamer), a couple of them constantly suggesting ideas (Suggester), some of them making notes interestingly (Noter) and some even constantly sipping from their water bottles (Sipper) to keep alive and afresh. Except for the one round the corner, who has been keeping silence (Silencer) since the start of the meeting, you are happy with all the dummies sitting around you. You don't get enough of such meetings, do you? Finally, you decide to end this session of the meeting. The group disperses.

Once outside, the dummies get into a discussion.

Beamer: Hey Suggester! Looks like you have a complete idea of what is going on. I did the mistake of beaming in the beginning, I had to carry that on till the end.

Suggester: Are you kidding me? I just had to get words out of my mouth to keep from falling asleep. I guess Noter would share with us all he took down.

Noter: Well, if looking at a weird, hairy guy with muscles sketched out of a ball pen, I'm ready to share it right away. Well, Sipper had come prepared with a water bottle and all. We'll see what he has to say?

Sipper: Each time I sipped some water, I wanted to keep it in my mouth without swallowing, so that I stayed awake. It always works for me, but today, I fell asleep every time and kept swallowing. I have to rush to the restroom now. Before that, the only one left is the Silencer.

Silencer: All the time, I was cursing the guy who dragged me into this project. He promised me that there would be something that I had worked on before.

And you go to your equal and say, "I never knew the people would be so attentive. I need to actually prepare next time."

There are a lot of mannerisms and one-liners that constitute the body language understanding in a meeting.

1) If you have a list of tasks to be completed within a specific date and your manager says he'll give you a wishlist, it means, he is going to convince you that all the tasks are to be done.

2) Starting with "I want to know exactly" and ending with "approximately what I want you people to find out" implies, one has no idea about what has to be done.

3) "Lets take it offline" - a polished way to say, "Will you stop the crap?"

4) "Well, I was wondering about it too. We have to look into that", is a reply that most often (kinda always) means, "Woh! You caught me there dumbo!"

5) Turning the mobile to the silent mode - Meeting starts.

Turning the mobile back to loud mode - Meeting is too long, hoping to get a call and take a break.

6) "I'm done with this, any comments from your side?", is the statement that every dummy waits for so that one can give that gracious smile, a quick thanks and rush to the rest room.

PS: 1) This is just a right-to-left or left-to-right ear post. Don't think too much about it. Personally, I "love" meetings.

2) My B'day wishes to the Mozart of Madras. God Bless Him and He Bless us with his Music. Long Live Rahman! :)