team meat...

Believe me, this is from a real life incident. There exists a cabal of very high profile managers, drawing millions of vanilla rupees with chocolate toppings of perks every year, who when want to send a meeting request to their team to discuss a burning project show stopper send a note something like this:

Ironical as it may seem - the gathering actually turns out to be nowhere near to a team meeting. It actually justifies the words which appeared in its coming - TEAM MEAT. There is no agenda, there are no meet me details or a room - a perfect aspirant of the book "101 ways of how not to set up meetings".

Here is how such meeting's life cylce goes - first attendee will ask second attendee about the meeting details, surprised that they both don't know - they will go to third attendee to see if she knew. Until all attendees are covered (except the geeky ones, who like to think that it is their prerogative not to attend any team meeting) this process continues and become a meeting unto itself to discuss why the meeting details were not sent. When nothing comes out of this discussion - everyone decides to go for a short break to get a cup of coffee to ward this interim meeting's after effects.

Five minutes before the actual meat (meeting) - everyone's looking at each other's face to find where the meeting is. And then suddenly - like the 'Big Brother' reality show, an akaashvaani (annoucement) happens 'Big Brother ne aap sabhi ko so-and-so room mein ikattha hone ko kaha hai' (Big Brother wants all of you to gather in so-and-so room). There is tension of a vote-out in everybody's face - 'aaj kiska watt lagega' (who gets the beating today). Everyone's making their excuses in their minds, everyone's thinking of what to say in the meeting without any agenda, where anything can be expected.

After gathering his flock in the room and making them wait for a few minutes - the saddist, the voyeurist Big Brother appears in his incorrigible unmistakable appearance. In a two hour call - first 20 minutes go in deciding what the agenda should be. Next 20 minutes go in deciding who will speak what and how much and about what. And also, who will not be allowed to speak at all. Then next 20 minutes go in finding out and targetting a bakra (scapegoat) who can silently take up all the insult and aspersions which are coming his or her way.

After one hour - some sincere guy loses his or her patience and says something which nobody likes and next 20 minutes go in settling the dirt down. Last 40 minutes are the most crucial ones. Because this is the time when the Big Brother asks the most difficult question - 'Who is preparing the MoM'? At this time - some people wish the earth tore in two parts beneath their feet and swallowed them, and some wish a meteor fall on Big Brother's dim head. Then some poor fresher has to open her notepad and start pretending that she will do it (but in her mind she is thinking what the heck did we discuss here.)

Now the last 20 minutes - everyone looks at the sincere guy and try to make some sense out of his subject matter expertise displayed very vaguely by his poor communication skills. Big Brother with his big mouth says 'great analysis Sincere Guy' and then blurts out actions on each of the team members as if giving a sermon on the mount and the poor girl jotting down as if writing another new testament.

Even after so much of blamebrainstorming - 10 minutes are left out of alloted 2 hours for the meeting. Then Big Brother takes a soft stand and asks the question which everyone was waiting to hear - is there any other issue? - because this question marks the coming of end and people who were holding their bladders for last two hours can go out and spill their frustration on to the toilet, thinking of how they would want to beat the sh** out of You-Know-Who.

Alas! Life is unfair. Skills are so unfairly scattered. When will I get to become the Big Brother!