EVERYONE hates meetings, but they need to take place somewhere. Here’s how to resentfully arrange your next one:
Book a room that’s too small
To reassert your dominance in the nest of vipers you work in, book a room incapable of seating everyone. Secure your chair and watch social Darwinism in action as the rest battle for somewhere to sit. Latecomers and the lowly have to stand, making the office hierarchy absolutely clear.
Aggressively usher out the previous meeting
Most meeting rooms have windows, or holes physically punched through of it following a particularly nasty exit interview. Either way, these are perfect for peering through and tapping your watch at the room’s current occupants. Feel free to do this ten minutes before your meeting is due to start.
Dial in via video
Meetings are agonising enough as is, but throw tedious technical confusion into the mix by insisting that you join via video. Angling the camera badly will mean everyone spends the whole time marvelling at your double chins.
Book it at the last minute
Keep minions on their toes by waiting until moments before the meeting to announce it. Without time to prepare everyone will be bullshitting, not just you, and at least one colleague will walk past from whichever meeting room they usually hide in and do a comical double-take.
Do it last thing on a Friday
The meeting room calendar is always empty towards the end of a Friday because only a sociopath would schedule one for that time. Good news for you. Test the commitment of your employees by drawing out a pointless meeting until ten past five, then magnanimously annouce you’re ‘wrapping up early’.
