No one in their right mind would ever want to go to a meeting. Why? Because employees and executives have better ways to waste time, like surf X-rated Internet sites, play FreeCell or commit accounting fraud.
"Meeting" comes down to us from the Latin word mitare, which means "to die of boredom while listening to stupid people talk." This happened a lot in the Roman senate, so they had to make up a special word for it.
Sometimes it's possible to skip a meeting, unless the boss called it. Skipping out on your boss is like passing up those free samples at the wholesale clubs. You just don't do it.
The best meetings are the ones that have food, because the refreshments get more attention than the point of discussion. This is especially true, for instance, when there are nine people but only six donuts.
All donut-seeking radars lock on the plate in the middle of the table. Then the race is on to see who can grab a donut the fastest and still look casual. No meeting gets any more exciting than this.
But most meetings are boring because all humans love to hear themselves talk. This is what separates us from the animals - humans make noise constantly, even when no one is listening to them. Have you recently heard animals singing in the shower or talking to themselves? Exactly.
So when the boss at work calls a meeting, workers immediately make groaning sounds and try to figure out what they're going to say. This is really, really hard if you haven't done any work lately.
Therefore, the best way to cut all meetings short is to make sure you never do any work. Meetings become a problem, however, when employees are actually productive, which means they have stuff to talk about.
The problem is that everyone thinks their own project is the most important. For example, let's say a group is putting together a report. You can be sure that the guy in charge of selecting the right kind of paper is going to talk for at least an hour about why the report should be printed on 40 percent recycled beige paper obtained from narcoleptic sheep herders in China.
So it goes around the table, and the talking never stops. This is bad for the people actually working on the project. But it's even worse for people who have absolutely nothing to do with what is going on.
It's very easy to tell who these people are, because they're the ones playing games on their cell phones or attempting to sleep with their eyes open.
Unfortunately, sleeping at meetings isn't good form, especially if the boss is there. But sometimes yawning is unavoidable.
Yawning discretely is a subtle technique that takes years to perfect. Some people turn their head to the side, while others look down at their laps as if a small alien were sitting there.
Neither of these are good techniques. The best way is to make it look like you are about to say something. Perk up your eyebrows, lean forward in your chair, point your right index finger toward the ceiling and make brief eye contact with whoever is talking.
All the commotion should be enough to fake everyone out and make them think you have something intelligent to say, even though you're really just yawning.
My father has developed an even better technique, having had years of experience falling asleep in meetings. He calls it the "screensaver mode." This is roughly equivalent to falling asleep with your eyes open.
After entering screensaver mode, my father looks like he's paying attention, but he's actually saving energy and trying not to die of boredom while listening to stupid people talk.
Before the meeting, he memorizes certain buzz words that will activate him if spoken. When someone says the magic words, his eyes flicker open and his brain starts operating again.
Countless hours of worker productivity would be saved if everyone learned how to enter the screensaver mode. No one would yawn anymore. Employees would use meetings as opportunities to catch up on sleep, and attendance would shoot up to 100 percent.
I've already begun intense training in this discipline. If you know what's good for you, you'll do the same. Or else I'll eat your donut.
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