Meetings and Bureaucracy

I exchanged emails with a parent frustratedwith her daughter's school which asks for certain requirements from its students, but then makes it near impossible to complete the requirements by doing something original.

I echoed her frustration with my personal frustrations from my employment history. When I worked for a non-profit, we wasted oodles of time and money. It depressed me to the point that I quit a job that paid me far more than I deserved to do far less than needed to be done.

I drove two hours from my office to the headquarters for meetings (more in traffic), as did many of the other managers. In the meetings, we accomplished virtually nothing. Everyone just talked a little, we offered an idea or two that would be tabled for another time, the V.P. gave us instructions and we left. Because my office was technically three hours away, I could get a hotel room and leave the next day. So, I spent a 9-hour day and accomplished nothing plus drove a couple hundred miles ad spentthe night in a hotel. These meetings had to cost several thousand dollars in man power and expenses and never accomplished anything.

I do not mind work, but I do not like jobs. I figure I spend more time working than many people with "real" jobs and would probably pay the resnt easier if I took a "real" job, dressed in a suit and attended meetings. I just can't do it. I can't bite my tongue sitting around while people who can't figure things out try to figure things out.

I was fired from a camp one summer because I refused to attend the meetings in the morning. I stayed on the court and worked with a player for an extra half-hour. The first couple days, I attended the meetings. The leader passed out the schedule. Thn, he read the schedule out loud to us. I told him that I was literate and did not need my hand held and I could better use my time to help players get better, which, I suppose, is the reason kids go to camp. He told me I was wrong, that the meetings were important and if I thought otherwise I could leave. I thought otherwise. I do not like to associate with people who steal money legally while wasting time. The camp made no efforts to help the players, lied on their brochures, etc. They are, as for as I know, out of business now. They felt their morning get togethers were the coaches BS'd with each other were more important than helping players. I couldn't take it.

Fast Company has an interesing article this month which says that the way to "go green" is to reduce the work week by a day. I argue thatpeople I know with "jobs" waste a majority of their working time anyway, so I see no problem. My friend told me there is a business rule that basically says that if you have 40 hours to work, you'll create 40 hours of work. he used this to justify college coaching as a full-time job, which I have a hard time believing. So, if people knew they hd a 32-hour work week, they could accomplsih the same work, they'd just do it more efficiently.