The meeting that never was

[ivyblossom]

Update: After staying up late worrying about this untitled meeting in my calendar, and fretting about it all the way to this VoIP session I was heading to, I spent a very entertaining morning with men in suits who use words like "utilize" and "presence management" while showing us their butt-ugly IM client that they think is the latest and greatest in the corporate world while asking us questions like "So, which of you are the tech guys?" and passing around their BlackBerrys so we can all see how busy and cool they are. I got to wear a little visitors pass that said "MUST BE ACCOMPANIED AT ALL TIMES". Very swanky place. Lots of greased hair and, inexplicably, really baggy pants. Why do men wear baggy dress pants to work? What are they concealing under all that fabric? Makes you want to write corporate slash, I tell you. (Their muffins, however, were crap. I'm prepared to go on the record about that.)

And when I got back, there was no note on my desk from anyone I had warned about my possible 9 o'clock meeting that might spontaneously attempt to occur without me. No email from anyone asking me where I was. No phone messages from an annoyed faculty member chiding me for standing them up. No tears, no screaming, no stern looks. Silence. Nothing.

Did I make up this phantom meeting? Apparently I did. I think I do it as my daily cardio workout. Thanks to everyone for their support. I couldn't have made it through without you.

Comments

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

USE USE USE!!!! I don't understand this obsession with -izing things. What does it mean?! There are two male librarians at my work place, and two guys who take care of the computers. The computer guys wear jeans every day (though one of them has a disco steak and likes pink). Estrogen central over here, and no baggy-panted corporate types.

[novembersnow.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. "Utilize" is one of my pet peeves. It shamed me to no end to hear it come out of my mouth when I wasn't thinking carefully. Clearly I've been working here too long.

And luckily, I don't actually work daily with baggy-panted corporate types, but I do interview them over the phone frequently for the magazines I edit. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth trying to get them to say something that isn't empty corporate-speak. Frankly, if that's the kind of talk that goes on in boardrooms around the world, it's a wonder anything gets done.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Our guy, the one presenting to us, ended every thought with, "Fair?" Which I thought was a mite strange. At first I thought it was sort of neat, like, he was saying "is that fair to say?" which is an interesting thing for a corporate type person to ask. Is it fair, I mean, since when do corporate types really care about fairness? I mean, nice to check with us. But then, hey, he was saying it when he couldn't possibly be asking us that. It was just his "ahem" word. Bleh.

Fair?