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"I can't help you now!", shouted Sarah as
she raced past her boss. "I'm going to a meeting!"
"Look at all this email from our customers!",
exclaimed Alan. "They'll have to wait because I'm
going to a meeting!"
Willy was feeling stressed. He should finish correcting
the travel report for his boss, but he has to set it
aside because he has to go to the meeting.
It's now 2:05 p.m. Sarah, Alan, and Willy are in the
conference room ready to meet. They're always on time
for the meeting, well just a few minutes late. Martha,
Chuck, Fred, and Tom are not there yet. (They're always
late for everything except for their flights at the
airport.) They feel that few people truly understand
their unique set of responsibilities. Sarah, Alan, and
Willy appreciate their time together to get caught up
on the office gossip while waiting for the others to
arrive.
2:17 p.m. and Tom has arrived. Sarah leaves for "just
a minute" to check her voicemail. Willy leaves
to go to the bathroom. Martha arrives, and sees that
everyone is not there yet and returns to her desk to
check her email.
At 2:28 p.m. Willy is back and Chuck and Fred drift
in. Fred wants to know why we are always running out
of coffee filters. Chuck suggests that a meeting be
set up to appoint a committee to look into and discuss
the matter. Alan leaves to round up Sarah and Martha.
2:33 p.m., Alan returns with Sarah and Martha but Tom
is in the hallway talking with Jan. Jan just got out
of a horrible meeting and wanted to share with Alan.
Jan senses that she may be wasting a lot of her time
in meetings. Alan points out that they are important
and "how would it look if you weren't there?",
he asks. "True.", replies Jan.
Chuck says, "Let's get started. Alan will join
us in a minute. Sarah, bring us up to date on the status
of getting our new telephone extension numbers."
"Oh, I didn't know you wanted me to talk about
that today. I, uh, really don't have too much on that."
remarked Sarah as she turned away from her crossword
puzzle.
"Why do we need new telephone extension numbers
anyway?" asked Willy.
"We decided that last month although if you have
some input on this, we should like to hear it."
Chuck explained. "Weren't you here at the last
meeting?"
"Willy's never here." scolded Martha.
"Am so.", defended Willy.
It's 2:42. Alan sticks his head in the door. "Sorry.
Something just came up. I'll have to skip the meeting."
"But Alan, you were going to review the sales
figures." implored Chuck.
"I know", added Alan, "but I've got
to go to another meeting. It's very important."
For the next ten minutes the group discusses Alan's
apparent lack of focus and how he is really hurting
the team.
Around 2:53 p.m., a new discussion begins and the group
agrees that they all have "too much to do",
that this is unfair, and that something has to be done
about it.
At 2:59 p.m., a new group is milling about in the hallway.
It is their time to meet in the conference room. Kate
runs that meeting. It is very important because they
have reserved two full hours for their meeting. She
pokes her head in the meeting room. "You guys almost
done? We have to have our meeting."
Chuck replies, "Oh, ok, thanks. I have another
meeting to go to myself. We'll be done in just a minute.
We just have to set the date for our next meeting."
If this article has been useful to you, we have prepared
an additional article entitled, "The Tools for
Increasing Employees’ Productivity". It’s
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to:ctsem@msn.com
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Dr. Donald E. Wetmore-Professional Speaker
Productivity Institute-Time Management Seminars
127 Jefferson Street
Stratford, CT 06615
(800) 969-3773
(203) 386-8062
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