EMT Meetings

To: Chief Executive Officer

From: Intern

Date: August 25, 2009

Re: Executive Management Team Meetings

Today we have our weekly Executive Management Team Meeting. They're every Wednesday like clock-work. And when I say like clock-work, I mean a fucked up, broken clock. Today's Tuesday. But remember, we're rigidly flexible around here.

Executive Management Team Meetings are day-long reporting sessions. Every senior executive, and they're are quite a few, reports to the CEO. What these senior executives actually do is a topic for a whole 'nother blog, what's important for purposes of this blog is the structuring of this meeting.

First, there's the pre-meeting work sessions. This is where the "work" is done - meaning they talk about what work has been and is being done. Then there's the pre-meeting to discuss what will be discussed at the meeting. The big production, the meeting, is where everything is discussed in the most excruciating detail. In fact, the discussions become so minute that the senior executives engage in what I call mid-meeting meetings. Essentially, this entails leaving the meeting and phoning anyone who can elucidate the details of projects that the senior executive should know about. At least, I think that's who they're calling. They might actually be calling their family to tell them they won't be home for two days or having phone sex with a secretary to break the monotony of the meeting. Finally, after the grueling marathon of a meeting, there's the post-meeting debriefing. After a work session, pre-meeting, meeting and mid-meeting meetings nothing could be more useful than a good review to tie it all together.

I would say that Wednesdays are a complete waste of time, but considering what the rest of the week is like, they might actually be the most productive.