I like Milton but he does like the sound of his own voice. He can't just talk the hind legs off a donkey but he can prop the poor brute back up and repeat the performance. A large part of it is that he's chock full of ideas and gets carried away with the possibilities. The other part of it is that he hasn't the self-discipline necessary to make sure he's not gone running off into the wildwood whilst the rest of the band are setting up camp.
This morning's meeting is a case in point. He's got the right idea in that we're going to be be moving a couple of libraries into new multi-service centres and we need to decide what we want to get out of the process. There is the very real possibility that we'll do our usual trick of sitting back and doing nothing then moaning because we're given the space that was left over after everyone else claimed a bit. So he did right to call a meeting to try and force the agenda.
Unfortunately he rather undermined his success by delivering a twenty-five minute long summing-up. Particpants haven't gone away with a clear idea of what we're going to do. They've gone away with the sight of T.Aldous pointedly packing up his notebook and glasses and putting his jacket back on and then having to sit there fuming for an extra ten minutes.
4 comments:
I read somewhere that the best way to conduct a meeting is to have everyone standing up, as this cuts down on time wasting.
I would add the refinement that you can sit down while everyone else stands, like HM The Queen when visited by ticks like Brown.
"A twenty-five minute long summing-up... There must a 6-week long "summing up skills" course that he can be sent on, at the tax-payers expense.
For some strange reason, reading this reminded me of a scene in a movie that I watched last night. Lawrence of Arabia. They are in Faisal's tent and the general says
"Look, Great Britain is a small country, much smaller than yours. Small population compared with some. It's small, but it's great. And why?"
"Because it has guns"
"Because it has discipline"
My point being, have you ever been in a tent? OR something like that...
Boyo: I once worked somewhere that did have a standing-up policy. It didn't work as intended.
Gadjo: up to five years ago Helminthdale Council did have an in-house course on writing summaries.
Lavinia: all that fabric-buying's gotten you started on the camping fantasies.
Some guns would be useful.
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