We're taking a bit of a breather while the world rearranges its underpants. Meanwhile, the other blog is here.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Just a minute

We're in the midst of an insurrection. The Branch Managers on this side of the borough are making tiny fists in their pockets. The reason? They've been told that they'll have to take their own minutes for their quarterly meeting. You might imagine that they had been told they were having their first-born on the barbie. Salome and Lola are having to Be Firm.

"I'm not doing the minutes! I'm not a secretary," says Norma.

"Everyone else in every other meeting takes their own minutes. Why should you be any different?"

"Why can't Maudie take the minutes for us?"

"Maudie's busy enough as it is. There are minute-taking courses you can go on if you're worried about it."

"We don't have time to do the minutes," says Hedi.

"You'll have to write the minutes for the meeting once every twenty-seven months. It's not a big deal."

"Well, I don't have the time to do the minutes," insists Norma.

"You could do it when you're on the enquiry desk. Perhaps instead of spending all your time emailing your family and booking holidays."

There was considerably more along this line. In the end...

"OK, that's enough. No minutes, no meetings. Full stop. End of. Now let's move on to the next part of this meeting's agenda shall we?"


The Branch Managers are threatening to take this dispute to the court of T.Aldous. One of the reasons why T.Aldous has his 'phone through to Maisie is so that Norma can't try and have a hotline to his highness.

4 comments:

Affer said...

Even when I was an MD - no, make that particularly when I was an MD - I always took the meeting minutes. That way, I could be sure that the proceedings were recorded as I wanted! An opportunity missed by your Managers I think....

Kevin Musgrove said...

Precisely so: I've always said that the person with the most power in a meeting is the one who does the published minutes.

Pat said...

I know nothing about proper business meetings - just various societies so I thought the secretary took the minutes. It always seemed a good idea to avoid being secretary or treasurer.

Gadjo Dilo said...

Part-timers. I had to take the minutes when I was allowed into meetings, simply because I was the lowest life-form there. I tried to make them funny. Then they stopped me.