How do I cope with time-wasting meetings?

September 28, 2007 7:52 AM

How do I get through time-wasting meetings without dissolving into a homicidal puddle of resentment? Cognitive, behavioral, and affective suggestions welcome.

I am in grad school full-time, in a program that meets two afternoons/evenings a week. I am also working part-time 20 hours a week in order to afford to live. I am also in a required internship for 10 hours a week. I have no car, and these places are all spread out all over the city, so I'm also spending a great deal of my time on buses and subways.

My internship has required trainings, one two-hour session every week and one four-hour Saturday training once a month. These trainings are beyond pointless; the presenters/facilitators are disorganized, rambling, and repetitive, and they all seem completely unable to answer direct questions. One of my classes is similarly disorganized (one of my classmates said, "We spend at least a half hour every week going over which of the instructions were incorrect the previous week"; I get most of the assignments via email because the professor can't seem to get it together to explain them well enough during class).

These trainings and classes are driving me insane. I walk out of there seething and exhausted from trying not to roll my eyes for two hours straight. They tend to ruin at least the next several hours of my day, as I struggle to stop being so pissed off at the waste of my time. I feel like I have so little time to devote to anything right now, and having to give up five to ten hours a week to these activities is leaving me really angry.

I'm looking for suggestions of things to do during the meetings to make use of the time (but the meetings & classes are small and reasonably interactive, so I can't just read a book), cognitive framework shifts that will knock me out of this "I don't deseeeeeerve this, wah me" thing I've got going, or any other thoughts of how to cope with some of this in a more productive, healthy way.

posted by occhiblu to work & money (29 comments total)

I'm pretty ADD, and tend to get through classes without tearing out my eyes. I take notes on a laptop, and work on reaching the ends of the internet when I get bored.
posted by craven_morhead at 7:59 AM on September 28, 2007

I went through this recently & found that doing yoga chants (in my head, of course) and deep breathing and visualization stuff like relaxing each part of my body starting with my toes, etc. helped somewhat. When it did not, I was amused to find that my brain pulled out "99 bottles of beer on the wall..." And doodling. And listmaking. You have my sympathies.
posted by judith at 8:02 AM on September 28, 2007

I like craven_morhead's idea.

Bring other work you can do while in the class, like writing or something along those lines. Easier to do if you take notes on a laptop. Don't sit there and passively allow them to waste your time - get some work done if you have to sit there.
posted by LN at 8:03 AM on September 28, 2007

Internal emigration.

Stare straight ahead, occasionally nod and grunt affirmatively, but use the time to memorize lists of things you want to remember, like foreign language vocabulary, or equations, or poems, or just random lists of numbers. To help you, write the lists on backs of business cards and only glance down when you can't remember.

If the trainings are as bad as you say, if you're called on to contribute, it shouldn't take much to figure out what they want you to say.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 8:04 AM on September 28, 2007

palm pilots are also sometimes useful if you can make it look like you are using for something sorta meeting-related. Also, if you have something you can sorta switch over to mentally (as you said, you can't just read a book) without being completely inattentive to said yucky meeting, you can make it look like you are taking notes, and perhaps you will jot something notelike on that page there.... but if you have anything else you might be able to work on, come up with ideas for things, etc, you can scribble those elsewhere on same page.... ideas as in, for example, song lyrics, things to patent, updating your 'to do' list, etc etc
posted by bitterkitten at 8:05 AM on September 28, 2007

If you have the cash, a good note-taking & internet capable PDA and an unlimited internet agreement with a cell-phone carrier will give you the ability to look productive without being obvious about your surfing habit.

I always brought other homework that I could do in the back of the room for large time-wasting classes. In a smaller classroom environment, sadly, I tended to skip the eye-gouging variety and take the hit on my grades.
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 8:07 AM on September 28, 2007

Erm, I was the consummate slacker in college. Coffee mug filled with wine, I grew my hair out so that I could snake an ear bud up my shirt and plug one end in my ear (in my defense, I was listening to books on tape, like the biography of Lee Harvey Oswald).

Ways I got through the required courses:

1) Took detailed notes, not necessarily about what the instructor was saying, but everything to a made up FBI profile of him as a serial killer to a list of phrases he might have liked to utter during sex.

2) I was in a 13 person Honors Sociology class which was extremely dull because the professor taught out of a book that he wrote be reading verbatim the chapter that he had assigned us to read the day before. He purposefully ignored me after I answered questions with confusing, mind-numbing answers (we were talking about consciousness, so I told him dolphins can see themselves in mirrors. Both technically correct and directly related to the topic, it nevertheless made no sense the way I stated it.)

3) Made a game in high-school called Herf-O. Like bingo, but comprised of all the verbal tics my teacher, Mr. Herfert had. Of course, if you won, you had to yell Herf-O out, receiving the prize of a detention, but I don't suggest you take it that far.

4) Bought one of those mid-90's watches that you could play Double Dragon on.

5)If I needed a day off I'd just come in the next day and say I had diarrhea. The professor never wanted proof, and the one time one asked for a doctors note, I told the doctor and she didn't want proof either, so, free note. Much better than having 20 grandmothers who keep dying.

These could help, but it depends on your personality and other factors I don't know about. I did a lot of other stuff, but they were immoral and/or illegal.

Good luck trying to find a balance between ennui and rage. I'm still looking for it myself.
posted by JeremiahBritt at 8:08 AM on September 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Are you really and truly stuck with all of the meetings and chaos? Could you make a deal with your internship manager that you will prove you've learned the training material on your own, and will be ready to start the work on date X? Can you talk to the disorganized professor and suggest that she distribute instructions by e-mail/web site before class so less time is wasted during class?

I have helped people get organized and more efficient for the sole purpose of making my life easier, and as a side benefit, they seem happier too.
posted by desjardins at 8:20 AM on September 28, 2007

I recently emerged from a job full of tedious meetings and I found that the best thing I could do was walk into each one with certain objectives or tasks that I needed to get done by the end of the meeting. Useful stuff -- write someone a real letter, memorize some stuff for school, plan out christmas presents, make pro/con lists about lifechanging choice a vs. choice b, plan out essays, etc. You can usually find something to accomplish with a pen and paper. But when I didn't do that, I'd print out some interesting reading material and slip into a general mess of course-related work in front of me and then nod appreciatively at the instructor every paragraph or so.

Mostly, I try to stay serious about my private meeting objectives, so I could walk out feeling smug and satisfied that I'd gotten something done while everyone else just lost two hours of life.
posted by bluenausea at 8:24 AM on September 28, 2007

Learn to knit.
posted by ottereroticist at 8:31 AM on September 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Smoke pot before you go.

Oh wait, you wanted a productive, healthy way. Well, I suppose it's more healthy than raging anger. I used to get high before a particularly odious economics lecture in university and then bead necklaces in class. It made the time more tolerable.
posted by crazycanuck at 8:39 AM on September 28, 2007

Relax. If I'm required to attend a pointless meeting, I use it as a planned mental nap. A midday relaxation is refreshing and I get more accomplished when I return to my office.

As an alternative if I get a thorny problem assigned to me, sometimes I wait until that meeting to start thinking through it.

Mentally chanting, I'm-getting-paid-to-be-here also works.
posted by 26.2 at 9:04 AM on September 28, 2007

Mentally chanting, I'm-getting-paid-to-be-here also works.

Yeah, which is why none of my resentment is stemming from the one paid job I'm working, and all of it seems to be coming from the "Your reward is knowledge!" parts of my life.
posted by occhiblu at 9:06 AM on September 28, 2007

sexual reminisces and fantasies.
posted by bruce at 9:11 AM on September 28, 2007

Practice writing with your non-dominant hand. It's good for your coordination and keeps your brain flexible. It also makes you look like you're actually doing some kind of note-taking.
posted by Benjy at 9:32 AM on September 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm an eye-rolling sigher with no poker face and my life was full of such disorganized meetings in grad school. One in particular was also a weekly training meeting and conducted along the egregiously unorganized lines you describe.

As a short term solution, I did what a lot of other people here are advocating: I sat as far back as possible and treated most of them like a study hall by working on my other assignments, if only in outline form. I had no laptop; I just freehanded everything. If there was nothing I could work on, I'd compose grocery lists. Basically, I leapt at whatever productive moment I could squeeze out for myself, no matter how small. This eased the antsy feelings and had the added advantage of hiding my obviously resentful face. In terms of a "cognitive framework shift," sometimes I'd give my pounding id all the attention it craved -- basically having a full scale pity party in my head (You are the most aggrieved person in the world! No one's pain is like your pain! You have suffered more than Christ today, you are a saint! I'd visualize what an actual pity party might look like, with me alone in a sad tattered black dress, accessorized with an askew black dunce cap and a black streamer that went aw toot when I blew it, etc, until I had no choice but to laugh at myself.)

One day, another student, utterly fed up by the lax standards and time wasting, angrily confronted our instructor with the complaints we'd all had all semester. Several of us spoke up to agree. She then went to the instructor's supervisor with these same complaints, enlisting the rest of us for support, which we happily gave. The course then moved stopped meeting and moved to email and the instructor was far more on the ball from that point on. I have no idea if such a thing is possible for you, but it is among the more treasured minor rebellions I can recall in my life. Good luck.
posted by melissa may at 9:46 AM on September 28, 2007 [5 favorites]

Well, I don't know how productive this was, but when I was in grad school and endured some fairly mind-numbing blather, I still had to look and be engaged with the group. I tended to keep myself sane the following ways: 1) I imagined what each individual in the room looked like naked, in detail. It can actually be a lesson in compassion. :-) 2) I would mentally dress the men in the room in ball gowns that would most flatter their figures and their personalities. Dressing the women in tuxes wound up being pretty dull, and putting them in dresses was only mildly amusing. 3) For the real bores, I would imagine throwing pencils at them, and having the pencils stick in the people like darts in a dart board. Some folks were inevitably peppered with pencils by the end of a class, but it got me through.
posted by omphale27 at 9:51 AM on September 28, 2007

Have you talked to anyone who schedules these trainings? There's gotta be something else you can do.

For three years, I was on the board of a large co-op, and I had to sit through interminable meetings and go to conferences with interminable workshops.

For our board meetings, I became as ruthless as possible in saying "Right. So we've all got that," in order to deal with the rambling of the board president. "What's next?" also works. At first, I feared that people would resent me, but they seemed relieved.

You can also talk to fellow students, and see if you can stage a quiet revolt. If a few of you go up to the instructors and say, "Look, we're adults. This isn't working for us. Let's come up with a solution," everyone may benefit.

Aside from that, well, I became a sudoku master in those workshops. Since I could keep half an ear on the idiots presenting, the couple times that they tried to shame me with "Maybe you could tell us what we're talking about" bullshit (like I was a third-grader), I was able to snap it back at them fast enough to shut them up. And thus, I didn't have to pay even a modicum of attention.

(You can also reverse this by working on your active listening posture. One of the classes I had in high school had a unit on how to look like you were paying attention while you screwed around on other things.)
posted by klangklangston at 10:26 AM on September 28, 2007

My favorite options:

Write a novel. Longhand.
Update to-do list.
(bruce has my favorite-favorite, but I wouldn't have admitted it if he hadn't first.)
Craft blog posts.
Crossword puzzles.
posted by INTPLibrarian at 11:27 AM on September 28, 2007

Someone once said, "life alternates between boredom and suffering."
posted by rhizome at 11:41 AM on September 28, 2007

On review, I agree with Melissa & Klang: complain. You shouldn't have to put up with this.

And as someone who actually does a fair number of presentations and trainings, I think I'd rather someone actually told me it wasn't working.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 12:30 PM on September 28, 2007

I've run into this problem as an undergraduate, too, in classes and programs run by someone with whom I must maintain a cordial working relationship, or put my future in peril.

After it became obvious that mis-scheduling, rescheduling, and overrunning class times were increasing, not decreasing, and after yet another forty-minute shuttle ride to find my scheduled lab unavailable, I scheduled an appointment with him. Two, actually! He missed the first one! Oh, that's rich.

I told him, basically, that I'm excited! about the work! YAY, WORK! But I've committed to classes and projects, his and others, and when his classes run long, I can't make it to my next commitment.

I also pointed out gaps in my schedule when I'd be only too happy to come in early or stay late, or days when we aren't scheduled to meet when I would gladly make time. This let him know that I was very eager to accomodate the need for one-on-one time for training and updates that wasn't built into the courses and projects.

I also asked him for suggestions to make the time more useful, or for times when he would find my presence particularly worthwhile. I asked if there were other ways for me to demonstrate competence, and he and I creatively came up with some scheduling solutions. After this discussion, and perhaps related to it, his classes moved along more snappily and his scheduling became a bit more reliable.

In my favor, I had as much credibility as a student can have going into this exchange: I'm prompt and reliable, I don't skip classes, I don't have a history of asking for extensions or other favors, and I do lots of solid work, much of it beyond the requirement. He knew I wasn't whining about the work or the time, just trying to find a solution so I could do the work in his department without slacking off my other responsibilities. (Knowing what I do of you, I imagine all this and more is true of you.)

Indeed, I think he thinks more highly of me now, since he sees that I honor my responsibilities and don't hesitate to speak up to authority.

This also minimized my exploding-head symptoms: he understood that, if a class into overtime, long enough to endanger my other commitments, I had to leave. Neither of us made a fuss about it, and I would be as quiet as possible in collecting my things and exiting.

one of my classmates said, "We spend at least a half hour every week going over which of the instructions were incorrect the previous week"

In this situation, I would point out to the prof how confusing it is to begin working on one project only to have it morph into another, and perhaps ask if the instructions could be provided in the online forum, or as a hand-out, or in some other written form, to avoid miscommunication. It seems to me that when called upon to write down instructions, most people think them through more carefully than when giving them in person. "To avoid miscommunication" is a bit of hand-waving to avoid saying "because you can't speak or think clearly."
posted by Elsa at 12:53 PM on September 28, 2007

What I currently do is practice my breathing exercises from meditation and focus on relaxing. When that isn't enough I have a mental mantra I use: "This will end. I just have to ride it out. And I'll feel so good when it's over."

YMMV.
posted by chairface at 3:56 PM on September 28, 2007

If they're truly useless to you, just tell your adviser and quit attending. You're in grad school, not high school.
posted by Coventry at 6:54 PM on September 28, 2007

You're in grad school, not high school.

The classes are mandatory for school. The trainings are mandatory for the internship, which is mandatory for school.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll be flipping through as many as I can over the next few weeks.
posted by occhiblu at 7:00 PM on September 28, 2007

How mandatory are they - as in, what are the consequences of not attending?

I have lectures and tutorials that are supposedly "mandatory" (as in I'm technically supposed to attend about 80% of them to stay as a student under my visa), but they're hardly worth going. Since no one really notices if you're not there (at least with lectures anyway), I just don't bother to come. And I still do well at uni, go figure.

I'd visualize what an actual pity party might look like, with me alone in a sad tattered black dress, accessorized with an askew black dunce cap and a black streamer that went aw toot when I blew it, etc, until I had no choice but to laugh at myself.

bahahaha! I want a picture of this now.
posted by divabat at 5:16 AM on September 29, 2007

During boring meetings I use tinderbox to take structured notes, that I then play around with and try to organize in the meetings. Apologies for the pepsi blue-ness of this response.

We also tried other methods in this thread, including bingo, with rotating subjects, or betting on when a particular phrase would be used in a seminar (Hegemenony--five minutes).

I agree that trying to set up a mature relationship with your flakey instructor is the best thing to do.

We also played networked battleship with our Newtons at one point (they were an early PDA).

And yes, some of my favorite moments were revolting, intellectually and accurately, against an unengaged teacher who was wrong on different occasions.

In other news, this thread has me thinking about how to make the seminars I am teaching suck less.
posted by mecran01 at 7:29 AM on September 29, 2007

How mandatory are they - as in, what are the consequences of not attending?

Missing two classes means failing the course. I can get away with missing one.

The four-hour training sessions require that we sign in, and officially there's make-up assignments if we miss them, but I don't really know how organized they'd be about the thing. The two-hour training sessions are required by the state for my internship (they're supervisory sessions), and I will be unable to become licensed in my field if I don't attend a huge, huge majority of them.

Due to various circumstances, I did end up in a conversation with my professor yesterday, which may help. So we'll see how that goes.
posted by occhiblu at 7:47 AM on September 29, 2007

Consider doing the make up assignments, as you might be able to buzz through the content MUCH faster. I did them for my TA training, and they were considerably faster. Maybe half the time of the normal training. The normal training, btw, was an egregious waste of time. Probably ~2 hours of useful material in 12 hours of course. Lame.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 12:06 PM on October 1, 2007