Piles and Piles of....

excel sheets! I guess since they're digital you can't really get stuck underneath them but I sure as hell feel like I am.  Sometimes I find myself updating the same status over and over to the same group of people in different emails.  Why not just read the other one? Or... why do you need an update...EVERYDAY?  I think every 2-3 days is good enough, maybe 2x a week.... why? why? why?

There are too many meetings.  Meetings that I sit there and start looking at my nails, wondering if I should wake up early for the rest of the week and go to the gym, or wondering if I should go get a massage after work.  When the meetings make your mind wander --- its an inefficient meeting.

People in Asia just looooooove to discuss. Discuss discuss discuss. DURING meetings. Look. The meeting is for a decision to be made. Not a discussion about the decision that hasn't been made.  The discussion part happens BEFORE the decision part, so that a decision CAN be pulled out of that mass of random digression.

So.  I know Americans in Asian meetings go crazy because nothing is ever done.  All the discussion happens, people are afraid to make a decision, and the decision is made somewhere later in a smaller meeting or on a smaller email chain with actual power to make a decision.  So why even bother to have a meeting for 2 hours (supposed to be 1 hour) discussing stuff you probably will not make a decision on....?

This happens in Asia, all the time.  Asians just loooove to not take responsibility for any action, or not step on anyones toes if they make a decision (Japan).  Man. Meetings in Asia suck.

I miss meetings in the US. Short, sweet, to the point, and done when the 30 minutes are up.

ugh.

Today all my coworker and I did was chat on MSN during the meeting. We had no idea what it was about after they stopped speaking in English.  I could understand all of it but I'm not going to listen since its a bunch of digressions and philosophy.  Also, most of the important decisions are made in English. So.  If its being discussed not in English, chances are there is no one important enough there to make a decision. :P