"I'm sorry, what was the question?"

This post requires a little context;

This is an e-mail that I sent to one of my coworkers that failed to attend this meeting. To make sure you understand who the players in this poorly acted farce are, I’ve included this brief description of them, and the room we are housed in.

-Sasha, is my boss and department head.

-Mari would be my boss if I worked for her company, doing exactly what I do for Sasha, but probably enjoying myself more.

-Deb, was my boss (sort of) when I worked with her, but I hated that company and the person who actually was my boss hated me, so it was a mutual spiral of hate that led to me quitting and giving them as little notice as possible, because I’m apparently a bad human being... or at least I was in that particular situation.

Now this meeting was comprised of all the people who do what I do from all of the surrounding companies in the area. I guess it would be an actual collaborative if everyone didn’t (not so secretly) think that everyone else was an egomaniacal ass. But because everyone does in fact think that, they are the only wasting each others time with fake pleasantries and inconsequential discussions. Anyway, this as it turns out is a large number of egomaniacal asses, seated in what can best be described as a amphitheater, a large multi-tiered semicircle, in a large uncomfortably hot room... and most of these people are like dry white toast. They would just be primarily dry and white, but it was really, really hot in there...

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from:  Me <wehatemeetings@gmail.com>
to:  Pat XXXXXX <pxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.org>
date:  Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 11:37 PM
subject:  meeting last night...
mailed-by:  gmail.com



So, you didn't miss much from the meeting last night, but I thought you would find this funny...

First off, I sat between Sasha, and Deb so it was like my former boss and my current one... which was great...

There was a rousing almost hour long debate about changing the public admission fee from $8 to $10. Someone felt a study on the expenses of the event we’re charging people to get into should be commissioned. Because clearly, how else can we justify raising the fee if we don’t know for sure that we need the money. Someone else then chimed in to mention that we’ve lost money on this event for the last several years. Oh, but where is the money going replied the first person. Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself, ‘well, someone’s clearly stealing it, cause these events always suck’... but I somehow manage to refrain from saying it out loud. The bickering continued, more people had to add their opinions, because you don’t want to look unimportant in front of your peers by not having something inane to say to help keep the dialogue stuck in neutral.

Now we’re about 1/2 way through the meeting I'm totally off in la-la land, staring out the window wondering why the ambulance is in front of the building, and secretly hoping that the EMTs will rush in a take me away, when I realize that Mari is like, intensely staring at me, and doing this weird thing with her neck... So I kinda snap back into reality, and I'm looking at Mari, and she's giving me that "that's you" kinda look, and I of course have no fucking idea what is going on right now, so I look around the room, and it's totally silent, and I look back at Mari and she's still pointing her face at me with her neck, and I finally have to turn to the room and loudly ask:

"I'm sorry, what was the question?"

So the question is who will host the convention... So I say "oh..." and look back at Mari, and there is no way unless she is a yoga master that her neck can't be hurting by now because she is still doing this not particularly subtle pointing at me with her whole head, like I've apparently been chosen to do this in some meeting I wasn't a part of, so I then blurt out "Yeah sure."

Moments later it dawns on me that I'm sitting next to Sasha, who has, I'm fairly certain, been completely oblivious to Mari, as Sasha seems a little surprised that I just volunteered us to host this event out of the blue, so I turn to Sasha and ask, "hey can we do this?" Meanwhile, there isn't a person in the room who isn't fixated on the two of us, and she says "sure" because she couldn't give two shits right now, she's more concerned with the fact that it's 90 degrees in the room, and I've been telling people that she's hot because she's sitting next to me... (I don't think she was concerned with the second part, probably more annoyed). So anyway, I then turn back to the room and say, "Well, Sasha say it's ok... so we're in..."

Which received a full 'smattering' of laughter from the room...

And that's how we became the hosts of this years convention... :)

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Please feel free to comment, -Me