There are two major kinds of work in modern organizations:

1. Taking phone messages for people who are in meetings, and,

2. Going to meetings.

Your ultimate career strategy will be to get a job involving primarily No. 2, going to meetings, as soon as possible, because that's where the real prestige is. It is all very well and good to be able to take phone messages, but you are never going to get a position of power, a position where you can cost thousands of people their jobs with a single bonehead decision, unless you learn how to attend meetings.

The first meeting ever was held back in the Mezzanine Era. In those days, Man's job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman, who had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this).

At last someone said, "Maybe if we just sat down and did some brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!"

It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day, and the next.

But the women pointed out that, prey-wise, the men had not produced anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their "agenda". At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never would have happened without meetings.

The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is really ever buried in a meeting.

An idea may look dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on. If you have ever seen the movie, "Night of the Living Dead," you have a rough idea of how modern meetings operate, with projects and proposals that everyone thought were killed rising up constantly from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.

There are two major kinds of meetings:

1. Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that Arbor Day is observed - namely, tradition. For example, a lot of managerial people like to meet on Monday, because it's Monday. You'll get used to it. You'd better, because this kind account for 83% of all meetings (based on a study in which I wrote down numbers until one of them looked about right). This type of meeting operates the way "Show and Tell" does in nursery school, with everyone getting to say something, the difference being that in nursery school, the kids actually have something to say.

   When it's your turn, you should say that you're still working on whatever it is you're supposed to be working on. This may seem pretty dumb, since obviously you'd be working on whatever you're supposed to be working on, and even if you weren't, you'd claim you were, but that's the traditional thing for everyone to say. It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say, "Everyone who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise your hand." You'd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, it's how they do it in Japan.

2. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show slides of pie charts and give everyone a big, fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless, of course, you're a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed be a question mark, like this: "Norm?" Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it (although it will plague Norm for the rest of his career).

But sometimes you go to meetings where the purpose is to get your "input" on something. This is very serious because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, you'll get some of the blame, so you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything. One way is to set fire to your tie.

Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from someone very important, such as the president of the company or the Pope. It should be one or the other. It would a sound fishy if the accomplice said, "You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope."

You should know how to take notes at a meeting. Use a yellow legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice. Now wait until an important person, such as your boss, starts talking; when he does, look at him with an expression of enraptured interest, as though he is revealing the secrets of life itself. Then write interlocking rectangles like this: (picture of doodled rectangles).

If it is an especially lengthy meeting, you can try something like this (Picture of more elaborate doodles and a caricature of the boss).

If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers, right of the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he wakes up. Then have one of them say to him, "Bob, your plan is very, very risky. However, you've given us no choice but to try it. I only hope, for your sake, that you know what you're getting yourself into." Then they should file quietly out of the room.

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the "Four F's": 1. fighting; 2. fleeing; 3. feeding; and 4. mating. -- Psychology professor in neuropsychology intro course

What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. -- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

Slogan of 105.9, the classic rock radio station in Chicago: "Of all the radio stations in Chicago ... we're one of them."

With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster 13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress. -- Ransom K. Ferm

Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

Applying computer technology is simply finding the right wrench to pound in the correct screw.

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world. -- Dave Barry

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. -- A. Whitney Brown

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. -- Andrew Tannenbaum

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. -- Mark Twain

There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets? -- Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base. -- Dave Barry

I am sick unto death of obscure English towns that exist seemingly for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives at fancy dress balls. -- Editor of the Limerick Times (Limerick, Ireland)

When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

668: The Neighbor of the Beast

Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -- Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

As your attorney, it is my duty to inform you that it is not important that you understand what I'm doing or why you're paying me so much money. What's important is that you continue to do so. -- Hunter S. Thompson's Samoan Attorney

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" -- Quentin Crisp

Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that they are fed up with being told they are sick and tired. I'm certainly not! But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am! -- Monty Python

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. -- George Carlin

Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy

Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way.

Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today?
1. Writing his memoirs of the Civil War.
2. Advising the President.
3. Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin. -- David Letterman

Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off. -- Johnny Carson

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language. -- D. E. Knuth, 1967

A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit. -- In the August 1993 issue, page 9, of PS magazine, the Army's magazine of preventive maintenance

Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?

On one occasion a student burst into his office. "Professor Stigler, I don't believe I deserve this F you've given me." To which Stigler replied, "I agree, but unfortunately it is the lowest grade the University will allow me to award."

Don't worry about temptation--as you grow older, it starts avoiding you. -- Old Farmer's Almanac

G: "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
EB: "Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area." -- Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch

The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad. -- Salvador Dali

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. -- Hunter S. Thompson

Sacred cows make the best hamburger. -- Mark Twain

"Time's fun when you're having flies." -- Kermit the Frog

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night." -- Charlie Brown, Peanuts [Charles Schulz]