Of the first 24 hours of my work week,  I have spent 12 hours of it in meetings.  The rest of the time is spent trying to get work done – or trying to get motivated to actually do what I dub “my day job”.  Today, alone, I spent 5 hours in meetings.

If the meetings were of a variety of topics, I could handle it better.  I have not been quite that lucky.  The theme of all of the meetings has been “why people don’t want to change their business processes even though they openly acknowledge the fact their business processes are costing the company too much money”.  And, it involves the same group of 10 people.  These are people who really don’t need to worry that change will eliminate their jobs.  Hell, these are people who would be instrumental in defining the change thus making it more important for them to stay with the company.  

After spending several hours the Monday and Tuesday listen to this one specific Senior Director bitch and moan and talk just to hear himself talk while at the same time supposedly embracing the new company attitude, I decided to wear one of my favorite necklaces.  It says “Walk the walk, forget the talk.”  A friend of mine who has been a jewelry designer for 15+ years made it as part of her “Radical Mom” collection a few years ago.  She was frustrated by many things in the world at the time, so decided to wear her feelings around her neck in this case.  When I saw this several years ago at a school auction, I had to have it.  

Like the sign I have on my desk, I can be snarky with people while they unknowingly think I am saying it about someone or something else.  Whatever gets me through the day without killing someone is what I’m aiming for really.  It helped me..  But so did the fact my friend the Senior Director missed all of the meetings this afternoon.  That, I think, helped more.