What It's Like

Most people don't like meetings. I, on the other hand, look forward to meetings. It's so easy for me to get tunnel-vision and so focused on my work that I forget other people are around me. Meetings give me a chance to see other people and have social interaction . . . that's not on a computer. It's great!

I love gathering with others and sharing thoughts, ideas, setting goals, etc. It's very therapeutic. Every Tuesday, at my work, we have a publications meeting. We talk about what each of us are doing, and we do some brainstorming for the next issue of our main journal, and we share artwork. We also have SO much fun laughing at some really ridiculous things.

For instance, I'm the youngest person on the publications team. My other co-workers are a lot older, and don't always understand all the inner-workings of technology and computers. Well, they do, but have a hard time conveying it in a way that our Tech guy, Hugh, can understand. At our last meeting, we talked about computer issues. Here's how it went:

Co-Worker: When I put in or try to link text in my InDesign it does a weird wrap thing where it won't look right on the screen and it throws everything off.

Hugh: Like when you put it into a new document? Or when you open a certain document?

Co-Worker: No. It happens on a lot of documents in this specific journal. I try clicking on things and nothing works.

Hugh: Wait. So what tools are you using when you place the text?

Co-Worker: I don't know, just the normal stuff.

(Then Hugh looks at me, confused)

Me: When she opens the document, there's a formatting error that's causing the text that she's placing to force a text wrap effect on it and it shifts the layout so she can't work on it. We've tried to adjust the settings but they all seem normal and I don't know if it's isolated just to that document or not, because none of the settings I adjust are making the problem go away.

Hugh: Oh. Okay.

Co-Worker: Yeah, what she said. Amanda's my translator.

We then all BURST OUT laughing!! It's not that I'm a translator, things just get lost in communication. Then we went around and my co-worker in charge of the meeting asks us to go around the circle and share some great reports on what we're doing.

Co-worker: Alright, K—, you want to share a great report on what you're working on?

K—: (facetiously) No. What if I want to share a terrible report?!?

Co-worker: Oh, okay. Sure, tell us a terrible report. How are things?

K—: Oh you know, pretty sh***y.

At this point, we are all laughing so hard! Like I was seriously bent over laughing!! It was so funny!

Today at our morning meeting, Hugh said that yesterday he was kind of dreading going to another meeting, but our meeting actually made his day better and he had so much fun. He said, "I should know better by now how much fun I'm going to have in these meetings."

I agree! :D