In my brief but spectacular corporate career, I have grown to hate meetings. The stakeholders very rarely have any sort of agenda planned, there are often too many invitees to produce anything of substance, and, unless they’re blonde, cute, young, female and possessive of an expertly-crafted derriere, I simply don’t enjoy the company of my fellow workers. As far as meetings go, I tend to agree with Buddy Ackerman in Swimming with Sharks: “If they can’t start a meeting without you, well, that’s a meeting worth going to, isn’t it? And that’s the only kind of meeting you should ever concern yourself with.” End of story.
That said, I’d have given my left nut to be a fly on the wall for the meeting depicted in the photo above.
I mean, at the end of the day, Major League Baseball is a business. And businesses conduct meetings. Because that’s what they do. But I just can’t imagine anything productive occurring in the meeting pictured above. I mean, check the look on Varitek’s face. That’s the look that tells you: “Hijinks will shortly ensue.” Ten minutes in, and Tito was probably no more successful at holding the troops’ focus than Francisco, the IT guy at my company, explaining how the new chart-making software works.
And you’ll notice, just like any good corporate meeting, most of the chairs up front are untaken.
