Let's do a meeting. In hell.

I friggin' hate meetings. Plain and simple. Meetings suck the life out of everything that touches them. There are some places where meetings are held for every little issue that pops up. I like to think I work in a creative environment, where free thinking is held with the utmost regard, where anything that takes away from that creative thought should be avoided. Not the case. There are meetings to start an idea, meetings to present an idea, and meetings to discuss the start and presentation meetings of the idea. For me, it's the equivalent of a Black and Decker drill being driven directly into the back of my skull.

Here are the phases I generally go through during most meetings:

1: Disgust. I enter the meeting room already pissed that I had to leave my desk and the hundred due dates waiting for resolution to come into this meeting. I'll toss my pad down on the conference table, throw my pen, and collapse, sighing, into the chair. Everyone else does the same. Except for the schmuck who called the meeting. We'll get into that person in Phase 2.

2. Show some minor initial interest. I do my damnedest to listen to what's going on, try to stay focused, and maybe even add a tidbit of meaningful bullshit to the already overflowing bullshit that's going on. But right there is the problem. What could have been done in a memo, an e-mail, or a phone call, now takes several people, puts them in a room, and adds several pounds of crap. Let's face it, most of what goes on at meetings is people trying to prove that they're actually worth something in the company. It's that person who called the meeting who is trying to show that they really do add some value. Finding their raison d'être. So they hold a meeting. And thus the bullshit is spewed. What could be said in a sentence now needs a Powerpoint chart, a diatribe that could filibuster an bill on Capital Hill, and endless senseless comments from the other jerkwads in the room trying to prove they also have a reason for being.

3. Drifting. Soon, usually about 5 to 8 minutes in, I start drifting. My mind starts to wander off in all directions. It's kind of like my morning walks. I get up at 6 AM or so and go out for a 40 minute walk. I don't have an iPod or Walkman. I just walk and my mind goes all over the place. Probably in part, due to the fact that I'm depriving my brain of any real circulation or oxygen, because I'm actually out of bed that early and doing some exercise. But I do have some great brain farts during those walks. In meetings, my brain goes toddling down that same highway of vapid thoughts. "What's for dinner?" part of my brain asks as the meeting drones on like the endless hum of a 20-year-old refrigerator. "Well, I did thaw out those chicken thighs," the other side of my brain suggests. "I wonder what it would be like to kick this guy in the neck," another part of the brain chimes in on the dinner discussion. It's when that part of the brain starts making comments like that when Phase 4 usually kicks in:

4. Total Disengagement. I'm now gone. Blacked out. My mind is now in some foreign territory where wind howls endlessly over bleak flatlands. Where broken earth sits parched and barren. My mind is out there. There's is little I can do at this point. If anyone were to ask me my opinion at this point, I might just jabber a line from The Big Lebowski or some nonsensical hogwash. Once, I was at this point in a meeting with the president of the company, who was talking about goals for all our employees, or some meaningless bullshit like that. He looked at me, and my mind was lost somewhere out there, in a scene from Dune. He asked what I thought of his colorful, yet incomprehensible chart. My brain went into shock. Every neuron and electron was down for the count, not one of them firing at all. My mouth opened and out came, "Yeah, people working more efficiently helps the company." I swear. That's what I said. I had no idea if it was even in context. But I think everyone else around me was just as brain-dead, and it probably made sense to them, because they all nodded in agreement, happy that it wasn't them who was called on to comment.

5. Fighting the Doze. Now, the only thing left to do is to remain awake. My eyes are fighting to stay open. "Stay open! Damn you!" that tiny part of my brain still somewhat alert warns my eyelids. It screams from deep in the recesses of my skull, "Focus on something! Anything! Move the eyeballs! Blink! Don't fall asleep!!" You look at other people. Your eyelids slowly start to droop, and your vision becomes a gauzy blur of colors and shapes. This is what the world must look like to a 2-day-old baby. Then, as your body becomes Jell-O and the last little flicker of light left in your belfry starts to dim, the tough little corner of your cerebellum gives you a quick kick in the brain nuts and you snap out of it with a shudder. You hope no one around you saw you jump. But that only lasts a moment before the Axis of Ennui takes over again...You fight it over and over and hope and pray for:

6. The end. As the meeting winds down, my brain begins to charge up again. Pistons suddenly start firing. Gears slowly start grinding. The whir of a turbine starts whining. Carefully and cautiously, the mind comes back to life, leaving behind the desolate desert that was the thick of the meeting. But now, I'm expected to go back to my desk and resume working. The mind still isn't functioning at full throttle. I need a jolt. An e-mail that makes me smile. A cup of coffee that burns my senses back to "go-time."

Soon, things go back to normal. And then the inevitable. "Let's have a follow-up to that meeting."

Someone will get kicked in the neck someday.