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What They Say During Meetings, and What They Mean

What they say during meetings, and what they mean....especially in the Civil Services..

What they say: "I shall review and revert in two weeks"
What they mean: "I shall promptly forget about this for two weeks and then hastily make some changes to the indenting and add a couple of lines to the 346 paged document and submit it for your approval again"

What they say: "The progress is on schedule"
What they mean:"I havent actually gotten around to checking the progress as I was busy typing 4 mile long emails to my bosom buddy from kindergarten and squabbling with my wife over the phone as to who gets to pick up the monster-brats from school."

What they say: "We are looking into solving the issues"
What they mean:"We are hoping that the issues will disappear if we continue to ignore them long enough."

What they say: "I am happy to answer any questions"
What they mean:"Lets all just get the hell out of here as it is lunch/tea/coffee/nap/brunch/noon break. Even if you care enough to ask a question, which I know you dont as i caught you dozing off when I was on my 235th ppt slide, I wont be able to answer as my flunky who put this 357 slides presentation together at 2am this morning as I remembered about this meeting at 7.30 pm yesterday and told her about it at 8.30pm is not here as she is busy right now trying to get her heart working again in the ICU."

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Anonymous said…
i swear i was planning to blog on the same thing! u left out "we are a customer centric organisation", "as your boss I would like to hear your feedback", and the big kahuna - which is reserved for anyone heard quoting any of the above phrases - "we think you have leadership potential" :)
4 Sept 2007, 23:28:00
unpredictable said…
:DDD Cannot stop laughing and drawing parallels with my own organization! :D
6 Sept 2007, 00:51:00
Eastertide said…
Jayesh - Dont let this one stop your dripping-with-acerbic-wit post on corporate meetings. I shall be on a look out

Unpredicatble - I suppose it is universally relevant:-) But still...somehow they are exacerbated with bureaucracy.
7 Sept 2007, 21:44:00
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