Meetings
Meetings are where productivity goes to die. And where people like me want to die.
When I was in college, I went to a lot of meetings. Hall meetings, eating house meetings, eating house OFFICER meetings, team meetings, F-Crew meetings, club sports meetings, and Patterson Court Council meetings. At the latter, 2-3 members of each eating house (that's like a sorority at Davidson) and fraternity would sit around a table for two hours every Monday night and discuss critical issues such as whether or not it is offensive to women to have a party theme of "pimps and hos" where the fraternity members bring as many scantily clad dates as possible. We would listen to the fraternity officers explain how not having this party would violate a meaningful tradition for the same "gentlemen" who later in the year felt it was a good idea to bludgeon a goose to death with golf clubs in the middle of a park on a Friday afternoon.
But I digress.
Many meetings are called to make decisions. The attendees express their opinions, often at length. There are disagreements which means the attendees must reiterate their positions at even more length. After much discussion and the occasional hurt feelings, it is decided...not to decide. That's right, I can't recall a single instance of a meeting that resulted in a positive group decision that led to action (with the exception of officer elections). If a decision was indeed required, it would usually be handed off to one member of the group.
Other meetings are simply designed to convey information. In my opinion, these meetings are completely useless because the organizer of the meeting almost always provides a handout with all of the information the attendees need. At the meeting, said organizer simply reads said handout (which may or may not be modified to fit in a snazzy power point presentation). Do these organizers assume that their audience is illiterate? Or do they simply want their audience to be forced to spend more time "appreciating" the effort they put into gathering the information? I can never tell.
More recently, I've become familiar with "lab meetings". These gatherings involve one or more members of a research group presenting their results. As I do believe that collaboration is essential to scientific progression, I agree with the idea behind these meetings. The problem (which may or may not be unique to this setting), is that suddenly everyone is the smartest person in the room and needs to show it. They ask (generally unrelated) questions just to demonstrate the breadth of their knowledge. Often when I was in grad school, my PI would rip my data apart in lab meetings...the very same data that the day before he had seen and said was great. My current boss engages in this habit as well but to a lesser extent.
What is it about humans that make them such imbeciles in large groups? Psychologists have characterized this herd mentality in other settings, so it's not just some weird symptom that sets in when a person is exposed to a cold conference room and projector.
I could go on, but I have to go to a meeting.