Honestly, You Know… The Meeting That Never Ended

Notes from the meeting of our new hires

So, like, honestly — I mean — you know how some meetings just never end?

Yeah, that one.

It started at 9 a.m. “At the end of the day,” said Frank, our fearless manager, “we just need to circle back, you know what I mean?”

To be honest, nobody knew what he meant. But quite frankly, everyone nodded anyway.

“Basically,” he continued, “we’ve got to, like, literally, move the needle.”

I glanced around the room. Half the team was nodding. The other half was practicing astral projection.

“In my opinion,” said Carol, jumping in, “we should, with all due respect, push back the deadline.”

Frank sighed. “It is what it is,” he said gravely, as if quoting Shakespeare. “At this point in time, we just need buy-in.”

Just saying.

“For what it’s worth,” added Jerry, who hadn’t spoken all year, “if I’m being honest, the metrics don’t align with our vision.”

No offense, but Jerry didn’t know what metrics were.

“Basically,” Frank said again (for the ninth time), “I mean, sort of, kind of, like, maybe we just need to pivot.”

To tell you the truth, that’s when I stopped taking notes and started counting filler words.

“Whatever,” Carol muttered under her breath.

“Truth be told,” said Frank, ignoring her, “the fact of the matter is, we’re all on the same page.”

“That being said,” said Jerry, “we might not be.”

Frank clapped his hands. “Look… I guess we’ll just table this for now.”

“Maybe sort of kinda,” Carol whispered.

“Let’s be real,” I said, standing up. “We could’ve finished this meeting in five minutes if we just spoke like normal human beings.”

Everyone froze.

Then Frank smiled. “Honestly,” he said, “you’re not wrong.”

At the end of the day (and it really was the end of the day), we’d accomplished absolutely nothing — except setting a new world record for most filler phrases in a single meeting.