The Horror of Meetings

You walk into the room. The silence is deafening. Everyone shuffles, gathers pens, paper, bottles of water. Polite greetings are uttered with no friendliness. Where you sit is one of the most important factors. You need to make eye contact with allies but not be directly across from the person you want or need to avoid. Eye contact could mean you get volunteered for some unwanted task. It also means that you may have to express your opinion. A dangerous thing, this speaking out. All members of this alliance toss their emotional baggage on the table waiting for the moment that it gets opened, the contents new and old awaiting exposure. Hidden agendas are checked and on the ready. It would be lovely if everything were straightforward. But it’s not and words are weighed as if they were poker chips in a high stake game. Information sharing begins with trust. Trust, a commodity that at times seems to be in short supply. A spattering of information is given and taken, nothing that would upset the balance. An uneasy truce Experience makes you do new mistakes instead of old ones.