hard work

Today, all ten or so of us held our scheduled-for-10am April issue planning meeting in the only conference hall that was available, which turned out to be some sort of conference/banquet studio-place that could easily accommodate hundreds of people; the big, ominous STATE GRID plaque attached to the wall overlooking the main podium area only added to the hallowed-ness of the meeting, which would (surprise) ultimately come to embody an exercise in inefficiency.

We finally got started at 10:30am and the laborious proceedings eventually wrapped up some time around 2:30pm. At one point I believe we spent close to thirty minutes (possibly more) trying to convince the three chipper representatives from the marketing team that if we were going to have blatant product tie-ins within the text of our articles, that they would need ensure that these potential clients would need to provide us with high-quality photos of their products from their PR people. I can't remember what became of the matter because I simply stopped listening after the first couple or so loops in what quickly because an exercise in circular reasoning:

Marketing: "We need photos to make design good of the article."
Editorial: "When you get in touch with the clients you've approached..."
M: "Right."
E: "Make sure you they send you their promo package, digital images, product stills..."
M: "Uh-huh."
E: "It will save us a lot of time when you're first setting up the contacts with these people, that you make sure we want to get everything they're willing to give us."
M: "So when freelancer contact designer or clothes market, they will ask for photo make design good."
E: "Well, yes if you can't get in touch with the company's PR department."
M: "We will contact fashion designing company for contact to give to freelancer write the article, they can collect the pictures."
E: "Wait, what?"
M: "We will contact company to get contact for interview, to write the introduction. We need you make sure get good image for article design."
E: "No, what we're saying is that--"
M: "Oh."
E: "... It will save time if you get their PR team in touch with us right away."
M: "Yes, we will contact PR team to get you contact to get picture. But we can't forget to have freelancer contact PR for marketing article design."
(meanwhile) Me: If I just got up and walked out, would anyone notice?

Funny thing is, a lot of other people did just that when no one was paying attention. At one point it was my turn to speak and my audience had dwindled to just a handful. Even stranger is that people would get up, disappear for up to an hour and then return later and affect a serious I'm listening to you face, as if they had never left. Next time, when we have another one of these group exercise sessions to workout our vocal chords and it's my turn to talk, I may just get up and leave mid-sentence, continuing to talk as I exit the room and enter the elevator down the hall.

You may be wondering, what could possibly make sitting through a four-hour editorial planning meeting of this caliber worthwhile? (especially considering what was actually accomplished over the four-hour period could have been done over email)

Answer: the impromptu pizza party thrown by our incapable-of-speaking-reading-and-writing-English boss! Who every thirty minutes or so would provide moot commentary (through a translator) for a discussion that would always continue on without him, but would hinge on his seemingly-alien decision-making abilities. I guess that part was cool. Burp.