Between Meetings

There is time for combustion

What happens at work

In general, two things, right?

Meetings and not meetings.

In the meetings we are supposed to listen or show off or show off how fine we are at listening.

In not meetings we are to prepare the things we are to show off in meetings and/or listen to when others praise or (it happens!) destroy. It is a way we have been trained to use time from our first days of school. At that time it was thought of as classwork or, if our teachers were merciful or without a lesson plan, the ability to do homework in class vs at home. In the model of school — meetings are like tests or presentations, assemblies or performances, and the in-between is when we are to be ‘good’ and ‘get ready’ for said public reward or failure opportunities.

In school, everyone has the same job — that of being a student. That changes in the working world; we each have our own job at work. We might share a title with a colleague or several, work in a team or a pool, but each person or group of people contributes in an individual way or at a specific point in a project. Additionally, each one comes into the role or roles chosen from a specific vetting process that is their own. In school, we all show up and go. And yet, the test/classwork binary continues…