My apologies in advance to any of my associates that might be offended by this post. I’ll be ripping on inefficient, unproductive, and poor conduct during business meetings. Here goes:

Today I found myself getting called into a meeting on very short notice. About an hour’s notice. First off, this tells me from the start that the meeting was a last minute thing and probably wasn’t planned very well. Sure enough, when I arrived (albeit a bit late) there was of course no agenda or structure, and we were still waiting on several other individuals to arrive.

As if that weren’t bad enough, cell phones were not turned off and people were actually answering phones, thus interrupting the meeting. But the real kicker? One of the salesmen pitching demo design services actually got up during the pitch citing that they “had to take this call.” I couldn’t believe it. Being on the sales end many times in my career, this was very unprofessional and quite shocking. Though I’m not on the decision team to select the service, if I were, this design group would in no way win my business.

Now I myself don’t posses the best meeting etiquette. I tend to have my laptop out so I can “work” during an inefficient meeting. But I honestly would not be opposed to turning off all electronics and resorting to my trusty pen and paper portfolio that I’m notoriously known for using during client meetings. So please turn off your cell phones during a meeting. Contrary to what you might think, you’re not that important. Can you hear me now?