Sofia

I don't think that excessive and lengthy meetings should be held because they tend to get boring. Whenever it is time to get into a meeting, employees start saying ‘I hope it is not a long one' or ‘I hope we could just skip it today'.

This is because the longer a meeting lasts the ‘less work is done.

Hanna

Meetings have their advantages and disadvantages in an office. Meetings are definitely necessary otherwise there would be no way of following up on how a job is going. But, meetings have to be short and precise and interesting.

Meetings should not be bitching sessions otherwise, employees will never be interested and ready for meetings.

Dawit Mebrahtu, 30, Bank worker

Meetings are unnecessary. If a boss wants to confer with his/her employees, he/she has to talk to them individually and then follow up on that. There is nothing boring than a string of meetings at one's work place.

Ahmed Bekri, 25, Accountant

Meetings! They should be banned from this world and be replaced by another system that is not a meeting. I can't concentrate the whole time in a meeting because it is useless.

Zelalem Tilahun, student

No question that meetings have an essential role in facilitating a good communication between people working for a same goal. But meetings have to be held in order to follow progress of work and not bore employees.

Behailu Aregaheng, Marketing agent

Meetings in Ethiopia are one of the major reasons that we are not getting a good service from the civil service. Many stupid people at the government offices are using this stupid reason to get per drime dime ,to bribe the public or run away from work by telling us that they are having a meeting, which brought nothing for the improvement of the civil service sector.

Zechariahs Kedir, businessman

An effective meeting is a short one. Unfortunately we Ethiopians don't keep things short and I believe that our poor value for time is strongly reflected at the meetings we organize and attend. Although I don't have any problem with the basic principles to have a meeting. I can say that the evil side of the event weighs.

Selam Biruck, 26 secretary

I think it is the way we are conducting meetings that created a negative image of it in the public. Mandatory meetings in the Derg time and other pointless and one-sided meetings these days made the people hate meetings. But I strongly believe that in a country like Ethiopia in which a communication gap creates a huge problem, meeting can make a difference if conducted in scientific wa y.

Haile Thewodros, teacher

Meetings are important. But they don't start and end on time. Most of them are not carefully planned and people who usually lead meetings are boring, don't know much about the subject, and don't give chances for the participants to express themselves on the particular matter being discussed. The participants also have a big problem. They get warmed up and start to talk when the meeting closes and they start another meeting, they wake up late and may take the meeting to its discussed and finished agenda.

Bereket Mindaye, 27

Meeting are good concepts which are being badly practiced in Ethiopia .

Yonas Abebe, University Student

I am actually at school, but I believe it is time wasting.

Ruth Bekele, 17, Student

Meetings Galore!

Urgent Memo

All employees are to be present at an extra-ordinary meeting 1 hour before Tuesday's regular meeting to discuss absenteeism and tardiness at said weekly meetings. Failure to attend will be referred to personnel department.

Frazzled Noend, Manager

Now that readers have told us what they think about meetings, let me have the chair. Good. Well, first of all anyone who genuinely likes business meetings is full of baloney. Meetings are to adults what homework is to school children. In fact, one would have to run a business as conference organizer or auditorium owner to really enjoy these gatherings.

The problem with meetings is that they remind us, subconsciously of course, of those seemingly harmless ‘Buna Betesebu Siteta' (the family gathered at the thrice weekly coffee ceremonies) that before you know it, turn into a cross examination. Parents, and especially moms, sip their ‘Abol' and scroll through their blacklist and surprise! Pull down paste and boy, do they press enter with the grilling!

Same thing happens at regular office meetings. Share a chuckle with the guy down the hall, gallantly open the door for female staff and give the boss (the chairperson) your best smile and deference and you think, hey … I love my job, they love me. Wow! So you file into the conference room, take your place by hierarchy (of course) and to the accompaniment of the hip hop effect of nervously tapping pens, await the entrance of the boss, who must by unwritten law arrive late – that is, if you are late, where upon the theorem states that the boss will be early. And chew you out but good.

The boss enters to unintelligible murmurs of greeting the pet employees, nepotic hires and those on reprimands may rise and give Prussian salutes. The meeting begins. You pretend you are unnoticeable. Beware eye contact. Ah yes, eye contact – especially with the boss, can prove fatal. Remember school when even glancing at the teacher meant being asked to answer a question? Same thing at meetings, only many times worse. Be innocuous, blend into your seat … and do not under any circumstance wear something new. The golden rule is be there, but not, see?

Smile a lot but practice a different smile for the boss. He laughs – you laugh harder. He shakes his head sadly – you blink back tears. The boss rails at the competition – you offer to kill them.

But seriously speaking, meetings are one of those unavoidable and vitally necessary things in life which we must bear with.

Medicine is rarely good to the taste buds and a layman would say that the more bitter the medicine, the better it cures. In the same vein, dentistry must be one of the scariest places anywhere – on a par with matriculation halls, but these things are ‘bad' because they are done for the better good.

So, whether we like them or not –they are the medicine for the aches and pains experienced by any organization.