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It's 3:00 pm and the phone on your desk rings. It's your boss and he or she has called another one of his or her famous boring meetings. Its mandatory and you are already bored stiff just thinking about it. The impromptu meeting will start in 5 minutes.

You and your colleagues have little time to prepare so hopefully you have already brainstormed some tactical techniques to survive your bosses impromptu boring meeting routine.

Taking along your notebook and a water bottle you are ready to begin the game.

For the first 15 minutes of the meeting you simply glean the facts from your boss. Who, what, when, where, how and why. After that most meetings are repetition so let the games begin.

During the second 15 minute segment of the meeting you and your creative colleagues are carefully listening to the boss ramble on. Counting each time your boss says a specific words. Typical words for this count are, "a, the, and, um, uh..." having a predetermined set of words with your colleagues makes it more fun to count them. You can compare the final count tomorrow over lunch.

Count how many times the boss messes with his or her hair. A true sign of nervousness and it can be at least somewhat interesting to count all 43 times the boss moves his or her hair from behind an ear or out of an eye.

Write a letter to a friend and keep up that correspondence. If you look up periodically and keep half an ear on the meeting speaker it will appear as if you are taking notes.

Learn to doodle. Create caricatures of the speakers in the meetings. Write your own comic strip to go along with it. Just remember your notebook when you finally leave the meeting.

Finish your water and quietly go refill your water bottle. Stop in the restroom along the way. Be sure to return to the meeting though so you don't get into trouble.

Plan your monthly dinner menu's for the next month.

Write your Christmas card or to do list. If you are a college student take along an unfinished assignment.

If the table is solid and no one can see through it take off your shoes and practice isometric toe exercises.

Practice your deep breathing exercises while sitting quietly in your chair.

Write a list of ideas for your next article or even go so far as to write the article while you are at it. If you can take along your lap top and are able to get away with it go ahead and publish it too. If you can write an article every 20 minutes or so imagine how many articles you can write and submit during a 2 hour meeting.

Hopefully by now your meeting is over and you can go on with your day. Please make sure to return your seats to their upright positions and take all of your belongings with you when you exit via the door to the right of the meeting room.

Learn more about this author, Linda L Kinyon.
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