If you are a believer in pop science, there is a ready explanation for the Monday Morning Blues. “Our internal clocks operate on a day that is longer than 24 hours,” says eHow, a website which claims “How to do just about everything”. “By the time Monday rolls around each week, we’ve built up a sleep deficit of at least an hour. Of course, the weekend revelries don’t help matters.”

If you have your feet firmly on the ground and prefer to leave internal clocks to the cuckoos, there’s a more obvious reason. The weekly meeting — slated for 10 am — is staring you in the face. Yes, you had a meeting the last thing on Friday. But the world must have changed since then.

“Most meetings are useless,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “It is a way for the boss to reinforce his authority. Besides, every boss likes to hear the sound of his own voice.”

For some of the others, it’s a learning process; they hope to sit in the swivel chair some day. But for the majority, it is sheer misery. “On a Monday morning, you aren’t even amused at the display of assmosis by the upwardly mobile,” says Singh. He chooses not to define assmosis. But the Internet provides the answer: “Assmosis — a process by which people absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss”.

Everyone seems to agree that most meetings are useless. According to Patrick M. Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable: “A meeting should be a vital and invigorating component of running an organisation. Instead, it is a ‘necessary evil’.”

The necessity comes in when you look at it from the management point of view. For many, meetings are held only to establish that employees are not goofing off. Even in the era of telecommuting, there is a premium on ‘face-time’, defined as the need for managers to physically see the people who report to them. And when just a couple of people insist on coming to office, the others have to follow. Assmosis is difficult at a long distance.

“Meetings are the bane of modern corporate culture,” says Scott Snair, the author of Stop the Meeting I Want to Get Off. “Today’s managers spend between 25 per cent and 75 per cent of their workday in meetings, at least half of which are unproductive, if not downright destructive.” Incidentally, the name of his book, like most meetings, goes on and on. The full version is Stop the Meeting I Want to Get Off: How to Eliminate Endless Meetings while Improving Your Team’s Communication, Productivity, and Effectiveness.

What can you do about useless meetings? There are steps you can take (see box). But they don’t always work. On the other hand, you can make it a habit to miss meetings. But you may be kissing your chances of promotion goodbye. You can try to take a collective approach to avoiding such meetings. Unfortunately, one yes-man can destroy the best laid plans.

If you can’t avoid meetings, and are the serious sort, make the most of them. If you are the iconoclastic type, check out the reams of advice on the Net. They range from counting the number of times your boss says “actually” to playing a modified tic-tac-toe with some other bored soul.

Or you can start compiling the words of wisdom. “This meeting is being held to ensure that all our ducks are in line and on the same page.” If you can’t duck out, count your ducks.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Know why the organiser called the meeting.
Know what you want from the meeting.
List what you need to say.
Take down the minutes.
Keep to the rules of order.
Reflectively listen during information meetings (meetings that are just presentations).
Set things aside for the meeting.
Ask for action items.
End the meeting when it’s done
Ask questions afterward.

Shannon T. Kalvar, TechRepublic.co