Son of a bitch I got stuck on a pitch.

April 12, 2013 1:14 PM

Notes from meetings. Madeleine Di Gangi (very creatively) doodles the (very boring) goings-on during meetings. Via Free Range blog from Working Not Working.
posted by sweetkid (22 comments total)

Those are awesome.

Love both the style and sentiment.

I'm a small business person, meaning I don't have to go to many capital M meetings. But when I do I'll be glad to know I'm not the only person on earth that rolls their eyes when some idiot takes away a couple hours of my life "going through" their presentation, which generally means reading words aloud that are written right in front of me. Uhhh, asshole, I can read you know. You don't need to read your presentation to me like it's a bedtime story.

And then I consider the fact that lots of people do work for big corporations and have to spend their days in the same meeting day after day after day. Plus side, you get money for doing it. Minus, suicide.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:29 PM on April 12, 2013 [5 favorites]

Fuck yes, it's Friday

Direct link to the Free Range blog post, for posterity, or those who can't view tumblr for whatever reason.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:29 PM on April 12, 2013

Those are fantastic. Not a lot of people can doodle text that well.

I always did my best doodling/sketching in meetings. Sometimes I think I was invited to them just so people could see my drawings afterward.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:00 PM on April 12, 2013

Also good are the meeting doodles of Megan Ganz.
posted by orme at 2:36 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

That collection seems to be split between "bored in a meeting" doodles and "hitting on the guy next to her" doodles. Maybe she just does that when she's bored.
posted by Blue Meanie at 3:00 PM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

Those are really good. She should start selling them.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:05 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Doodling makes it look like you're taking notes. Excellent strategy. Now if only one could doodle and sleep at the same time.
posted by telstar at 3:12 PM on April 12, 2013

I doodle to stay awake in the minutes between when I've finished reading the slide (10 seconds) and the time it takes the poor sod to read out the whole thing word by word bullet by bullet in a low soothing voice.
posted by bumpkin at 3:17 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

These are fantastic. I just had a 10-text message conversation using only picture from her site.
posted by milestogo at 3:30 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm trying to imagine the seating arrangements whereby one can do large, high-contrast doodles and not be noticed by the people one is doodlemocking.
posted by the sobsister at 4:14 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thank you, sobsister. I got fired for doodling in a meeting and she gets a post on the blue. Where's the justice, I ask you? (To be fair, she is a much better doodler than I am.)
posted by scratch at 5:15 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Geez scratch, I don't think you can get fired for doodling. But you can get fired if your boss is a dick.
posted by salishsea at 5:31 PM on April 12, 2013

I think the answer to all questions here is that she is on a voice bridge or skype conference or something.

If someone doesn't email you an action item after the meeting it was all just hot air anyway.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:35 PM on April 12, 2013

If someone doesn't email you an action item after the meeting it was all just hot air anyway.

And if someone DOES email you an action item, they could have just done that and skipped the meeting.
posted by DU at 6:35 PM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

Son of a bit I got stuck in a pit.
Son of a bot I got stuck in a pot.
Son of a bark I got stuck in a park.
Son of a bear I got stuck on a pear.
Son of a brat I got stuck on a prat.
Son of a butt I got stuck on a putt.

sorry doodling
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:09 PM on April 12, 2013

And if someone DOES email you an action item, they could have just done that and skipped the meeting.

This doesn't follow. It is possible to learn of things you need to do, during the meeting. This is theoretically the point of the whole business.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:12 PM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

Hopefully the action items emerge from some kind of consensus achieved at the meeting.

Meetings get a bad rap in tech circles because young kids just out of college at a startup don't know how to run a meeting.

Here are my meeting rules:

The meeting is not a bull session or a reason to chill out in the conference room. The purpose of the meeting is to produce some tangible result. These can be action items. You should really outline the goals and agenda in the invite.

Physical meetings are very easy to sidetrack and break down into chit chat or groups of people bullshitting about weekend plans.Stay on agenda. Teleconferences have helpd this a lot, it almost never happens on a bridge with 20 people. Nobody wants to sit there in awkward silence or listen to one person drone on about the boy scout reveal he took his kids on.

Don't take notes, you are there to speak. We also don't need 10 people scrawling and clicking away the whole time.We also don't need 10 different versions of events and 10 different interpretations of what was important. When we still had physical meetings I used to hate it when I saw junior developers with clip boards and notepads and shit. This isn't class.

It is probably best not to start outlining how you are actually going to do something. Nobody needs to know the details of how you intend do do your job, just do it. Unless there are other considerations. Offer to "take those offline"

Have one official note taker, the note taker reads the notes back and asks for any Corrections or additions before the end of the meeting, then emails them to everyone with action items clearly marked.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:22 PM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

These are completely delightful! And this exactly describes my current status.
posted by grapesaresour at 9:03 PM on April 12, 2013

Those are really good. She should start selling them.

Notepads with a different doodle in the corner of each page. To be handed out for note-taking at business meetings. Instant inspiration.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:11 PM on April 12, 2013

Can I buy t-shirts? Please let me buy t-shirts.
posted by twiggy32 at 12:32 AM on April 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

This doesn't follow. It is possible to learn of things you need to do, during the meeting. This is theoretically the point of the whole business.

Oh to be this young and innocent again.
posted by schwa at 6:42 AM on April 13, 2013

Hah, no, not where I work. Meetings are to make us all sit there while we get lectured. Some meetings are ones where a random lecturer is brought in out of nowhere and nobody really cares about the bullshit they are spreading. That meeting is also there to announce birthdays, days off, staff picnic days, and who's quit vs. who's been hired in the last month. Some meetings are "Another round of budget cuts is coming, we just don't know exactly when yet." I have one weekly meeting where we are, no joke, given a test most weeks to fill out, and I would say that about 80% of us don't seem to know the answers. I'm new so they don't expect me to most of the time, but everyone else, I don't know. Or we have to play a game for "team building." Or we get asked for our opinions on something that has already been decided and thus our opinions don't matter. I have one meeting where the guy reads off his agenda for 15 minutes, reminds us to fill out our stuff, and then we leave.

I am getting a lot of crap if I do anything other than Sit Still And Pay Attention at all of these, which is driving me crazy. I will zone the fuck out and stare into space if I can't fidget with something, and my looking like I am "paying attention" means I stopped giving a shit 20 minutes ago. I could get teachers to understand that in school (by answering the questions correctly when called on), but god forbid we can't do that at work because it "looks bad." Given how her lovely artwork really, really doesn't look like she was "taking notes," I wonder how she gets away with it. I guess her boring job is less of a stickler.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:04 AM on April 13, 2013