Give me a row of orc-necks and room to swing...

I had a meeting today. This isn't really as special as it seems as I have lots of meetings every day but this one was truly special.

Someone from another department, let's call him Peasant Boy, called a meeting with a supplier to discuss the supplier's performance. Now, this in itself isn't terribly unusual, except that another someone had to step in at the last minute and point out that Peasant Boy should really send out an agenda. He eventually sent the agenda the day before the meeting. Well done for giving the supplier time to prepare, eh?

When the time rolled round, as time has a nasty habit of doing, we all gathered in the defined meeting room in full knowledge that this would be 90 minutes of sheer torture. On the company's side, there were 6 people from 4 different departments, 2 of whom shouldn't have been there (me included), and 2 from the supplier's side.

Someone had obviously mentioned to the supplier that a great way of pleasing their client was to arrive 15 minutes late and then insult the district where they work. I have to say, the area where I work is lovely, if approached from the correct side. If one follows Google Maps, one will be sent down back alleys and through council estates, as Google Maps tends to do sometimes.

Introductions were conducted by Peasant Boy, who introduced me as "IT Developer". That was the catalyst for a moment of clarity where I realised that this must be why Peasant Boy keeps telling me when applications break. I interjected to say "Senior Project Manager, actually" and quickly turned him into stone. Well, not really, but that would have been awesome.

Everyone involved sits down and in Peasant Boy's sheer ineptitude, he just sits there. There's a long and uncomfortable silence in which people look expectantly at him and expect him to chair the meeting, taking us expertly though the agenda and guiding sticky discussion, but no. In fact, he didn't even nominate someone to take minutes and I'll be damned if I have to do them. After said silence, the sales representative from the supplier starts to go through the agenda. Unfortunately, the aforementioned has about as much charisma as your average orc. Not a Lord of the Rings orc, more like a World of Warcraft orc, but still a sub-average charisma score. The Orc also had freakishly small hands, to the point where they would have freaked most people out. I spent most of the meeting just staring at these child-like hands and feeling slightly nauseated. Whilst The Orc ran through the agenda (I say "ran", I really mean "crawled at a horribly slow rate, simply providing yes/no answers for the questions listed without even going through the questions) we all listened to his grating voice and cringed as he battled his way through technical jargon he didn't understand.

Fortunately, the meeting was over with in 45 minutes but it really was the most mortifying and brain-numbing experience I've ever had to endure. Ever.