Meeting Maverick Mugs

"We must kill this initiative, so let's mainstream it."

'Here things are getting interesting!'

Management Speak - reading between the lines: "This new role would involve some extra responsibilities." "He wants me too work twice as hard."

'Beasley, you're a good communicator, look down the table and make eye contact for me!'

'Look, we just need to make a few simple decisions. For once, can we do it without an endless squabble over whether we should take the high road or fly under the radar?'

'You call yourself a steering committee?!'

'We have no quorum, Ms Hedgely. I'm here, and that's all that matters.'

'As I see it, our choices are 'no' and 'hell no'.'

"Would you please elaborate on 'the something bad happened'?"

"I liked it better when you used gobbledygook."

"We have a REALLY high turnover rate here."

"Every now and then, I find myself in a room filled with people who are wrong."

"Oops, pass those back please. That's my hidden agenda."

"Now that you are all my little drones, I encourage you to speak my mind."

"Who ordered the bravest tuna on all the seven seas, anointed with the spice of faraway lands, on wheat toast?"

'The first order of business is the problem of absenteeism.'

"Since I am chairman, it behooves me to go first. 'What I Did Over My Summer Vacation,' by Wilson Rupert Hewes."

"Oops! Wrong plug."

Humor in the workplace is serious stuff. Never laugh before the drum roll.

"Anything goes today: I want this to be a free and open discussion of my entrenched positions."

'I want ideas so bold, so wildly innovative, so undeniably brilliant that they retain a shred of originality after everyone picks them to pieces.'

'Let's go around the room, and talk about the edgy, creative things we've done so far today.'

'We tried a mind mapping excercise and found his in a skip next to the A564 in slough.'

"Don't be afraid to speak up, Brewer. If we don't like what you have to say we'll just shame you back into silence."

'Maybe we should start the meeting with a 'Getting to know each other' ice-breaker. Would anyone like to share their sexual fantasies?'

"Your Easter bonuses are hidden throughout corporate headquarters."

If you should be in this meeting, but are reading this instead - you're fired!

'Or, we could take that anger and do something productive.'

"You two change seats. The pattern here is competent, incompetent, competent, incompetent..."

'We can't go on meeting like this.'

'Who wants the talking stick?'

'I've got a really important meeting today, so give me something that will get me so drunk no one will want to mess with me.'

'A simple, 'profits are up', would have sufficed.'

"Item 1 - party hats will be worn to all meetings to bring a sense of fun and frivolity to proceedings. Item 2 - you're all fired."

'Gotta dance!'...'Gotta dance!'