Agency

In Which There is a Meeting About Meetings

Monday afternoon, back downtown

The Monday afternoon "Heads' Huddle" in Allegra's office was different from the Friday afternoon "Weekly Executive Meeting" in only one discernible way... it happened on Mondays. Well, and okay, it had a more informal name. But there remained widespread confusion amongst the executives about how these meetings were any different and why just the one meeting might not be enough.

Denton Horowitz, because he was A) a creative technologist who couldn't understand why any meeting would happen off-Slack when that was a perfectly viable remote meeting technology and, B) a serious pedant when it came to detail and order, had the most trouble with it and simply couldn't let either the Monday or the Friday meeting begin without, yet again, questioning the need for its existence.

"As I explained on Friday, Denton," Allegra stopped him, "Monday is a huddle, whereas Friday is a meeting. For one thing, a huddle is more casual. Really, we should be standing and just having a chat."

Everyone looked around. They were all seated.

Samara Lee looked up from the spreadsheets she'd had her assistant print out just in case anyone wanted to review numbers (which they never did) and said, "Suit yourselves, but I'm not standing. My Jimmy Choos and I prefer to sit."

Denton, who was eager to make sense of the meeting and therefore wanted to follow the rules, stood and removed his chair.

Allegra sighed because she supposed now that she'd said it and Denton had taken her at her word, she would also have to stand.

She threw her shoes under her desk and stood in her stocking feet, which must be what women in start-ups did. She understood that part of engineering a start-up culture was to ensure there was lots of standing around (standing desks, stand-up meetings, foosball tables, etc.), but standing around didn't jive well with women's footwear. Then again, there also seemed to be lots of lying down opportunities (sleep pods, nap rooms, quiet zones with massage chairs), and that was definitely not the aspect of start-up culture she wanted to engineer here.

"Okay, let's begin with a roundtable," she suggested, curling her toes like a gymnast about to launch at the bars. "What's everybody up to this week?"

Just then, Niall walked in with a storm-warning already flashing across his face. Allegra checked her watch.

"Niall, you're 3 minutes late. It's not acceptable to waste your peers' time in this manner."

He looked her way with half-slit eyes and said evenly, "I'm having to take the elevator from the third bloody floor now, as you well know."

"Maybe you should take the stairs in future. Would do you some good, anyway," she replied brightly, immune to his moods. "As you're here now, why don't you kick us off, Niall? What's new in the art department?"

Noting that Denton and Allegra were both standing around like lunatics while Fraser and Samara sat, Niall pulled Denton's old chair out of the corner and sat down heavily.

"Well, I'll tell you. There's a bit of mystery down there at the minute. If you recall, thanks to the wunderkind over there"-- Niall indicated Denton -- "and his uber-diaper delivery idea, we had no money left over to produce any actual artwork."

Samara consulted her spreadsheets.

"That's correct. The research went way over budget, then the partnership dollars to secure Uber ate the rest. Unfortunate planning by Accounts," she confirmed, glancing at Fraser.

Niall nodded.

"Then it is inexplicable to me that the design work did somehow get done. I've just seen it out on the street. A great stinking heap of it plastered all over the streetcar stops up and down King Street."