People distinguish between attending meetings and doing their jobs: “all these meetings are getting in the way of my real work." Implicit in this complaint—"I don't have time to get my job done"—is that meetings are an unwelcome imposition upon our more life-affirming endeavors. What does that mean, exactly? Are organizations hamstringing the business by keeping people from more productive, albeit solitary pursuits? Maybe. Or, maybe the essential complaint has more to do with our inability to adhere to the taxonomy of meetings. That is, meetings fall into one of four categories: an invitatio ..read more

The covid pandemic in the U.S. has been going on for a year, now, more or less. I can remember taking what became my last trip for work at that time: a routine flight to Minneapolis. The first reports of the horrific number of deaths at the Seattle nursing home were just appearing in the national news—images of gurney after gurney of cloth-draped corpses being wheeled out of the facility. Our daughter’s school remained in session, although my wife and I were wondering how long the doors would remain open. I can remember getting into the Uber for the local airport and feeling that something wa ..read more

If you told a child today that, twenty years ago, every household had a printed directory of every resident and every business in their town—and that the directory weighed upwards of ten pounds and was dropped on people’s doorsteps once a year with a satisfying “thunk,” they would think you were crazy.  No way.  It’s true, however. If you wanted to call the Smiths across town you would pull out that directory, look under “S,” and find the number. Sure enough, when you called the number, Lucius Smith would pick up on the other line and the two of you would be talking about the weat ..read more

What has been will be again,  what has been done will be done again;  there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9 When I was around four I tripped running up the back stairs to our house. I landed on the sharp edge of the pressed sheet metal box that the local dairy provided their customers who signed up for milk delivery. The box made a deep gash by my left eye. My mom took me, bleeding and sniffling, to the doctor for stitches. I recall that removing the stitches hurt more than the gash.  Not long afterwards the dairy stopped home delivery. Our local grocery store ..read more