Don’t make me endure a pointless work meeting — I’d much rather walk and talk on the way to the loo

Imagine my pain. Tomorrow morning I face the same meeting I face every Wednesday of my life. The room will be stuffy and full and I’ll be expected to sit in there for an abusive amount of time, prevented from doing the job I’m actually paid to do. So I have decided on a new personal policy: if a diarised-in-advance meeting in a windowless room is wasting my time, please don’t be offended if I leave because, as Elon Musk says, it’s not rude to leave a meeting: “It’s rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

I detest flabby internal meetings. It’s like a tick. I think I’m actually phobic, or am I allergic to timewasters? I can’t decide. There are some meetings I love: a lunch meeting fits the bill — the quality of what you’re saying has to fight with a plate of food, which is a great editing device for all involved. A tea in the breakout area? Fine by me. A quick walk and talk on the way to the loo? Heaven.

Nor do I mind meetings where the attendees are truthful and the thinking is brave — but the vast majority I have sat through during my career have been driven by two agenda points: 1. Fear. 2. Procrastination. My former boss at British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, had a strict formula — two brief team meetings a week to discuss the job at hand, both a must-attend. She would chivvy people along out loud if they were waffling, and call bull***t when she smelt it. Bad management is bad manners as far as I’m concerned, and that extends to meeting etiquette.

We all know that meetings are a chronic waste of time; the average worker now spends 213 hours a year — or 26 working days — in them, haemorrhaging productivity, yet almost every company presses on with the internal meeting policy.

Why? Because it’s a perfect way to convince ourselves we are at work while not really working. It’s an opportunity to posture, perform and to prove worth, to play at management importance rather than speak the truth. Rare and fabulous is the meeting that ends with action points and solves a problem there and then.

I’ll admit there is one thing I enjoy about meetings, and that’s the social study they provide, the dynamics you witness within your ranks; there’s the colleague who belittles the meeting and patronises everyone in it, there’s the loudmouth, there’s the jaded one who has heard it all before, or the keeno who loves a bit of role play, usually wielding a prop. Speaking of props, the huge floor-to-ceiling-sized elephant’s bottom in the meeting room of a Soho advertising agency is not an urban myth, it’s a brilliant reminder to attendees to address the elephant in the room (and not to talk too much crap).

My meeting modus operandi is almost tribal: a quick gathering around my desk, impromptu and speedy, usually standing, and if that doesn’t work for you here’s an idea to throw into the company “blue-sky thinking” pot: charge meeting attendance time to the cost centre of the person calling it. Time is money, after all.

Denying single women IVF is a disgrace

Shall we just give NHS South East London the benefit of the doubt and assume someone has stumbled across a document on the group’s IVF policy from 1972? What else could be the excuse for denying hundreds of women the right to have children simply because they are not in a relationship?

The partnership of six clinical commissioning groups and five hospital trusts no longer offers IVF to single women, claiming they place a “burden on society” — yet apparently the health of the relationship of those who are allowed IVF is not an issue.

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Revealed: IVF success rate has peaked and may now be in decline

What gives this taxpayer-funded body the right to judge a candidate for IVF on her relationship status rather than her abilities as a mother? This isn’t IVF via Tinder. As a single mother myself, I know what I’m talking about, and I resent the broad-brush portrayal of all single mothers as a burden.

I out-earn many couples I know. Yes, I might have to work twice as hard to maintain a career and spend time with my little girl, but I wouldn’t change it for the world, let alone deny other single women the right to experience the life-changing joy of having a child.

I demand an inquiry, not only into the discriminatory nature of this policy, but also into the partnership and its management. This draconian stance makes me believe it may be a misogynistic organisation.

*Gird your loins, reader, for the day hath cometh. November 17, 2019, is when the world will become right again, as The Crown returns in a flurry of authentic production values, exquisite casting and a narrative that pivots juicily on the interplay between the royals’ personal lives and the pressures of protocol. I have no doubt Oscar-winner Olivia Colman will be the best thing about series three. She’s a sovereign of the stage, queen of the screen: her talents reign supreme.

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Read more Revealed: IVF success rate has peaked and may now be in decline