Brainstorming

I fucking hate teamwork. I hate sitting around and being forced to come up with buzz words and quick pithy answers by some over enthusiastic throwback from a widely discredited HR degree. You're meant to come up with new and exciting ideas on an old and redundant topic. To take this vigour and race back to the coalface and get some real changes happening. In truth it just gets you away from the coalface for a little while and gets you pissed off enough at brainstorming that your normal dotting of i's and crossing of t's doesn't seem quite so braindead. The unflinching gaze of the person conducting this little "informal" session and the untested courage of some of the participants results in some rabbits caught in some pretty powerful headlights. Suddenly we've got a poor unfortunate asked what he thinks. Poor bastard had probably never had to think about anything and suddenly he has to say something that gets written on the damnable flipchart. Panic. The eyes widen, adrenaline floods the system, the super accurate hearing picks up every little snigger - then suddenly Inspiration. A long forgotten buzzword jumps to the fore and the pressure is off. The only thing worse than this is when your "point" isn't good enough. You see the marker hover and the flicker of doubt pass over the face of the soulless human shell conducting the session. Maybe they're not getting it?, they think. Rest assured though, someone will pipe up and we're back on. In the grip of a mad fervour. Why can't people just shut the fuck up? On mature reflection this has nothing to do with the topic in question. Brainstorming isn't about mature reflection. It's about mob mentality. It's shouted answers, rapid fire questions and an orgiastic sense of accomplishment before you realise you're an ass. My favourite ever Brainstorming moment was when, without any irony, someone made the point that a mob is only as intelligent as its stupidest member. That little gem made the flipchart hall of fame. I'm accustomed to being a pariah of sorts. In primary school I was a little nerdy and in secondary school I was a lot nerdy. After that I got into music that isn't entirely mainstream, pursuits that aren't GAA or Soccer or rugby, fuck, my pursuits involve no balls whatsoever, no pun intended. I'm that weird. Despite my career choice I'm a big Bill Hicks fan and am kinda pro drugs, pro choice, pro guns, I'm against DNA and fingerprint databases, I'm against censorship and I'm unsure about democracy because as already pointed out by the luminary in the brainstorming session the mob is only as intelligent as its stupidest member. All this preparation aside I'm still not strong enough to stand up to the flipchart marker wielding psycho demanding a pearl of wisdom to put up. I can't just say "I think things are alright" or "isn't all of this a bit pointless", I don't know what the consequences are but I'm afraid. I try to still my beating heart and say something to bring us down, to get us out but to no avail. I just mumbled and shrugged and smiled to indicate I was done speaking. That gets the crazy eyes off me and onto the poor fool who made eye contact. By its fast paced nature these things can't continue for long. They're snappy and if left go for too long will sap the will of even the most stalwart zealots. Maybe in China, but not here. They have to let us have a break. They have to let us go back to the jobs we love so well.... Right after we fill in a quick feedback form. Original comments on this topic informed me that the current industry term is idea shower. Other than that they were uninformative. The particular session this was inspired by some sort of women's aid thing and only served to demonstrate I don't care.