Recently, I have begun to participate in a lot more meetings at work. When my wife asks “How was your day?” at dinner each night, I often answer, “I didn’t talk to or encounter anyone outside of e-mail all day,” and this is understood to mean “very good,” so obviously this is a turn for the worse. There are things I need to do if I’m going to be at work, and if I’m away from my desk or jawing with you I’m not doing them.

If you have spent a lot of time in the cubicle-resplendent workplace, you have probably been in meetings like these, meetings at which 60% of the people in attendance are only there in the event that the three people who called the meeting might have a question they can answer; it is the professional equivalent of warming the bench. These meetings are typically scheduled for an hour but run long every time because the first fifteen minutes are spent listening to beeps on the speakerphone, asking “Who just joined us on the conference bridge?” and then writing that person’s name down. If you’ve worked in an office, I’m not painting you an exotic word vista here. “I’m on a call” is Biz English for “I am playing solitaire with my head cocked.”

So, I ended up in this series of meetings that takes place twice a week until February. (I imagine this project’s weekly meetings will be replaced in February by a “what went wrong with this project?” meeting, which I will attend once just long enough to say, “This.”) The other day, the guy who schedules and organizes the meeting was not in attendance.

“Steve had to step out,” said his surrogate. “Apparently his newborn had some sort of sudden medical emergency and had to be rushed to the doctor, so he will obviously not be able to join us.”

“No, I’m here,” said a voice from the speakerphone. “This is Steve. I’ll occasionally have to go on ‘mute’ while I talk to the doctors. So, first item on the agenda: where do we stand on infrastructure?”

Thinking about this fills me with an overwhelming urge to steal and launch a missile at whatever satellite facilitates Blackberries. There is no project, no launch date, no deadline that could cause me to even be curious about a project meeting while my baby was being rushed to the doctor, and my baby is imaginary. The more time I spend participating in this culture and witnessing its effects, the more astonished I am by the colossal loss of perspective and essential humanity that everyone around me seems comfortable with. It’s hard not to despair. When I go home at night and hug my wife, I’m surprised our chests don’t make a clanging noise.