MeetingS kills

A friend was preparing slides for a training session entitled "Meeting Skills". In the process of typing the title slide, she realised that with a small typo, you will get an entirely different meaning:

"MeetingS kills"

Anyone who has ever sat through a meeting can testify that on the whole, meetings are a dreaded necessity. This is especially true if the Chairperson does not know how to keep the agenda moving in a quick and efficient manner. Discussions can go completely out of hand if not directed well. An agenda with only a few items ends up lasting hours because people were allowed to talk freely on anything superficially related to the topic. Hence, skills are required to conduct meetings so that the business gets done in as short a time as possible. Chop, chop ... and the meeting is over. Work can commence.

If the meeting goes on and on, you may find enthusiasm "killed". People will find excuses not to attend the meeting, or be physically present but mentally somewhere else.

Get the right meeting skills or risk killing others (or getting killed) by meetings.

Have fun at your next meeting!

Angles we have heard on high

"Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o'er the plains"

Christmas is in the air! Carols can be heard in almost every public place and sometimes on street corners. Pictures of nativity scenes, angels, and Santa Claus and reindeer greet us wherever we look. Simply cannot run away from Christmas.

Every Christmas, there will inevitably be at least one person who cannot differentiate between "angels" and "angles".

Other than an inability to spot the difference (I know quite a few people like that!), angels are far from angular!

Angels are generally portrayed as benign celestial beings who are watching over us from above. They are summoned by God to keep watch over mankind. One angel per person, some say two angels per child. Angelic beings are gentle, loving and caring. In contrast, angles are known to be hard and inflexible. If something is described as being "angular", it means that the item has hard lines and feels cold and uncaring (as opposed to curved lines which show softness).

More importantly, if the carol Gloria in Excelsis Deo were to be typed incorrectly i.e. "angles we have heard on high" instead of "angels we have heard on high", it would make no sense. Angles can't sing. Angels do. Sweetly too.

So, if you are in charge of creating song sheets or PowerPoint slides for Christmas, be careful! Angles do not sing. :D

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas now!