work sucks

Last month, we were told there'd be a meeting of our branch of the Golden Goose—a kind of workshop. Initially, we were told that the meeting would last only two hours, and all of us were suspicious of that number because meetings in our company tend to be long-winded and stultifying. Sure enough: a few weeks later, we were told that (1) the date for the meeting had been changed, and (2) the meeting, which had originally been scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., was now to take place from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. That sounded more like a typical meeting. Just today, a day before the workshop is scheduled to happen, we were told that the event's time had been changed: it would now be from 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. This change didn't mean much to me since I normally leave the office around 9 p.m., anyway, but it was a huge annoyance for my coworkers who normally go home around 5 p.m. Not only did we go through these changes in meeting date and time, but we also went from being told that "our department wouldn't have to participate" to "Kevin needs to put together a 25-minute presentation to explain how our 5th-grade workshop is supposed to go." Other R&D staffers would also have to present.

Lack of long-range planning and sudden changes in medias res are part and parcel of life in South Korea, one of the most nonlinear countries in the world. Never assume that things will go the way people say they will; promises mean nothing, and the same goes for schedules, contracts, and everything else that a Westerner relies on for matters of trust and truth. Normally, life in R&D isn't all that bad, but occasionally, like now, things become extremely annoying. Going from a non-participant at a two-hour meeting to a full-on presenter at a six-hour meeting is one example of how life in Korea can turn on a dime. It's amazing to me that anything rational actually gets done in this country.

No matter. I've prepped a PowerPoint presentation, and I'm pretty sure that 25 minutes will go by fairly quickly. After my presentation, which happens fairly early during the meeting, I'll have the privilege of sitting through five more hours of boring fucking shit. Yay. But at least they're paying me, right?