A new study performed by Steven Rogelberg, a professor in industrial organizational psychology (can you get more specialized than that?), from the University of UNC-Charlotte revealed that people either enjoy or don’t mind going to meetings more often than they don’t like going to them.

The article goes on to describe why people might actually like attending business meetings. Some reasons may be that people usually say they don’t like meetings, because they don’t want to sound like a “suck up”, but when in reality they actually do like attending them. Others prefer communicating with colleagues and collaborating with others to solve a problem or get on the same page for a project. The article suggests throughout that the social aspect of meetings in appealing to many who work by themselves throughout the day on a given task.

Okay, do you want to know the real reason why people like going to meetings? BECAUSE IT’S A REASON TO GET AWAY FROM THEIR WORK! The only thing this study proves is how much people dislike the work they are doing. You know when you’ve got that 3pm meeting, the whole time you’re hoping that it lasts until 5pm, so you can just go straight home instead of going back to your desk. In fact, I’ve been in meetings before where no one wanted to go back to their desk, so we contemplated prolonging the meeting. Then, our conscience set in, and we adjourned the meeting. I just laughed when I read this article, because I know this professor means well and is trying to scientifically figure out the psyche of American co-workers, but they are being way too optimistic about this. People hear meeting, and they think to themselves, “wow, what a good excuse for why I won’t finish my work today or even this week”.

You might think that I’m taking an extreme point of view, but I am just expressing what many of us won’t admit. Think back at a time where you were really engaged in a business meeting, especially one involving a power point presentation or one person dominating the conversation. The problem with corporate America is that they never try anything different. What about going outside and having a picnic while you meet to discuss ideas? What about giving everyone a topic to discuss for the meeting, rather than one person talking over and over about the same thing? If you really want people to enjoy meetings, do something fresh and different. Because from my experience, meetings are just a great excuse for why you’re not at your desk right now.