I’ll have you know I’m a very interesting chap... really

MEETINGS, meetings, meetings. Anyone who has ever worked in an office will know all about meetings. Long meetings, short, meetings, good meetings, bad meetings, and – if you believe social media – “great” meetings. One thing lockdown has definitely shown is that all of us used to spend far too much time in meetings we didn’t need to have, that lots of us spent far too much time preparing for meetings we didn’t need to have, and that all meetings were far too long. That’s not a new thing in offices. Managers all over the world have been trying to manage meetings for decades. Some meetings are standing only in order to make them shorter, others have a stopwatch in the middle of the desk to make them run to time, others ban laptops and phones. You name it, someone has tried it. This week I was invited to attend a meeting at which we would all be asked to share one ‘interesting’ thing about ourselves. This is a tougher call that you might think. This is a moment when you can show colleagues just what an interesting, quirky, clever, edgey, whatever you want person you are. One must choose wisely. I’ve been wary of this sort of stuff ever since I went on a radio show years back to talk about my favourite things. I think I revealed that I liked walking on the moors, thrillers, and cattle, as well as sharing that I had played for the same cricket team for 28 years. This stunning show of candour prompted one colleague to tell me the next day that I had come across as the most ‘boring man in Devon’ , and I think I’m still a little scarred. I mean, I happen to think that the fact that I’m a qualified cricket umpire is very interesting indeed but fear that in this day and age half the people in my virtual meeting might not even know what that means, and those that do would find it immensely dull. I could share that I used to sit ‘next’ to Boris Johnson when I worked at the Daily Telegraph, but it would be more accurate to say that I used to sit next to his chair. Anyway, I’m not sure that this week was the best to share any form of association with Boris. I once ran an ultramarathon in the Namibian Desert, used to work in a slaughterhouse, love pubs, and have read every James Lee Burke novel in order.

I was at the ground in Antigua when Brian Lara scored his world record 375 runs against England and once saw Venus Williams in a hotel in Rome. Interesting? Once you start overthinking how interesting your interesting bits are, you start fearing that you are not very interesting at all. I decided to run my conundrum past Mrs Martin, and asked her what she would share. She pulled a thinking face before revealing she was the Number 2 ranked Girls’ table tennis player in Leicestershire a few years back (interesting) and that she once interviewed Gary Lineker and Phil

Mitchell from EastEnders. I found the reveal that she was once asked out by Darth Vader more interesting but then countered with my meeting with Lemme from Motorhead, at which she pulled another face – proving that what some find very interesting indeed, others don’t. Oh Blimey. By this point I had become convinced that everything I have ever found interesting about myself would lead to a flurry of virtual tumbleweed in my virtual meeting, and started considering playing it very safe and venturing that I was the “proud owner of two cocker spaniels” or was a “keen walker and gardener”. God, surely I’m not that dull! Just as soon as I decided I would play it safe and share my umpiring qualifications the meeting got postponed. Now I’ve a bit more time to decide!