friday's guide to surviving a lunch meeting

if there's one thing that should be taught in business school (actually, maybe they do - i'm not sure as i'm no MBA) is how to survive a lunch meeting. since there seem to be no guide books that i know of on this subject, i've decided to give you a quick how-to on this particular subject...and i'm talking from experience.

namely, from my lunch meeting today...

here are the 10 key questions you must ask yourself before entering into a lunch meeting:

1) have you ingested more than 1 cup of coffee today?

2) will the discussion be enthralling and exciting?

3) can you sleep with your eyes open?

4) have you slept a full 8 hours during your last sleep cycle?

5) is there any chance you will be attending this meeting with your back, conveniently, facing the other participants?

6) will the meeting room be inexplicably cold?

7) do you enjoy torture of the social variety?

8) do the words/phrases synergy, purchasing, scheduling, structure, brand identity, parlay and so on excite the pants off you?

9) are you a ninja?

10) what does the lunch menu consist of?

if your answers are:

1) no 2) no 3) no 4) no 5) no 6) no 7) no 8) no 9) no 10) turkey

do not join this meeting.

if you do, be warned, you will be in the same boat that i was today...

staring at a customer with my eyes rolling back into my head, twitching ever so slightly as my body tried with relentless determination to kidnap me in a scary van with no windows to the very heart of slumbertown.

the only way that one will successfully get through a lunch meeting is if you can answer "yes" to at least 3 of those questions...especially numbers 1, 3 or 5, and 9.

if your answer to number 10 is "coffee soup", then you may be able to get by with answering "yes" to only 2 of the above questions.

if your answer to number 10 is "yes", please be sure to explain.

...and that, my dear reader, is how to survive a lunch meeting.