MEETINGS: M.E.R.I.T. SYSTEM OVERHAUL
As the meeting attendees sat in the dimly lit conference room, surrounded by the faint scent of stale coffee, they were presented with a daunting task: quantifying the unquantifiable.
It started with a whiteboard filled with scribbled notes, a jumbled mix of bullet points, and what appeared to be a crude drawing of a stick figure with a moustache.
The facilitator, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, stood at the front of the room and proclaimed, "We must find a way to measure merit, to quantify the intangible, the ineffable, and the downright confusing."
"We'll need to create a new system, a system that accounts for every variable, every factor, and every... thing," he trailed off, consulting a crumpled up piece of paper.
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room as the attendees nodded, some more enthusiastically than others. One, a young woman with a pierced nose, looked unconvinced, but the facilitator pressed on.
"We'll start by assigning points for attendance, then factor in creativity and productivity. We'll have to account for individual contributions, group synergy, and the all-important factor of 'who ate the last donut'." He paused, eyes scanning the room for feedback.
"But what about the intangibles?" someone asked, a voice muffled by a coffee cup.
"Ah, yes, yes," the facilitator said, "we'll get to that. We'll create a separate metric for 'that one guy who just sits there and looks pretty'." He scribbled furiously on the whiteboard.
A few chuckles rippled through the room, but the facilitator remained focused, driven by his vision for a more efficient meritocracy.