Object of the game:  Don’t be caught giving your status update when the potato goes off.

Rules of the game:

1. A different person starts the status meeting every week.
2. The random “Hot Potato” timer starts when the first person begins his or her update.
3. When an update is complete, the person picks a random person to hand/toss the “hot potato” to.
4. Repeat giving updates and handing off the potato until updates are complete or the hot potato goes off.
5. If the potato goes off during your update, you must buy coffee and donuts/bagels/etc. for the entire team the next morning.
6. If the entire meeting goes off without the potato going off, the manager buys the food.
7. Interrupting an update means that you get to hold the potato next, or if you’ve gone already, until the person giving the update is finished talking.

Meeting before the meeting – A select group of people, usually from the same team, decide what the “correct outcome” of the main meeting is supposed to be. When the main meeting comes, the co-conspirators stick to their guns about what must be done.

Meeting after the meeting – Often, the people who were run over by the pre-meeting decision will have a meeting afterward to discuss what just hit them. Especially true when the main meeting involved a large vendor.

Meeting just to make sure we keep having this meeting – An agenda-less meeting that occurs during the only available weekly time slot on the calendars of all participants, so everyone shows up and fakes it through the meeting aimlessly until the time is up.

The mutually ignored meeting – Sometimes coincides with the “meeting just to make sure we keep having this meeting.”  Usually, however, this meeting has a more organized structure.  Everyone participates in the meeting by speaking in turn, yet no one actually hears anything that the other participants are saying.  Often coincides with the “project status meeting”.

Pep Rally Meeting – These meetings are supposed to replicate the glory days of the tech boom, complete with an enthusiastic leader leading the cheering.  These can be fun if the overall culture of the company fits.  They can also be the source of YouTube videos.

Sub-Meeting – A complete side discussion that starts by distracting major participants in the main meeting, and eventually overtakes the main meeting purpose, either by acoustics or by importance.

“Party” Meeting – This may be a special occasion to recognize a milestone birthday, anniversary, retirement, etc., and is often characterized by a lot of standing around in odd clusters of people.  People from each of these clusters take turns migrating to the focus of the party to say a good word, and then drift back to their clusters or to their desks.  Social aptitude generally determines how long a person has to wait to for a turn.

Project “status” meeting – A regular project “update” meeting where everyone gives an “everything’s okay” status, regardless of what part of the project is crashing and burning.

Virtual Meeting - A remote meeting that everyone dials into and immediately mutes, proceeding to spent their time more productively, such as by watching Sportscenter or playing ping-pong.

• you refer to popular American beers as “swill”.
• you frequent any brewpub that has a disclaimer that they will ask you to leave if you order a light beer.
• you frequent any brewpub that does not serve beer other than its own in-house brew.
• you prefer home brew to mass-produced beer.
• …even bad home brew.
• you treat light beer drinkers the same as fruity martini drinkers.
• you know the IBUs of your beers.
• you’ve written reviews of beers on beer rating sites.
• you know the definition of “ale”, “lager”, “stout”, “doppelbock”, etc…
• you’ve ever uttered the word “hoppy”.
• “Beer is Food” doesn’t make you an alcoholic.
• you know beers by their country of origin.
• you are disturbed when you notice foreign beers that are served in ethnic restaurants that don’t match the country of origin.  [Sapporo in Thai restaurants, Singha in Indian...]

-you heat the coffee mug before pouring your coffee
-you brew your own coffee at work
-…from fresh ground whole beans
-…stored in a climate and humidity-controlled environment
-…in your own coffee maker
-you refuse to patronize Starbucks since they simplified their daytime brew offering.
-…and you know the name of this blend (Pike Place)
-”fair trade” and “local” refer to flavor more than principles.
-your average cup of brewed coffee costs you more than the average person pays for three pounds of coffee.
-rim staining foam.
-you shudder when you hear someone say “expresso”
-your coffee is roasted in smaller batches than the average grocery store has on their shelves at any given time.
-you have two blade grinders as emergency backup for your burr grinder.
-you have ever used a thermometer when making your coffee.
-you have brewed coffee using methods from more countries than you’ve actually been to. (Turkish, Cuban, French Press, Vietnamese Press…)