There are productive meetings, necessary meetings and meetings where everyone spends 30 minutes discovering that the answer was already written in the calendar invitation.
The phrase “This could have been an email” is usually whispered after the call ends, when it is finally safe to speak freely.
Here are seven workplace gatherings that never needed a conference room, a video link or an icebreaker involving “one fun fact.”
1. The meeting to schedule another meeting
The invitation promises “initial alignment.” Nobody knows what that means, but 12 people attend because declining feels politically adventurous.
After 25 minutes of comparing calendars, the group reaches a breakthrough: another meeting is needed.
A follow-up invitation arrives before the first call ends. It contains no agenda, three optional attendees and a title that includes “Part 2.”
What the email could have said: “Are you free Thursday at 2?”
2. The live reading of a document everyone already received
The organizer shares their screen and opens the exact document attached to yesterday’s email.
Then they read it aloud.
Not summarize it. Not explain the difficult parts. Read it—slowly, word for word—like an audiobook performed by someone who has just discovered bullet points.
Several attendees begin scrolling ahead. One person accidentally unmutes while sighing. Another asks whether the document will be shared afterward, proving that human attention has officially left the building.
What the email could have said: “Please read the attached document. The important part is highlighted.”
3. The ‘quick status update’ featuring 14 departments
Every person gets two minutes. Nobody uses two minutes.
The first speaker provides historical context beginning with the company’s founding. The second shares six slides. The third says, “No updates from me,” achieving instant folk-hero status.
By the time the final department speaks, its update is about work that was completed during the meeting.
A spreadsheet could have handled this. A group chat could have handled this. Carrier pigeons could have handled this, assuming the pigeons understood quarterly targets.
What the email could have said: “Reply with one sentence: on track, at risk or blocked.”
4. The brainstorm where the decision was already made
The host opens by saying, “There are no bad ideas.”
This is immediately followed by an invisible list of bad ideas, including anything that differs from the host’s preferred idea.
Participants suggest options. Each one receives a thoughtful pause and the phrase, “Interesting, but what if we...” The conversation then curves gracefully back toward the solution that was apparently selected three days ago.
At the end, everyone is thanked for collaborating on a decision they did not make.
What the email could have said: “We’re doing Option B. Please tell me if it creates a serious problem.”
5. The mandatory fun meeting
Nothing makes employees relax like a calendar invitation labeled MANDATORY TEAM FUN.
The event begins with an icebreaker designed to reveal personalities and instead reveals who has a second monitor. People are divided into breakout rooms and asked questions such as, “If you were a kitchen appliance, which one would you be?”
Nobody wants to be a kitchen appliance. Yet professional survival instincts take over.
“Air fryer,” says one employee, hoping the answer sounds modern but not threatening.
The exercise ends with a survey asking whether everyone now feels more connected. Everyone selects “strongly agree” because the survey may not be anonymous.
What the email could have said: “Thanks for your hard work. Please finish an hour early Friday.”
6. The meeting about using fewer meetings
Leadership has heard the complaints. Calendars are overloaded. Focus time is disappearing. Something must be done.
Naturally, a task force is created.
The task force holds a weekly meeting to develop meeting-reduction guidelines. It adds a steering committee, a monthly progress review and an optional drop-in session that is technically optional in the same way pants are optional at the office.
Three months later, the company unveils its solution: employees should ask whether each meeting could have been an email.
This announcement is delivered during an all-hands meeting.
What the email could have said: “Cancel recurring meetings that no longer have a clear purpose.”
7. The meeting whose only result is a recap email
This is the purest form of the genre.
Everyone joins. People discuss the issue. Someone says, “Let’s take that offline,” despite already being online. No decision is recorded because the person taking notes is also presenting, moderating and trying to silence a leaf blower outside their window.
The call ends with the traditional closing phrase: “I’ll send a recap.”
Five minutes later, an email arrives containing all the useful information from the meeting. It takes 40 seconds to read.
The recap includes the decision, the action items and the deadline—three details that spent the previous hour hiding from everyone.
What the email could have said: Exactly what the recap email said.
The final agenda item
Not every meeting is pointless. Complicated decisions sometimes need real conversation. Sensitive issues deserve more than a message, and creative work can benefit from people thinking together.
But if the goal is merely to announce, confirm, distribute, schedule or request a one-line update, the inbox is standing by.
It does not require a microphone check. It will never ask for a fun fact. And, most importantly, it has a delete button.
