Most organisations have meetings because they have huge conference rooms with double-bed-sized tables, which may otherwise be claimed under the Rent Control Act, or worse by p3p orgies. These days, many organisations have meetings to ensure at least three persons have been left in the organisation post retrenchment.

The hierarchy in any organisation, which has at least three people (as above), is decided by whether:

i. You're the one calling the meeting

ii. You're the one going into the meeting

iii. You are the one taking down messages for the people in the meeting

Your ultimate aim should be to join either group 1 or 2 because obviously, group 3 requires the intricate skills of conversation, recall, and documentation.

THERE ARE BROADLY FIVE KINDS OF MEETINGS:

Brainstorming: This means the caller of the meeting has just found that his or her bag of ideas has been evacuated. The good thing is it is presumed that everyone at the meeting has a brain; the bad thing is it is presumed it works. The fool-proof strategy is to type in 'google' or 'dogpile' or any similar poopy sounding search engine on the internet and fill in 'topic+of+the+meeting' in the search box. Then, open every sixth site and note every sixth word from it. Use these 'keywords' every six minutes of the meeting, preceded by: ''I have a brill-ian-t idea...'' in the manner of someone who has just blasted an underground tunnel to terrorist camps in PoK. There will be people who might say: ''What exactly do you mean by that?'' These people are your enemies. Note down their names for future action. There might be people who might say: ''I did that once earlier, but I...''

These people are thieves or your immediate seniors. Call 100.

There will be people who say: ''Oh come on, this is never going to work.'' Titter. These people are your top bosses (and they are going to use your idea).

Presentations: My theory is that there is a direct correlation between the collapse of world economies and the rise in the use of laptops at meetings. Laptop presentations usually require a laptop, a person who doesn't quite know how to operate it, a person who has actually put all the information on it but is required to keep quiet, a laptop-nurse who switches it on and takes care of glitchy-goos, and several people to admire the bold steps of human technology that PowerPoint has achieved single-handedly in the colour and design department.

Use a new background/colour for your screen/slides, or you will be considered outdated. If you think of using plastic slides or the board, you will be wrapped in a bandage from head to toe and sent off to Tutankhamen's Tomb. It's a good idea not to match your clothes to the colours of your slides or you might be considered a pie-chart or bar diagram, depending on your body format.

Status review: Such meetings are much like prison musters, ensuring that everyone is there and indulging in only controlled criminal activities likely to be productive for the company. It should normally consist of 'Present?' and 'Yeah' but, for reasons unknown, requires confessing every sin you may have committed, such as standing at the coffee/tea station for two minutes in two years or, worse, standing without a coffee/tea station in sight. Status review meetings are more frequent around appraisal time, so that the boss is then absolved from having to explain why you still are where you are and will continue to be, unless you stop standing near or far from the present/absent coffee/tea station. The caller of the status review meeting usually has sheets of paper, much like the Penal Code, in which he/she ticks off your crimes, while sipping coffee/tea from the aforementioned coffee/tea station, while you are left with the option of going back to your cell to write ''Work is Dog'' 2,000 times.

Damage control: You are usually called to a crisis meeting so that later you can be blamed for things going more wrong after they have gone wrong, and often, for the thing going wrong in the first place, after all. Crisis meetings feature dramatic hand-gesturing, watch-glancing, table thumping, four-letter-wording and endless cups of coffee slugged like tequila shots (and maybe even tequila shots, who knows). The correct strategy at damage control meetings is to look as gloomy as Devdas on a dry day, nod or shake your head vigorously, keep punching at your mobile, and take notes (just draw scratchy straight lines across on paper, this gives the impression of writing quickly and urgently). Try not to say anything on the grounds that it may incriminate you.

Relationship meeting: I used to think that this meant that sexual harassment at the workplace has now been legalised, but no. These are about dealing with other colleagues/departments without Thai-boxing. These could be called Fault Finding meetings or Finding-Where-To-Put-The-Blame-After-Fault-Finding Meetings. They usually consist of constructive criticism and recommendations, ending with ''or else'' and CC:ed to 'all' on the office e-mail address list, so that everyone knows who got to carry the can of crap. This is followed by an e-mail to the same list, saying that the earlier e-mail was a mistake caused by a diabolical internet virus that automatically sent it. You may get as critical as you want at a relationship meeting as long as you start with, ''I just want you to know where I am coming from'' and end with a sweet personal inquiry such as ''And how is your son, Mr Chaudhry? Still serving his life sentence or does he have any plans to escape soon?''