In addition to the Eight Types of Faculty Meeting Attendees listed below (and “adapted” from this post) are the following (shamelessly cribbed from the comments to this post):
The Debator: Likes to play devil’s advocate to any reasonable idea, and asks tough questions. When s/he has the self-awareness to know who to engage with and when to back off, the Debator can be quite valuable to a discussion. However, if s/he’s just argumentative or doesn’t know when to shut up, morphs into the Debator’s evil twin, The Constipator. (see also, The Killer, below).
The Grave Digger: Can’t help saying things like “Well in the past, we did it this way…” or “When we tried to do that before…” Feels an obligation to remind everyone about the past and offers nothing new, original, or fresh. Can sometimes be helpful in avoiding past missteps, but usually just annoys everyone and kills ideas.
The Re-phraser: Instead of coming up with original drivel, merely sycophantically rephrases earlier contributions in such a way that any original meaning is lost in translation. Loss of information mainly due to excessive and incorrect use of large words.
The “I just spoke and am not listening to you now because I am thinking about what I am going to say next” Person: Says something, often a very long tedious diatribe, and then when you get your chance to speak is not listening at all, but is instead composing next brilliant dissertation. Chronically invokes phrases such as “In point of fact,” “At this point in time,” or “For the record,” as if faculty meeting was being scrupulously transcribed for posterity.
The Bureaucrat: Believes that the sole purpose of meetings is to schedule more meetings. Willing to discuss the agenda ad nauseam; not willing to take responsibility for any of the items on it. Penchant for holding meetings to discuss who should be in the next meeting and what should be on the agenda.
The “Sorry I’m Late” Person: The person who comes late to a faculty meeting, calls a halt to the proceedings in order to explain in unnecessary detail why s/he is late with a great deal of seemingly sincere contriteness, then expects a complete recap of everything that has transpired in the meeting, with the opportunity to comment on and revisit every single issue that was decided in his or her absence.
The Passive Aggressive: Typically arrives late, but unlike the “Sorry I’m Late” person does not expect meeting to start over at his or her arrival, and pretends to agree with the group. However, when you get back to your office, you find an email from Passive Agressive to the entire faculty, the Provost, the President of the University, the Board of Trustees, and the General Secretary of the U.N. emphatically explaining that s/he has an objection to something that was decided.
