What not to do in a business meeting

DO NOT FALL ASLEEP IN A BUSINESS MEETING!!! My team had a new person start today, that was the good thing, the bad, well the first sentence says it all. He got on site around 9am and we went to talk to the developer that has been doing their BPEL. That was a good meeting, I got some good info and my first view of the web application I will be modifying in this next part, and our new guy had several good questions. We left there and I went back to work, while the new person sat at an empty computer on the other side of a partition from me and was supposed to be looking at documentation. It wasn't maybe 15 minutes later I think I hear snoring. Yes snoring. I blow it off, no big deal for me. I am sure he is bored, and he did just move down the day before so maybe he didn't sleep. Our project manager goes over to talk to him and I hear him say his name twice. Then a couple of hours later, the project manager and I had to demo our changes to the business people. The new person decides to tag along to see what it is we have been doing.

The meeting is going ok, first the computer in the conference room will not come on, then it comes on but the projector will not. Crap, so we move to a new conference room. I get signed in to the computer, open a web browser, and, yeah I can't remember the web address of the development server, so I try a few before I figure it out. So I am starting the demo now probably 20 minutes late. Within around 20 minutes I am trying to answer questions when I hear a, quite loud, snore and snort coming from the new guy to my right. Yeah, once was bad enough, but there were several more that I would have to talk over through the course of my meeting, which ran a tortured hour and 20 minutes.

Word to the wise, falling asleep in a meeting with your project manager is bad enough, but don't ever do it in a meeting with a client!

Oh and Happy St. Patrick's Day!!