First law of worker entropy
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Conference Call Anatomy™
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The Jolly Contrarian’s first law of worker entropy, also known as the meeting paradox states that:
- The probability of a meeting[1] starting on time can never be 100%;
- As the number of scheduled participants increases, that probability tends to zero.
- The more participants there are the more retarded the starting time (and content) of the meeting will be
As a consequence of these axioms there is an upper bound on the total number of people possible in a viable meeting of a given duration.
This is because the distribution of arrival times to the meeting is asymmetrically distributed at or past the scheduled start time. No one[2] arrives early, some people arrive late), and experienced meeting participants know of this asymmetric distribution and therefore time their own arrival to the expected functional starting time of they meeting, which in turn further retards that average start time.
See also
- Späteankunftschande
- Früheankunftfreude
- Conference call
- Entropy
- Second law of worker entropy (confusion entropy)
References
- ↑ At any rate, a meeting containing more than one person — a single person meeting, of course, ought not, in a sensible mind count, at least since René Descartes — occursum ergo es — proved a meeting in any meaningful sense. It is like the prime number of meetings.
- ↑ Outside the German speaking countries: Peculiar cultural factors (particularly späteankunftschande and früheankunftfreude are at work here which can skew the calculation, but do not displace the general thrust of the theory.