If you go to many project meetings, you’re familiar with the meeting mantra: the tired, oft-repeated string of nonsense that is trotted out at some point during the gathering.

Typically, you can determine which person in the meeting is about to fire one off. They’re sitting back in their chair, nodding, but frowning every-so-slightly. If you’re the one talking before them, they may say something like, “Foam has an valid perspective, but let’s not forget to…” That’s when the mantra drops.

New faces at the meeting might perk up at the poetic flow of generalizations, even nod along themselves thinking they’ve found the right guy, the one that will lead the way!

I don’t have a meeting mantra, and I think I need one. Here’s a few I’ve prepared and hope to unleash in the near future:

What we need to do is take a step back, get a feel for where we are, and then move forward.

I think we’re overlooking the obvious, and it is imperative that we figure out what that is.

What we really need is to attack this thing from 8 to 5 with an hour break for lunch.

Sometimes the simplest path is the one to take to achieve a complex solution.

All I hear are negative comments. That’s terrible.

My granddaddy use to say, nothing better than a cup of cold carrot soup during a tomato harvest.

We should consider bringing a consultant to help us find out which consultant to hire.

I’ve been knee-deep in this process for a long time, and I promise you that it’s been difficult to walk.

Now that we’re ready to launch, have you even considered the opposing viewpoints?

My son made me a pretend breakfast the other day, including a rare but delicious bacon wrapped strawberry. I may have to give this recipe a try!

I’m still at it, still working on my book. 60,000 words, 161 pages.

My main character, Charlie, has horrible skin on his face and back from the acne he endured as a young man. In an extremely short section I just finished, he describes the skin transplant operation he undergoes.

In darkness, I was peeled like a grape, my inner pulp squeezed from its sleeve.

Parsed away, the scarred me dropped into a medical waste bin, later emptied by a man I’d never meet.

My new skin slurped plasma while my old skin steamed up the inside of a bag, awaiting collection and incineration.

When the light returned, I lay on my belly, my face propped up by foam and tubes. The only sound I heard was the hum of negative pressure vacuum.

The room was empty, light blooming around every object. One radiant white chair sat empty in the corner. No half-finished cups of coffee or crumple magazines lay on the side table.

Were I able to move my face, I would have smiled.

I don’t think many people would argue that this recession is just like any other, that we will emerge in a year or two, dust off our pants and go back to business as usual. Those of us in state agencies facing drastic cuts know that this is not liposuction, it’s organ removal. Sure, we may see more furloughs, early separation offers, and pay cuts, but entire programs are about to go away, and they’re not likely to return.

I believe that many programs should go away, just like I believe that waste exists at every level of state government. Waste also existed at every level of every other job I’ve ever had.

In my case, my director and other directors I work with are absolutely in the dark about the future. Every program is on the operating table, being poked and prodded by senior administrators. No one is safe, and no one knows what’s to come. And come it will, very soon.

I’m nervous. Communications, the department that online services falls under, is frequently the target of short term cuts, as administrators often look towards outsourcing and/or a temporary reduction in services as a defensible move. However, I can see the end of things if this is to be. Our online environment is so vast, so tightly integrated, so home grown, that to eliminate one or all of the three engineers might be enough to cripple the whole enterprise.

Would the world survive? Certainly. But years of growth, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of development costs, would suddenly be dangling like an unwanted goldfish over a flushing toilet.

I was in Des Moines, Iowa, this week, attending a conference for technologists who work in the same academic environment as I do, which is Cooperative Extension or land grant institutions. I gave a presentation regarding a system I manage which creates a rich web environment for Master Gardener program volunteers. The Master Gardeners of California donate thousands of hours each year to other Californians, providing gardening tips, building demonstration gardens and working with schools to educate children about horticulture.

My pitch was to turn our successful state system into a multi-state project, one that would be a true collaborative endeavor. We would all benefit from changes made to the system and work towards creating a national standard for reporting to the USDA. Most of the attendees present were very interested, some ready to sign up right away.

My colleague gave a presentation about another system we have, a portal that ties all of our other services together. Mouths were agape, as he demonstrated our connectivity to dozens of applications, internal and external.

My point is that California is way ahead of the curve in regards to web environments for Cooperative Extension. Considering that we have only three programmers, and many states have dozens, it seemed bittersweet to be swarmed with praise and interest at the conference while facing so many financial threats at home.

I handed out business cards to the participants interested in buying into our system, wondering if my phone number would still be connected in 30 days.

I have been told that things look good for those of us on the web team, that we will not likely be cut. While this is good news, the impending furloughs, the wage increase freeze and an unstable environment do not contribute to productivity.

Luckily for our division, the web environment we have was not built in response to bonuses or the promise of a big financial payoff. It was built because we actually believe in the work we do, and we continue to do it fueled by the supportive comments from users who truly appreciate our dedication.