Today I have eight meetings. There was one at 8, then 10, and pretty soon my 11 will pop up. That’s a long one. Goes up to lunch. Then there’s lunch, which I have to eat in public, and then back for meetings again about financial stuff. This is the time of year when finance goes around holding our guts in their hands, sort of hefting them back and forth in an affable fashion. Bleh.

I can’t think. Thinking and meeting are mutually exclusive. You can prioritize your plateful of agendas. You can run ideas down to the red zone and see if anybody can push them over the goal line. You can take a couple of swings at issues in your wheelhouse. You can take strategies, field strip them and see if they’re ready for combat. But think? Nah.

I gotta go. Write me if you feel like it and tell me a few things:

• How many meetings do you have today?
• Why do people call meetings?
• How many of your meetings are necessary and how many are held just to honk somebody’s horn?
• Do you hate meetings? Love them? Both?
• Do you have trouble staying awake in meetings? What do you do about the problem of meeting narcolepsy?
• Do you use your BlackBerry to entertain yourself during meetings?
• Do you love/hate Powerpoint?
• Do you think presiding over meetings is a way executives to goof off?
• How much of your writing pad do you cover with doodles during a meeting?
• What percentage of the meeting is occupied by your boss talking?
• Anything else you’d like to tell me about meetings.

I’ll see you guys later. I’m bummed. My idea of a great day is a blank calendar and a blue sky out my hermetically-sealed window. This is clearly not going to be one of those. And that first martini is at least eight hours away.

Deb from Seattle, Washington, must have been cruising some prior postings on this site, because yesterday she got exercised about some grousing I did — and you did — about MySpace a few weeks (months?) ago.

This is very flattering to me. I like it when people go back and see some of the fun we’ve had together. Remember how mad we all were about the airlines a little while back? How about the tremendous venting that took place about the loss of the Marshall Field department store, whose brand was eradicated by Macy’s? What a surprise that was! Who knew so many people would care about something like that? More recently, a bunch of you guys have gotten into it with each other about Stan O’Neal’s exit package at Merrill, displaying wildly divergent opinions about executive compensation. And then of course there were all of you who joined me in my squirrely feeling about joining a social network.

Deb was not one of them. I didn’t want what she had to say to get buried down there in the timeline, so I’m going to reprint it here.

“Hi Bing,” she writes. “I got turned on to your site from a link that was on Fortune and got interested in all of the reading. Most everyone who has blogged you has posed an opinion…just opinions. Here are some facts for all to think about. I am a regular Myspace fan. I originally had set up an account to check on my children. I got addicted to it. I did not want all of my personal info being shared through the world either. Fact be known that Myspace has settings for the privacy of their users. Only friends of the users may view the profile. All it takes is a little playing around with it to see your many options. Email is no different or insecure than the email addresses through yahoo, or hotmail, etc. one of my children that I gave up for adoption has kept in contact with me over Myspace quite regularly since we live so far apart. I can look at her pics, see her lifestyle, and watch her slide shows.I have my profile set to private and only my kids and close friends (whom I choose) can view my stuff. I have a setting that blocks solicitors and everyone under 18 from contacting me. As I present these facts to you, my opinion about Myspace doesn’t matter here. I am a professional business woman, and college student and have had enough experience with spammers, hackers, nosy people, that I just want to say that there are things people can do to save themselves the crudd that goes on on Myspace if they really wanted to and these bloggers should really check out the facts before posting to millions of people who will read your blogs about how unprivate Myspace is. It is only as unprivate as they make it. I respect everyone’s opinion but when others judge things without looking into the facts, that makes them, well…they don’t look very good on here. It was actually nice reading your blog and seeing the thoughts of others.”

Thanks, Deb, for your passionate and well-informed defense of your online toy.

And thanks to all you guys for your comments and your thoughts. You’re a cranky, disputatious bunch. But hey. I loves ya.

Now get outta here, you knuckleheads!

News comes today of the very likely departure of Stan O’Neal from the top slot at Merrill Lynch (MER). He’s out in record time 1) due to the whole subprime situation and 2) because it looks like he approached Wachovia (WB) about a merger without properly informing those who thought they should be informed.

This brings two thoughts to mind:

• Do any of you really understand the whole subprime thing? I mean, I kind of get it, because I’ve read a bunch about it, but perhaps one of you out there can explain it to the rest of us simply. Please do. And thanks.
• Do any of you think that that name “Wachovia” is a subliminal message? If you prounouch the “ch” as a soft sound, you could say that it’s a bank that will “watch over ya.” I like a bank like that. You think it’s a coincidence? If, on the other hand, you fail to bank there, it’s just possible (if the “ch” is hard, like a K) that the world will “walk over ya.” Who wants that? I want a bank that protects me from stuff like that!

Anyhow, back to business. The thought for today is Mr. O’Neal’s exit package. If a merger with Wachovia had taken place, he would have been paid as much as $274 million, according to the LA Times. That’s a lot of money, even by today’s standards. Even one percent of that sounds nice.

As it is, upon leaving, he’ll walk about with about $154 million in pension payments, stock options, and direct holdings in the company. That’s in addition to the nearly $50 million he made last year. Of course, I know how newspapers factor in all kinds of future goodies into these numbers, but by any measure we’ve got another case of somebody who has made his fortune being canned.

God! Please send me one of those jobs!

Okay, you know me, I’m a maniac. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning I was in Philadelphia. Wednesday night I had dinner in New York, after spending a couple of hours at the office. Today is… what… Friday morning? I’m in LA. By tomorrow at noon I’ll be home north of San Francisco. Monday I’ll be in New York again. If that doesn’t seem crazy to you, maybe you’re as demented as I am.

All this travel means that it becomes preternaturally important where I shack up for the night when I’m out of town. Others may say, “Aw, the heck with it, it’s only for a night,” when they are ushered into a stinky, small, depressing hotel room, but me? No way. My spirit sinks. My heart turns to suet. My brain pounds within its tiny case in a vain attempt to come squirting out of my ears. Worst, possibly, is the urge to blurt “Do you know who I am?!”, always evidence of a diseased executive ego.

The good news is the most of the time, I’m pretty happy about everything when I get to my destination. The knowledge of how wrong things can go shapes my appreciation for the simply tolerable. The extremes, however, do have their moments. Today I would like to briefly share with you two of those.

Philadelphia: I get to my hotel at about 7 PM. I’m tired. I’m anxious, because the next morning I have a big presentation. It’s scary to talk to 2000 people. Anyhow, I get to the desk of a hotel I will not mention, because I’m a nice guy. It’s a big hotel, part of a huge chain that brags about itself quite a bit. The kid behind the reception desk is about 14 years old. She’s very nice. Big, wide, frightened eyes. She taps up my information. Asks me how to spell my name. Three times. Disappears.

Over the next 40 minutes, I am repeatedly assured that they are “working on my reservation,” that it “wasn’t transferred over.” When I ask what that means, I am informed that it means, “Well, it wasn’t transferred over.” I am offered a free drink. I accept. After the drink, I come back. They are still working on my reservation. I start to get mad now. I see people checking in all over the place. Why can’t I have a room? I’m tired! I’m hungry! Dudes!

Finally, after 45 minutes, the manager mysteriously appears. He is very brisk, with a lot of very shiny black hair. His name is Joey. I learn what the problem has been, and it’s a real doozy. It seems that I have been shut out of my room because — now please pay attention — because I AM A VIP GUEST AND THEY WANT TO MAKE SURE I HAVE THE VERY BEST ROOM THEY CAN OFFER. In all my years of business travel, this is the first time I have ever been skunked because I am a VIP, as a gesture of respect.

Anyhow, now the situation seems to be in hand, Joey is taking me to the “finest room in the hotel,” a “suite” that was supposedly earmarked for another potentate but “hey, he’s not here and you are, right?” I am shown into a very weird space, a big room with a conference table in it, and a kitchenette with a dirty glass on the counter. “This is not a suite, Joey,” I say. “This is a room.”

“We call this a suite,” says Joey with sincerity and concern. Okay, I figure, there’s a bed and a plasma TV, and I figure what the hell, it’s only for a night. Joey goes. I stand in the middle of the room and look at the bed. And then I see it. What I am in is actually half of a real suite, the part reserved for visitors, when the occupant wants to have a meeting that isn’t in the bedroom. And the bed… the bed is a Murphy bed. A Murphy bed, for those who have never enjoyed one, is a matress on a spring mechanism that may be hidden in a closet.

I don’t want to stay in this nether-room. It feels like mucho bad karma. I supposed I could put up with it… but why? I call Joey and say, as politely as possible, “Joey, this is a conference room with a Murphy bed in it.” Joey says, “Oh. You don’t like that?” He calls me back in five minutes and presto! I’m in a real room with a perfectly fine bed and mysteriously, it’s on the Club Floor, which was there all along, you know? I have a free drink at the Club and go to bed. Whew.

Questions: Why did my status as a VIP mean I had to wait for my room? Why did it take so long to sort me out? Why was the first room such an amazing loser? Did Joey think that anybody wanted to inhabit that makeshift place? Did he believe that VIPs like Murphy beds? Why couldn’t I just go to a nice, King-bed room on the Club Floor right away? Why do restaurants always try to seat you at the worst table they have available, not the best? Okay, now we’re off point. And I promised to be brief.

That was a BAD HOTEL. And it took all my self control not to bust it here. Now we’ll take a deep breath and move on.

Pleasure takes less time to describe than pain. So let’s go back to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for a minute.

I got here about two hours ago and realized that, once again, I have forgotten my phone charger. This may not seem like a tragedy to you, but it’s not good. I have already purchased at least 10 phone chargers on the road this year. Finance is questioning me about it. I have to admit it looks bogus on my expense report. Anyhow. I’m a moron. I forgot it again. So I’m in line outside the hotel a few minutes ago to get a cab to the Verizon store down the street, and I mention my stupidity to the bellman, and he says, “You know, we have a huge box of those things at the concierge. Why don’t you ask them if they have a charger that fits?”

So I go to the concierge, who is a very nice woman I have met before, and she says, “Oh yeah. Let’s see.” She goes behind the desk into a little office for a few minutes and then re-emerges with just the right cable. And she seems just as pleased as I. I go upstairs, plug in my phone, and look at the sunset over Los Angeles, where today the sun is a bright red disk fighting its way through the smoke.

What a difference a day or two makes, huh?

1. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is:
a) Make love to my spouse.
b) Lie in bed and think about the day ahead for a few minutes.
c) Grab my blackberry and check my email.
d) I don’t wake up in the morning. I wake up at night.

2. For breakfast, I generally like…
a) A muffin.
b) Eggs and bacon.
c) Whatever the guy I’m taking to at my power breakfast is eating.
d) Six cups of coffee and a Prozac.

3. At a business meeting, I talk…
a) 35 percent of the time. I think listening is important.
b) 50 percent of the time. I think give-and-take is what it’s all about.
c) 65 percent of the time. I’m there to get something done and I need to push it.
d) You’re beginning to get on my nerves.

4. I am angry…
a) Almost never. What’s the point? All that does is hurt myself and impede business.
b) Now and then. The world is full of buttheads.
c) A couple of times a day. I can’t help it.
d) Now.

5. Everybody has enemies, people who help to define you by the fact that you hate them and everything they stand for. How many do YOU possess?
a) None. What’s the point? All that does is hurt myself an narrow my list of potential allies and customers.
b) A couple. One died last year and I really miss having him around to hate.
c) I have a list of about ten or so people. Sometimes people drop off and make room for new ones at the top.
d) I have a couple of friends I don’t mind having dinner with. The rest of the world can go %*&# itself.

6. There’s been a lot of news about China recently, focusing on its business practices in a negative light — poisoned toothpaste, lead paint in children’s toys, tainted dog food and the like. What’s your attitude to that?
a) I think it’s kind of shocking, actually. How can people do such things, even for a profit?
b) I think it’s deplorable. Naughty Chinese! They should have their butts kicked.
c) I think you have to understand their culture. They’re in the beginning stages of capitalism, and this laissez-faire behavior is not unlike that which characterized, say, the old West. It’s every person for himself. Anything goes. They’ll come along and institute standards later.
d) We’d better get in there and take over their economy fast, before they do it to us. The rest is just bulls**t.

7. I love…
a) My family and my little schnauzer, Peppy.
b) My collection of antique pens.
c) The smell of restaurant bacon in the morning. It smells like victory.
d) The feeling I get when I have just humiliated my best friend at golf.

8. I would consider a person “rich” if they are worth…
a) The question itself is deeply flawed. Money alone cannot define wealth.
b) Ten million dollars ought to do it.
c) One hundred million dollars and access to corporate perks.
d) Twenty billion dollars, six houses, twelve cars, a bodacious spouse or two, six thousand virgin acres in Mexico, a personal 747 and the body of his enemy bricked up in his wine cellar. In fact, have you seen my wine cellar?

9. When I think about growing my company, I like to consider:
a) Responsible growth from within.
b) A balanced plan of acquisition and divestiture.
c) Acquiring my nearest competitor and merging our two great companies into one giant and unbeatable behemoth.
d) Buying everybody in my entire industry. Those who will not be bought must be driven out of business. All trace of the companies I acquire will be expunged from the earth! And I will reign supreme!! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

10. When I die I would like be remembered as…
a) A good person who was loved by his friends, family and colleagues.
b) A talented person who made the most of his or her gifts.
c) A dangerous and scary person who kicked butt during his life and left a bunch of grieving people behind who revered him.
d) If anybody dies around here, it’s going to be you, Bud.

Give yourself 1 point for a), 2 for any b), 5 points for any c) and, of course, 100 points for any d) answer you might have found appropriate. Yeah, the scoring is screwy. But the truth is, either you’re a killer or you’re not. If you are, my hat is off to you, and my resume is in the mail to you.

If you’re not, I’ll see you for drinks some time next week, okay?

Hi there. I’m in Philadelphia to speak to a group of supply managers. I believe the discipline used to be called “Purchasing” until, like stewardess, waiter and fireman, the job designation got upgraded. Anyhow, I’m sure they’re very nice people and I can’t wait until it’s over. FYI, I’m generally the guy who answers a) to all the questions I offered in yesterday’s quiz. The thing is, on stage I transform into d). So I get myself into gigs and then I’m very nervous for months before and then I do great at them and then I want to do them again.

It’s called neurosis.

At any rate, today we have a number of amusing and thoughtful Ask Bings for your consideration. So go there.

For tomorrow, I’m going to tip my chapeau to my reader, Sukardi, who writes in from somewhere called Terengganu, Malaysia. (See yesterday’s comments). I’m interested in investigating the idea of a Killer Quotient that functions as a workable predictor of business success, aren’t you?

I have a speech to give in the next couple of days and feel kind of nauseous thinking about it right now. I’m a good presenter, but have always been afflicted with what actors refer to as “flopsweat.” I wonder if you are too. Take this little quiz and find out.  

1. When I know I have to make a presentation, even a small one before a very limited number of people, I start feeling nervous…

a. Before I know about it, even. Just the question made me feeling like huarking.
b. About a week before, then I get ready. When I’m preparing or well-prepared, I’m okay.
c. The day before. Then I go nuts and drive everybody around me completely crazy.
d. Nervous? Me? Ha!

2. When a big meeting is coming up, one that will involve a number of presentations from a range of people…

a. I hide inside my BlackBerry, furiously typing with my thumbs, head down, until all the others have volunteered for every available slot. Afterwards, I change my undies.
b. I listen for a topic I could do well at and put up my hand for it. If no appropriate topic appears, I try to get a pass.
c. I wait until the end of the meeting, then sign up to do a presentation on something about which I have no knowledge or interest.
d. I make sure I’m doing ALL the presentations. They’re mine! Mine!

3. I would say my ability as a presenter is…

a. Abysmal. How can you talk if you’re about to barf?
b. Good. Depends on the material.
c. Why? Who wants to know? What did you hear? It’s not true!
d. I’m the best presenter who ever lived.

4. While I am up on stage, I…

a. Feel all trembly and bizzarre.
b. Feel a little nervous at first and then get into it. By the end, I’m having fun.
c. Spill water on my notes and then wing it.
d. Am God.

5.  Comments about my presentations are generally…

a. Comments? I have no idea. Nobody looks me in the eye after I speak. Is that bad?
b. Generally quite positive. I don’t listen to them very much. I kind of know how I did from the way I feel after it’s over. Other people are so full of it a lot of the time, you know?
c. Great! I mean, terrific! I mean… have you heard anything different?
d. Never good enough. No matter how good they are.

6. If I have to go “off the cuff”…

a. I will faint.
b. I like that much better than working off a paper text, actually.
c. I’ll do it. But I won’t like it.
d. I will talk until my audience is weeping with exhaustion. Then I’ll go on. And on!

7. If I could describe public speaking as a food, it would be…

a. A poisoned apple.
b. An English muffin.
c. A big messy bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.
d. A huge juicy roast beef I can eat all by myself.

8. My idea of a great public speaker is/was…

a. Alan Greenspan
b. Tom Peters
c. Chris Rock
d. Benito Mussolini

Score yourself 1 point for every a) answer; 2 points for every b); 5 points for every c) and 10 points for every d).

7-20: If called to speak, stick your head in a microwave. You’re doomed.
21-35: You’re a good, professional presenter; possibly not the most interesting in the world, but then if your mother had wanted you to be an actor, she would have given you a different nose.
36-55: You’re all over the place. You’re a paranoid maniac. And you’re probably pretty entertaining.
56-70: You’re probably fundraising for the ‘08 elections right now.

When I was a kid there was always a little goober around who bragged about his IQ. “I have a genius-level IQ,” the kid would say, having just returned from a Mensa test designed to stock the world with future members.

The thing is? The kid who had the big, triple-digit IQ was never the smartest one in the class. He was very often boring. And sure, he was usually smart enough, okay, but no smarter than half the kids I knew. As far as I was concerned, he looked the same as anybody else when he was picking his nose.

At that time, in fact, a lot of us were told we were “as smart as Einstein” because we had been tested in school and done fairly well on whatever it was they were doing to us. My mother wouldn’t tell me mine, because the information would supposedly rot my brain and make me an egotistical jerk. So I never learned my IQ. It didn’t work anyhow, as anyone who knows me will tell you only too quickly. 

But whatever my IQ may be, it didn’t stop me from having all kinds of trouble in math and particularly physics, with its men walking backward in trains and people running counter-clockwise on Merry-Go-Rounds. I also do lousy on those Mensa tests you can take in your in-flight magazines. Craps has been explained to me so many times I’m ashamed to ask about it again. And I stink at chess. But my IQ? Fabu.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that from a very early age I have believed that IQ was BS.  I believe it’s basically a test to find out how good you are at being tested. Possibly it may also test how much time your parents may have spent trying to make you a genius.

Now the nail, as far as I’m concerned, has been driven in the smarty-farty establishment by one of its very own experts, James R. Flynn. The article is in the current issue of Scientific American Mind, which I buy while I’m in airports and losing mine. Mr. Flynn is the discoverer of the “Flynn Effect,” which documents massive gains in IQ from one generation to another. This jump in tested intelligence has been demonstrated in research from some 30 nations — everywhere, actually, where IQ results over time have been studied. 

The editor of the magazine observes, “To express it another way, if we put the score of today’s average American at 100, then the Americans of 1900 had a mean IQ of 50 to 70, signaling an obviously implausible plague of mental retardation among our progenitors.” These, you may recall, are the folks to built our cities, split the Atom, invented the car and the airplane. Now Mr. Flynn tells us why. 

Conversely, the data reveal that young people of today are, like, 30 IQ points higher than their grandparents, and that the trend is continuing. People are getting smarter and smarter and smarter, at least according to the IQ industry.

Now, that would be really encouraging news, if it didn’t seem like the exact opposite is the case. I believe any empirical study of our society would reveal that people are actually getting stupider all the time. I know I am. This situation is ameliorated by the fact that everybody around me is dumber than they used to be as well. It’s not like all the old guys are losing it and the younger X’s, Y’s and Zeros are coming up the ramp, either. For every Chad Hurley or Sergei Brin there’s a couple of K-Fed’s and two or three Miss South Carolinas.

Beyond that, the general level of discourse, particularly among the young, while no stupider than, say, your average conversation on a street in rural France in 1680, is by no means any more elevated. Back then, they said “Zut!” when they bumped into each other. Now they say “Dude!”

There’s a massive amount of complex scientific bushwah attending Flynn’s rationale for the ongoing bump in measured brainpower. You can read it. The question is important to him, because the data seem to contradict a) common sense and b) the value of IQ testing, which would be a disaster for a whole group of lab-coated people who make their livings on it.

After reading as much as I could of the stuff, I think it basically boils down to one thing: kids trained to take tests do well on tests; people prepared for certain kinds of challenges do better than those who are not. For the most part, better babies notwithstanding, we’re all pretty average.

It’s the guys with the high Killer Quotient who do best where I work.