Karen the corporate world has nothing on Capitol Hill when it comes to pointless meetings. I know lobbyists and staffers whose sole purpose in life is to have useless meetings. Some of my favorite types of DC meetings are the “get acquainted” meeting where a lobbyist sets up an appointment or just drops by (unlike in the real world, DC types see nothing unusual in walking into an office without an appointment and asking for a meeting) to either introduce himself or tell you about all the wonderful things his client is doing on the theory that this will make the staffer favorably inclined to recommend his boss “accommodate” future requests from this client; the “just came by to say hi” meeting where a lobbyist drops by an office under the pretense of just wanting to say “hi,” so the staffer will think of the lobbyist as a buddy and thus try to be helpful in the future; and the “pre-meeting meeting” where a bunch of staffers and/or lobbyists get together to discuss an upcoming meeting. The upside of all this is that every moment the average Hill Rat wastes at a useless meeting is one less moment spent figuring out new ways to destroy our prosperity and take our liberty.