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The Operation Manager’s Great Meeting Escape

It was a Wednesday night, and everyone at CrankyCorp was gearing up for the mid-shift “All-Hands” meeting. This was the kind of meeting where the office manager, Nutella, usually thrived. He was the one who arranged the agenda, booked the conference room, and sent out the “important reminders” about being punctual. But today, Nutella had a small problem:he was running late.

Now, Nutella wasn’t just any operations manager. He was the operations manager—the glue that held everything together, the person everyone turned to when they couldn’t find a stapler or figure out how to use the printer. But somehow, this one time, he’d been distracted by a meeting about a meeting… about an email.

By 7:45 pm, Nutella was frantically pulling on his shoes, still with half a muffin in his mouth, as he sprinted out the door. He knew the meeting started at 7:30 pm sharp, but there was a small issue. His pants where wet.

It was 8:15 pm before Nutella finally managed to slink into the floor, hoping nobody noticed his dramatic entrance.

Except… everyone noticed.

“Ah, Nutella, you’re here!” said Caveman , grinning mischievously. “We were just about to start without you!”

Nutella threw him a glare but took a seat at the head of the table, pretending like nothing was wrong.

“Uhh, let’s see… I think there’s a serious document somewhere in here,” he stammered, desperately minimizing the folder. As he tried to compose himself.

A collective gasp filled the room.

“Nutella, are you okay?” asked Funminic from HR, his eyes wide with concern. “Do you need a minute?”

“No, no, I’m good!” Nutella said “Let’s just… let’s get this meeting going. Let’s do this.”

It was at this moment that Nutella realized the meeting had already started—without him. Caveman, was leading the meeting. They were all wrong, though.

Caveman, completely unfazed, shrugged. “I just figured, you know, I’d take the lead. You are always busy with… other things. You seemed distracted this morning.”

Nutella blinked. “Other things?! I’m the operations manager! I can’t be distracted!”

But it was too late. The meeting had devolved into chaos. Every time he tried to speak, someone interrupted him to ask if he was okay or to discuss something entirely unrelated—like Zougla’s new pet hamster or whether the snack supply was running low.

At 8:45 pm, after what felt like an eternity, Nutella finally stood up and waved his arms dramatically. “Okay! Okay!! This meeting is adjourned!”

The meeting fell silent. Everyone stared at him.

“But… Nutella,” Caveman said, “We didn’t even get through half the stuff. We were supposed to talk about the new office expansion.”

“Expansion?!” Nutella gasped, realizing she had completely forgotten about that topic. “Right! The expansion! Uh… we’ll talk about that next time. Let’s… let’s do lunch!” He made a swift exit before anyone could protest.

And so, Nutella’s great operations manager meeting escape became the stuff of legend. They never truly finished the meeting, but they certainly finished with a lot of memes and a very empty coffee pot.