"we're killing a dead horse to death"

The title of this post is an actual quote uttered by my wanna-be supervisor at an exceptionally horrendous staff meeting. Staff meetings seem to be a necessary evil of any industry, but in my multi-industrial experiences (restaurant, property management, sorority life, couch potato, newspaper, house sitting extraordinaire), I have come to the conclusion that educational staff meetings of any sort (administrative, resident assistant, teaching) have several things in common: they are way, way too long, nothing ever gets done, yet there seems to be a lot of talking from one or two keys players who basically like the sound of their own voice, rinse, and repeat every one to two weeks.

What I wouldn't give for a properly structured, succinct, staff meeting. Mhhh, I imagine it tasting like the nectar of the gods.

Butchered idioms aside, my pretend supervisor did have a point when he said "we're killing a dead horse to death." I don't remember the issue at hand, but we were way overanalyzing it, to the point where it wasn't even an issue any more but this nasty blobby thing nobody wanted to touch by the end of the meeting. That's what overanalyzing can do to an idea, an issue, a concept.

So why am I thinking about cremating some bruised and beaten horses? Because when all you do is talk and talk and talk about something it sort of ruins it. It takes the life and hope and fun that was once there, prancing in a field of long green grass in the crisp spring air, and it SHOOTS IT RIGHT IN THE FACE and sucks all the life and fun out of it.

That's what over-analyzing does to great ideas, my friends, so be warned. Sometimes "trying to figure it out" isn't just "trying to figure it out". Sometimes "trying to figure it out" is the butchering of a poor innocent bambi like horse, who, I might, never did anything to you, man.