When can we meet?

How many e-mails does it take to arrange a group meeting? It sounds like the setup to a bad joke but, according to the respondents of a North American survey, the answer isn’t funny: at least three.

The back-and-forthing required to set up group meetings was identified as the most annoying thing at work by 30% of respondents to the survey, conducted by Montreal company Tungle, maker of a web-based calendar accelerator. The only thing workers considered more grating was going through their inboxes after vacations (40%).

The biggest gripes about scheduling business meetings are that it can take more time to book meetings than hold them (30%), you have to hound people to respond with agreeable times (22%) and by the time you actually book a meeting, someone’s calendar has changed and the time doesn’t work anymore (22%).