H. had said that she wanted the second writer, J., to have someone to take minutes and record decisions made and action items, while I would continue doing what I've done in most meetings: editing the document itself on a computer with a projection screen everyone can see and making changes as the team agrees to them. While I'm doing that, H. has generally taken minutes herself. In that case, it sounds reasonable enough to have a second writer, so that H. can concentrate on actually running the meeting - keeping things on schedule, getting firm commitments from people - while I help the team do what it's actually doing and someone else keeps track of it all.
However, Thursday was the first meeting with J. It happened to be in a room without a working computer, because someone in tech support had not finished an update or something. So, lacking anything better to do, we both took notes. I take notes on important stuff, but rarely type things up unless specifically requested.
J. turns out to be more diligent. His notes were three pages long, finished within two hours of the end of the meeting.
I'm no longer feeling too guilty now that I'm back to working on the document again and getting down to business, and on Friday I was indeed productive in ways that someone unfamiliar with the project couldn't have been, but still, I'm under no illusions that I'm some exemplary employee here, let alone indispensable.
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