Mr. Etiquette's guide to surviving a boring meeting

Dear Mr. Etiquette, I recently had to travel one and a half hours from home to give a big speech at a big meeting. After giving my talk, I had to listen to a gentleman with intellectual and affiliational deficiencies give an incredibly boring speech. After listening to this half-wit ramble on for a few minutes, I stood up and ordered him to sit down and shut up. Under further review, I feel this may not have been the best course of action. How should I have handled this situation? Sincerely, Mike D., East Lansing, Mich. Gentle listener to the gentle reader who is gently reading this column to you, Meetings are a fact of life in the business world, and, try as we might, we will never be able to give complete attention to every speaker at every meeting. While ideally a proper businessperson would never "tune out" a speaker, etiquette acknowledges that sometimes our concentration lapses and we have no choice but to do so. In this situation, it is paramount that we let the me...