Presentation Rundown

Because I know all five of my readers are dying to know how it went.

I left a whole hour early because I know that if anything wrong can happen, it will. And where work is concerned, it will happen in the parking garage. So, I haul ass to work, bypassing Starbucks because I didn't want to take my chances.

I get there and as per usual, parking sucks. What is it with people and parking garages? The arrow says go this way, some illiterate asshole decides to go the opposite way, snarling progress and pissing everyone off in the process.

I manage to find a spot, rush inside. I have forty minutes before showtime, so I go to my floor to drop off my coat, but not before becoming nauseated on the elevator as some resident had a plate with tons of pameasan cheese. While parmeasan cheese may be tasty on food, it smells like vomit and smelly gym socks.

Happy Day! The Snapple I forgot to drink on Sunday was still in the employee fridge. Either God was smiling upon me, or I'm the only person who likes Snapple.

I go find the meeting room where this is going to take place. I'm the first one there. Now, I prepared with the idea that I would have a podium. Guess what...no podium. Shit. Now where would I put my notes? What would I hold on to so I wouldn't fall over??

Slowly, people start filing in, about a half dozen were nurses from my floor...including the Bosshole. I told him to go away, but he didn't listen.

Lunch is served, but I declined because I still feel like I'm going to blow chow. From the looks of it, lunch is provided by a drug company. One of the drugs I will be speaking on, in fact. Salad, meat, veggies, pita bread.

Dr. Prestigious gets to go first and he talks about the pathophysiology of our disease process du jour. He has the power point. He has his own laser pointers, which he enthusiastically waves around his power point. Midway through, everyone gets that glazed over look that comes when doctors like listening to the sound of their own voice.

Ideally, these inservices last an hour, with two guest speakers. Each guest speaker gets twenty minutes to talk, followed with five to ten minutes for questions.

Dr. Prestigious takes forty-five minutes.

Ass.

So, it's my turn, and I have fifteen minutes. Ten if you subtract the five minutes it took for the lady who was managing the computer to get my power point loaded after she inadvertantly shut the computer off. So, Heather has ten minutes to give a twenty-five minute presentation.

No pressure!

I manage to do what I like to call the "quick and dirty"...a rapid fire presentation, and I finish in fifteen minutes. I had mountains of notes, extra little bits of info that I had wanted to share, but was unable to do so. I gave the attendees just what they needed to know, and nothing more. Naturally, no one has any questions, and the meeting is done. I'm not overly impressed with my effort because I had to talk 120 miles per hour, but everyone blows sunshine up my butt and tells me it was fabulous, including the Bosshole. I tell him that I will now crawl back into the dark hole that is the night shift, and that I will not be doing this again anytime soon.

"That's what you think", he says.

So, now it's over. I can put the whole thing on my resume, get props for doing it in the first place, and try to forget the whole thing ever happened. Now, I'm back home, in my comfy at-home loungewear. No more business casual for me.