My Worst Presentation Ever: Part 3 of 3- Time's Up

The painful recounting of my worst presentation concludes...
Read Part 1 here
Read part 2 here
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I arrived back at Radio Disney, took a seat and waited for my meeting. I spent the time making some quick edits to the master copy of the presentation- trying to cut it down to fit into the shortened meeting, still tell the story and make sense, while also allowing time for open discussion.

The slightly cool air also helped me cool down a bit, though I didn’t have enough time to totally recover from my harrowing and highly heated morning.

A few minutes later the clock showed noon. Mrs. J arrived, with several shopping bags in hand (she apologized for moving and shortening the meeting, but she had to go to the doctors office, and then decided to get in some clothes shopping before leaving for vacation later in the day).

She escorted me to a meeting room, and told me she would be right back. As she headed out, she popped her head back in the room and mentioned off-handedly that we needed to wrap up by 12:30. Great. My 90 minute meeting, cut to an hour, was now cut again to 30 minutes. My head started throbbing.

The meeting room was a toasty 80 degrees. When Mrs. J returned to the meeting room with 10 other people in tow, the heat of the room and the stress caused by the meeting logistics spiraling out of control conspired to turn the reappearing sweat beads on my nose and forehead into Niagara Falls.

Over many years of meetings I had learned an important lesson. When making a presentation have materials for 50% more attendees than the number you have been informed will be in the meeting. 10 attendees? Bring 15 copies. 50? Bring 75.

What about one?

I now sat in front of 11 people with a grand total of 4 sets of materials. It was “sharing time” gone horribly wrong.

As I handed out the materials with one hand, wiping sweat with the other, my mind was racing trying to figure out how to edit the presentation on the fly to cover all the material in 10 minutes allowing at least 20 minutes to chat and try to close the deal. As I stumbled through the presentation, sounding like a blabbering idiot on speed, I got to the part where I played the music. With disc in hand I stood up and looked around the room.

Someone from the gallery said “We don’t have a sound-system in here. I’ll go get our portable player- it’ll just take a sec.” “No sound-system?” I blurted out with incredulity barely disguised.
A boom-box was hauled in, and the music sounded horrific on it. More sweat. Time was running out. More sweat. A very curious person kept asking goofy questions killing any remaining time. More sweat. 'Man, it must be 100 degrees in here' I thought. I kept hearing a distracting strange sound every couple of seconds. I realized it was sweat plopping loudly on my printed presentation. Lovely.

Times up. Mrs. J ended the meeting, thanked me for coming, and said we should follow-up on the phone when she got back from vacation in a few weeks. Goodbye.

I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you at this point that Mrs. J is a gracious and kind person. She always has been, and I was thankful for the chance I had at bat. The terrible morning and presentation was not her fault. I blew it. Me.

I picked up my stuff from the pool that had formed in front of me, thanked everyone lamely, and headed to the ground floor to have the receptionist call a cab- I had 2 hours before my departure time and figured I would make it with plenty of time to hang myself in the airport men’s room. I wondered if my iPod earphones cord would be strong enough.

As the elevator lowered me to my death, I realized I didn’t even remember what I had said during the last 30 minutes. It was a total blank. The worst presentation I had ever made.

The taxi company said they would be there in 10 minutes. 20 minutes later I had the receptionist call again. The cab company apologized and said they would be there in 10 minutes. Another 20 minutes passed and they called the receptionist asking for directions. They suggested I stand outside so the driver could spot me, and I could spot the cab.

After a burning hot 20 minutes standing in the sun, I noticed a taxi in the distance across the vast empty field I had walked through earlier, looping mindlessly around the parking lot. I began quickly walking through the lot towards the cab. The taxi looked to be giving up, and started to drive away. I broke into a run, braving deadly thorny shrubs, waving my free hand wildly. Finally I caught a break- the driver saw me in his rear view mirror as he was turning out onto the main road heading away from Radio Disney. He immediately pulled a U-turn to pick me up.

We sped to the airport, arriving 10 minutes before boarding. I got through security, ran to my gate, and collapsed in my seat looking and feeling like I had jumped into a swimming pool fully dressed.

I sat there on the flight home completely defeated and deflated. I drove home, and Michelle greeted me with a smile and excitedly asked me how the meeting went and if they liked the record. "No comment. I can't even talk about it until tomorrow. I need a glass of wine."

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