The Jury is out

The day I have been preparing for over the past three weeks finally arrived. I had a ten thirty slot so it was a leisurely start to the day with ample time for ablutions and picking the perfect tie to go with both shirt and jacket. I most definitely had a case of butterflies so ended up in the Office early and spent the best part of an hour wandering around drinking coffee and annoying colleagues.

As half past ten drew close I wandered over to the venue and waited to be called in. Whilst waiting I finally thumbed through my slides and made mental notes which, like the butterflies in my stomach fluttered and I wondered if I would ever be able to recall these salient facts. I also wondered if I had enough material to fill the forty minute slot ...

... time for tactic #1; invite them to ask questions during the Presentation thereby getting the audience to both contribute to the material and to ensure the material gives them the information they require. My time arrived and I was ushered in to the room. I briefly wondered  if I was in the wrong place as there was a panel of eight people there, a good few more than I was expecting. After a round of introductions I stepped up to the speakers position, paused and internally panicked as my opening line fluttered from my brain ... FUCK! ... I grabbed my metaphorical butterfly net, caught the little bastard, pinned him down and off I set.

I rambled through my slides, answering questions along the way and was very surprised to be told that I was only five minutes from home with a slide and a half still to present. I upped my pace slightly, finished and took a fairly gentle selection of questions from the panel. IM then escorted me from the room advising that I had done a really good job ...

... WE SHALL SEE!

He added that he hoped to be able to provide feedback later on in the day so I hung around waiting for this. I have to be honest, I couldn't really focus on my project work after this morning's session so it was a day of just waiting.

At a little after three I was stuck on a conference call when IM sent an instant message advising that he would not have time to talk later and that he would catch me tomorrow. I then went in to a round of futile analysis on this turn of events; is that a good, thing? if it was good news wouldn't he just ping me? is pinging good news good or bad etiquette?

This is one of those days when I really would have rather heard nothing instead of "I'll tell you tomorrow". I now look forward to an evening of recalling and internally cringing over the worst elements of my presentation whilst managing to forget every part that was pure genius.

Such is the life of a hopeful pessimist.