Pickles & Dimes

Work today is a scene from a Scooby-Doo episode, one where I’m trying to track people down to extract information from them for last-minute projects dumped on me, and succeeding only in going to their office to find them missing, and having them stop by my desk just as I’ve left to look for them in another location, etc., etc. CHARMING. I feel like shouting, “And I’d have gotten all my work done if it wasn’t for you darn meddling coworkers!”

This is the aspect of my job I do not enjoy. There is absolutely no control over my workday. Jason will sometimes ask me how my day is looking as we’re getting ready to head to work, and I’ll startle him by laughing crazily and saying, “Well, it looks all right, but it never ends up that way.”

A clear work calendar suddenly fills with unexpected meetings, maybe an hour-long conference call or four, and always, always, last-minute proposals, resulting in me pinballing my way from meeting to meeting, adding more items to my to-do list, and getting zero time to complete anything. On the rare days I am actually slow at work, I still work like mad on projects that aren’t due for weeks because if I don’t, something will come up at the last minute anyway. It’s very frustrating, and I don’t deal with it well because I am an organized person and I expect (unrealistically, it seems) for others to be the same, especially when their procrastination affects me.

But tomorrow is my presentation (thanks for the advice, you guys!) and it is very telling that I am thrilled to be giving it. I’ve practiced enough that I won’t need my notes, I will be out of the office, away from interruptions, and if the price to pay for that freedom is public speaking, that is A-OK with me.

Do you get interrupted constantly at your job? (All moms raise your hand!)

Next week I have to give a presentation on social media. About which, according to my employer, I am an expert, which is great, because now all my time spent dinking around online can be written off as “research.”

This presentation is for an internal audience only, which calmed my nerves substantially, until I learned that there would be approximately 100 people there. 100 people. That is a lot of individuals to witness me standing in the front of the room bug-eyed, stammering and forgetting that English is my primary language, since I have given a presentation of this magnitude, oh, NEVER.

My presentation is already done, because I was so consumed by the thought of being slammed with unexpected work projects and ending up with a presentation that consisted of two blank slides and me cluelessly futzing with the slide projector while tripping over various cords and emitting strange, whale-like noises.

I completely wrote out every single thing I plan on saying, including my own name, because while I’m confident I can do this, I haven’t done this before, so who knows? Speaking informally to a small group of coworkers is something I’ve done a million times; speaking at a seminar of upper-level management is a completely new beast. I cannot rely on my ability to ad-lib here, you know? (However, my ability to select relevant clip art is top-notch.)

I’m speaking in the afternoon immediately after lunch, which means everyone will be in a food coma and hopefully no one will ask questions. Tonight, I’m practicing with Jason as my hostage audience, to make sure I have the timing down (I’m scheduled for 30 minutes - 30 minutes! That will leave 27 minutes for questions - ha) and to make sure I don’t rely on “um” or talk so much with my hands that I take flight and crash into the ceiling.

Even though this terrifies me slightly and will take up a lot of my energy to pretend to be an Extroverted Expert, I know it will be fun.

Have you ever had to speak in public? Any tips or tricks? Horror stories? (Never mind that last one.)

Ah, TV dinners. I never really liked TV dinners, mainly because as a kid I didn’t understand how the meat, vegetable AND dessert all cooked together at the same temperature. Ick. Especially if the dessert was pudding – who likes cooked pudding?

Seriously, who?

And don’t even get me started on how the finished product never looks like the box photo.

Last night, Jason came downstairs and walked over to Sunny, who was burritoed in the blankets slung over the back of the loveseat. He petted her and gave her a scritch behind her ears. Then he came over to where Shorty was curled into a doughnut on my lap, leaned over to give him a kiss, and gave him a few good scritches behind his ears. Finally, he leaned over and sweetly kissed the top of my head, while simultaneously scritching me behind my ears.