It's Always Something

I've just given up.

It seems that whenever you do a presentation, it's always something that screws up. You do your best beforehand, practicing in front of family, adjusting the colors, making the handout material (see yesterday's post) But in the end, something always gets you. Something always, always goes wrong.

Case in point: yesterday I arrived on time, reasonably well-dressed and looking as presentable as is possible. The support people showed up on time, we had a projector, a room, and everything we needed.

Well. Almost.

When we were setting up the projector, I noticed that part of the bottom of the display was cut-off -- the people in the audience couldn't see it. It wasn't that it was off the bottom of the screen, it just wasn't there. But heck, it was only a few pixels. I didn't really need those few anyway, so we finished setting up and went forward.

Now you have to understand. In my presentation I show some grids towards the end. The grids show processes that are working and that are not working. The bottom row shows poorly performing processes. I talk at length about how you read these bottom rows and then do different things to fix the problems.

I guess you can see where this is going. When I got around to showing the grids, none of the two bottom rows are visible to the audience -- the rows that show the exact thing that I'm supposed to be talking about.

So I tap dance. I had to do the old "If you COULD see this, boy would you be impressed!" routine. I hate doing that, but really is a situation like this you have no choice. One time when I was demonstrating a security application to a client the entire program crashed in the middle of the demo. Big Blue Screen of Death. Took the entire operating system down with it.

Without missing a beat, I announced that "As you can see, when the security privileges are low, the system will prevent the user from operation". Fortunately my audience had their BS detectors on high, so they got a good laugh.

I had a demo once where in the middle of it a VP asked "Where's that button to do X? I was promised a button to do X!". The room was deadly silent. Everybody looked at one another. Nobody had any idea what this guy was talking about.

Once again, I tried the Monty Python approach. I told him that the button was there, it was just the same color as the background and was disabled (sort of like the deal with the tree falling in the wilderness and nobody around) After he looked like he was going to bean me, I apologized and told him nobody told us about it and we would have it fixed that week. The show went on.

The show always goes on. One of the many benefits I received from taking 12 years of piano as a child is the knowledge that you smile, be unruffled, and keep on playing. The show goes on. One time during a piano recital the power went out. The student didn't miss a beat and kept on playing. Then the teacher put candles around the room so we could see. A few minutes later, a couple of the candles fell onto a girl's dress while she was playing! She kept on playing. Fortunately the teacher grabbed the candles before the kid caught on fire -- that would have been a recital to remember. I don't think Chopin had a piece called "Flaming Girl", and it is not what most parents expected, I can tell you that.

So the show went on yesterday. I hope I did a good job helping the folks out. I tried to cram 3 hours of material into 25 minutes, and I spoke too quickly and mumbled when I should have projected. I missed material. I paced nervously. I think I even told a story about myself that didn't put me in the best light -- sometimes a no-no. But the show went on. I had fun giving the presentation. Maybe it made a difference for somebody.