The Conference
by Michael Smith

 

 

This was the late-1980s, a time when health, safety and political correctness were becoming the holy trinity of a growing new religion. It was also a time when phrases such as “cutting-edge technology” and “in the next millennium …” became popular among conference speakers (sorry, facilitators). Some really knowledgeable types would also employ the phrase “2K-ready” as if the product in question had been specially designed to withstand the anticipated worldwide annihilation as calendars ticked over from 1999 to 2000. And, in the manic war for increased profits, management’s new weapon of choice was the Powerpoint, and ‘The Conference’ was the battlefield.

Overhead, a strip-light flickered intermittently, just enough to be irritating. At precisely 9:00 am, a lone figure stepped purposefully onto the podium, assembled both his papers and his smile, before announcing, “Good morning everyone. Welcome to our annual sales conference. I am Brian, and I will be facilitating your experience this morning.” It was amazing how someone could, with just a nuance of tone, italicize the word “facilitating”. Why do these people have to over-complicate our language?

Eyeballs rolled upwards from us old hands who’d seen and heard it all before. We hadn’t really changed much since our bland, worthless schooldays. We lounged along the back row, leaving the front seats free for the keen, young ones, the ones who wore their pre-printed, plastic-encased name badges with naive pride.

Brian then introduced everyone to the inevitable, and highly embarrassing, icebreaker activity. Old eyes rotated once more.

“Please share with the colleague sitting next to you, what kind of animal you think you are.” This was said with a slight tilt of the head, and the tone of voice used by reception class teachers. In fact, that’s probably where the activity originated. And, when did we develop the need to ‘share’? Why couldn’t we just tell, or discuss?

Five minutes of excruciating embarrassment later, the keen occupants of the front row had eventually ceased their enthusiastic animal noises, and we could finally concentrate on the main event. Brian re-assembled his smile, and declared the icebreaker to have been fun, successful, and worthwhile, while studiously avoiding eye-contact with the back row. He then jauntily announced, “And now I’ll hand you over to Colin, who will deliver today’s presentation.” Deliver? This made him sound like a milkman, or a teenager with a paper round.

Colin bounded enthusiastically onto the podium to a ripple of polite applause (from the front, of course. At the back, our arms remained firmly folded across rotund, middle-aged bellies).

“Thank you, Brian.” For what was he thanking him? He’d only seen him minutes earlier in a pre-conference huddle. I wondered how much management were paying for this conference?

Colin then gave Brian an overemphasized thumbs-up, apparently the pre-arranged signal for the lights to be lowered. A sarcastic ‘oooh’ emanated from the back row. The ubiquitous projector stuttered into life, revealing the dreaded ‘Powerpoint Presentation’.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is our brand new model, the TX2001,” enthused Colin, who had clearly gone to town on his presentation, full colour, fancy transitions, the works. The front row were enrapt, they couldn’t have been happier had they been at the latest Spielberg premiere. At the back, we knew it was enough just to catch the gist of what was being said. As a sales rep, when you’ve seen one presentation, you’ve seen them all. The golden rule is to remember one small detail from one slide, so you can contribute with apparent confidence to any conversation during coffee break.

Colin proceeded to strut around the podium, armed only with a remote control and, what he believed to be, his rapier wit. He wielded the remote like my old headmaster carried his cane. Our presenter had even discovered how the infra-red pointy-thingy worked, and I bet, when practicing before the conference, he’d made light-sabre whooshing sounds each time he moved.

As the morning wore on, I became increasingly convinced the batteries powering the clock on the wall must have been running low, surely time does not pass as slowly as this? And, ominously, the Powerpoint slide-counter (bottom-right, font size 11) was indicating slide 12 out of 47 as we approached 10:45 am, the designated time for our ‘comfort break’. Why, when everyone knows such breaks are used to go to the toilet, have a cigarette, or both, do we hide behind such unnecessarily pristine language?

The venue had spared every expense, treating us to the obligatory stewed coffee and cheap biscuit selection. And those of us with too many of these conferences under our strained belts knew that lunch would be no better, a cheap buffet with ‘things’ on sticks, and sandwiches that had started to curl after being left out too long, due to the speaker becoming carried away by the sound of his own voice.

As we milled around aimlessly, awkwardly juggling coffee cups and biscuits, a couple of the new, wide-eyed recruits wanted to know my opinion, as someone experienced in these matters, of the new model about which we’d just spent nearly two hours hearing. Two hours of my life just wasted. They smiled expectantly. I hate these moments, it’s so difficult to match their enthusiasm. Was I ever this keen?

Eventually, I placed my coffee cup on a nearby table, and replied “Look, at the end of the day, it’s only a toaster. It cooks bread. If we’d just spent the last two hours learning about the new Lamborghini, or something developed by NASA, then I would be excited, only mildly, but nevertheless, excited. However, this is a device for warming bread. You could set fire to the needlessly extensive instruction manual (in twelve languages), and end up with exactly the same end product - toast!”

The other guys looked clearly disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm. But, I guess familiarity really does breed contempt, as we pass through life from optimist, to realist, to cynic.

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