On the Road Again

Getting ready this week for next week's annual company meeting. Unlike most years before this we are not in full blown panic mode getting ready, with most of the presentations done, reviewed and even rehearsed. We've been working on this for 8 weeks now (yes, 8 weeks of wasted time). For my part, I've got a 75 minute presentation I'm responsible for and I believe at this point we'll be okay. I have one gimmick I am going to use which should ensure that people talk about the session for a few days afterward*.

All that said, I heard yesterday that my grand-boss (by boss' boss), has no keynote presentation. None. for the last 2 months teams of folks have been working away, meeting, talking, rehearsing and checking little boxes so that we are all in lockstep and all follow the exact same format**. Now we find our uberleader hasn't been marching with us at all, but is instead going to have people throw something together for him Sunday night***.

I can't decide if I think he's an irresponsible jerk or a hilarious non-conformist. :)

*I'll blog about this later, it's something of a "secret" at work because my boss is notorious for stealing other peoples ideas and claiming them as his own. I have been heard to say within his earshot, "I need to see the room floor plans so I know how to position the lasers without blinding anyone" and "The Orlando Fire Chief is a fascist jerk for making me get a permit to turn off the smoke detectors"

** after a lecture from my boss about how we are supposed to "win" by coming up with clever, creative, memorable gimmicks, he then launched into an hour long lecture about all the formatting rules for presentations and how we all had to look *exactly* alike prompting me to remark, "Wait. You mean we're supposed to beat the competition by doing *exactly the same thing they are doing*? Can we out-mediocre them?"

*** this looks like a brown-nose festival to me, so I have politely declined participation.