JungleLover Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 Today I had to give a presentation to some very distinguished colleagues of mine. In my field, presentation skills and knowledge of the subject content is very crucial to your reputation. There were 3 other coworkers who have been working on this project with me for the past year including one of the most senior guys in my department. Over the past two weeks, we all have been working late at night and meeting multiple times throughout the day so that I would have a very exceptional presentation when I presented to my large audience. Everyone was taking pride into every little detail of the presentation and worked really hard. Today, the day finally came for me, as the chosen one, to present the project the project to a large, very astute audience of important people in our field. Several others had presented before me and gave exceptional presentations and received a nice applause at the end. Next, was my turn. When I finally got up in front of the audience, my mind began to go blank and I just started talking nonsense up at the podium. Nothing I said was clear and I was just skimming over all of the material we had prepared. The audience had very surprised and stunned looks on their faces. When some audience members asked me questions, I stood there with a blank look on my face for several seconds and could not answer their questions although I knew the answers. The answers I gave sounded really crazy even though I spent that past week anticipating every question they would ask. One guy tried rewording his question to get his question answered an finally gave up with my deer caught in headlights condition. My last question came from the most important and biggest shots of the room. When he asked me the question, I noticed the head of our project in the audience nodding his head to try and coach me through the answers. I think I even misused some words when I spoke. At the end of my talk I, understandably, received no applause and my team walked away looking sad with their heads hanging down. I told them I didn't understand what had happened. I have given many public presentations in my past at other jobs before and did a relatively good job but I completely bombed with this one. It was tough to take the sad looks on my fellow team member faces. I felt like hiding under a rock to never be seen again. I never imagine myself giving a horrible presentation, especially such an important one as this. What is one of your most embarrassing moments? Link to post Share on other sites
Star Gazer Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 What is one of your most embarrassing moments? Tripping out of the elevator in the downtown LA federal courthouse - the snootiest and most conservative/formal courthouse there is. Now, I trip and fall all the time - I'm just a klutz that way. What made it embarassing, was that as I fell, I twisted around and landed on my arse, flashing the packed elevator my panties, all while screaming out "Jesus F*cking Christ!" and spewing my files all over the echoy-marble hallway. When I got into the judge's chambers, I recognized not only his clerk, but my opposing counsel, as two of the gentlemen who got a peak at my panties...and my sailor mouth. Link to post Share on other sites
dangerstranger Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 I farted on a first date by mistake:eek: But hey- stuff like this happens sometimes. Maybe you were under way more stress than you realized when taking on this project. Also- something to consider, maybe it's way less awful than what you picture it was. What did your co-workers say after? Link to post Share on other sites
Author JungleLover Posted June 10, 2011 Author Share Posted June 10, 2011 (edited) Tripping out of the elevator in the downtown LA federal courthouse - the snootiest and most conservative/formal courthouse there is. Now, I trip and fall all the time - I'm just a klutz that way. What made it embarassing, was that as I fell, I twisted around and landed on my arse, flashing the packed elevator my panties, all while screaming out "Jesus F*cking Christ!" and spewing my files all over the echoy-marble hallway. When I got into the judge's chambers, I recognized not only his clerk, but my opposing counsel, as two of the gentlemen who got a peak at my panties...and my sailor mouth. Whoah. I just didn't think anything could even come close to my moment. That one is actually pretty big. Also- something to consider, maybe it's way less awful than what you picture it was. What did your co-workers say after? You know how you can have an embarrassing moment and people would try to be comforting to you by saying things to make you feel better? Well, that didn't happen with my coworkers and audience members. When I mentioned that I was nervous, my coworkers and some of the audience members just looked down at the ground as if they didn't know what to say to me. They just had a look on their face as if "yea you screwed up big time." It really took the cake when I started using words out of context just to keep something coming out of my mouth during the presentation. The look on my team members and audience faces is one I will never forget. Right before my presentation, my team members were all giving me a pat on the back for all of the great work I had done in contributing to our project. We had some people internationally known in our field in the audience. Presentations, knowledge and the ability to relay your knowledge in your work is very highly valued and scrutinized with us. My moment is almost something that is never seen with my level of experience. It was bad and it was so bad I didn't even get a courtesy applause from anyone in the audience and every other speaker did. It was probably the most surreal experience I have ever had because so many people witnessed it and before today, I considered myself almost "unembarrassable." Usually, I can just poke fun at myself in an awkward situation. Edited June 10, 2011 by JungleLover Link to post Share on other sites
Cee Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 (edited) I'm glad you have a sense of humor about things. I am a good public speaker, but I have given some terrible talks. I have a story. Long ago, I was in a group listening to a top commandante of the FMLN, which was the democratic opposition on El Salvador. I was part of US delegation to San Salvador. So this woman is talking and she's tough and serious. She's an ex guerilla after all. And I was at the table trying to put sugar in my coffee and I spill the sugar. It was a big cup and there's a big pile of sugar on the table. She stops and looks at me like I'm an idiot, which I kinda was. But it was funny too. I made a great first impression:laugh: Edited June 10, 2011 by Cee Link to post Share on other sites
Author JungleLover Posted June 10, 2011 Author Share Posted June 10, 2011 I'm glad you have a sense of humor about things. I am a good public speaker, but I have given some terrible talks. I have a story. Long ago, I was in a group listening to a top commandante of the FMLN, which was the democratic opposition on El Salvador. I was part of US delegation to San Salvador. So this woman is talking and she's tough and serious. She's an ex guerilla after all. And I was at the table trying to put sugar in my coffee and I spill the sugar. It was a big cup and there's a big pile of sugar on the table. She stops and looks at me like I'm an idiot, which I kinda was. But it was funny too. I made a great first impression:laugh: Hopefully, I can look back on this situation and laugh one day in the future as you can. It's very, very hard to imagine this now. This was a perfect time to get my name out there. Up until a year ago, whenever topics like this ever came up (most embarrassing moments), I really had to search very hard to find one because I could always shrug embarrassing moments off. About a year ago, I was at a similar conference except I was in the audience. The speaker asked a question to the audience to see if anyone knew the answer and no one answered so I spoke up and told the answer. The speaker then asked me if I could explain the answer. I my words started getting jumbled before I finally gave up. The speaker then had another guest speaker stand up and explain the answer. He was looking at me the whole time as he explained it. What made this situation really crazy for me is that the answer to his question was a topic that I had became really interested in over the past week and I had read so much up on. I read it so much so that I knew it like the back of my hand. Yesterday's mind trip was 10 times worse than that experience because I was the actual guy at the podium this time. Lol. Link to post Share on other sites
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