Trick´s Aussie Experience

So. That’s all finished then. My first public speech is behind me. Aye, it was an interesting experience indeed. I was doing a presentation on customer service for the newly hired ‘cabin crew’ for Virgin Blue.

The room was about half full with prettier-than-not girls and a couple of guys as well (not so pretty but not hideous either) .

As you can imagine, these soon to be crew members (they were informed of their successful applications just days ago, some not even that) were quite anxious and well, very eager to hear stuff.

Stuff that I have to say. I. Me. I expected to be listened to, but still. All those wondering eyes were quite intimidating. Ha. Intimidating. That’s putting it mildly.

I Had all my strategy prepared of course. My presentation was calculated to the minute and was supposed to take exactly 23 minutes, give or take a couple of seconds.

Nah. It doesn’t work that way. Well, at least for me it didn’t.

I tend to speak pretty fast when I get nervous. And not being a native speaker, the shit is really ready to hit the fan. The moment you deviate from your speech (for me it was a simple matter of replacing some simple words with fancier ones) you risk that you’ll tie your tongue in a knot. That is naturally followed by panic. The idea is to take a couple of seconds to gather yourself. The problem is, couple of seconds in front of an anticipating crowd seems like a lifetime. So you tend to panic even more.

I was somewhat prepared for that. I had a joke I came up with just minutes before my presentation. Just in case. It saved my life, it did. I am pretty proud of it too. Of the joke. It was original and it was mine. And they laughed. A lot. Even my supervisor did. That relaxed me some. Put me back into the game it did. From then on it was more or less a smooth ride. A couple of hitches here and there to be sure. But it wouldn’t bother me no more. And the audience tends to be quite forgiving.

Anyway! my joke! gonna need to share that one!!! ..and..it is funny because it’s trueeeeeee

IT was a bit of an act, to be quite honest.

Anyway,without further adieu ado, here it is:

‘Guys, before I continue, I’d like to apologize. I have a headache. I woke up with it. And it’s not one of those, I’ve been drinking all night headaches. No, it’s the kind that you wake up with, and well, are quite annoyed and upset about, because,…well..because obviously a couple of hours of rest didn’t help any! ‘

AHAHAHAHA am I funny or am I funny!

Sure it doesn’t sound so grand now. Had to bee there for this one. Still. I was quite shocked by the reaction.

So people started laughing out loud..and then a little Stewie Griffin woke up in me…’Yes, Yes’ I went, ‘that’s me, right here, doing stand up comedy’ !! ‘So how about that airline food?’ some more laughing, followed by me pointing at the presentation and getting on with it.

All in all not too bad.

glad it’s over nevertheless.

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