a coworked dragged me along to this month's 'toastmasters' meeting. practicing my speaking abilities in public...necessary? probably. enjoyable? definitely not. willingly spending my lunchtime speaking on random topics in front of my much older, much wiser, MUCH more experienced peers? definitely not what i had in mind walking into work that morning. but sure enough, when 11:45 rolled around we made our way across the street and through an unnecessarily involved security process (seriously? NOAA? do they really anticipate fishery data espionage???)
as we stepped into the room, already 15 minutes late, every set of eyes swiveled up to meet my downturned gaze. we quietly slid into two seats by the door hoping to avoid notice, only to be immediately moved around and repositioned to an almost comically loud shuffling of food, bags and person. slinking motions, avoiding direct eye contact and i was already failing at this 'strong public presence' thing!
by the grace of god, moses, AND allah i wasnt called upon to answer the open 'table topic' question of the day. i quietly noshed away on my lunch while taking in the various presentations, carefully training my eyes on the agenda sheet every time a question was posed. by the time 12:45 rolled around, i let out a giant sigh of relief in having escaped potential public embarrassment (and potential notoriety).
while i see the merit in going to toastmasters, i dont exactly see the sanity. the anxiety, heart palpitations, and excessive sweating might just outweigh the benefits of giving a riveting speech. thanks but no thanks, ill leave the mastering of the toasts to the professionals, and work on mastering my drinking to the toasts.
I worked with a guy in Korea who belonged to Toastmasters and every time he had to speak in front of us co-workers (40 really laid-back people), he made it into a formal event. There was a lot of hidden laughing.
ReplyDeleteWhen he stood up to say goodbye on his last day, it sounded like an Oscar speech.