Presentations and the paucity of time

Presentations are one of the most abused forms of evaluation in a mba program… whatever happens we are to give a presentation… and what a presentation in total contrast to the “communication skills” one that we made in the foundation course – all with jazzy animated gaudy pictures text and graphs (Disney would outsource its next movie to us…)

I am a scaredy-cat when it comes to public speaking… general gyaan is a different matter – I can give a discourse on my beliefs and the futility of the human existence in a materialistic world, but mugging up a bunch of facts about some company set eons ago in the early 80s or 90s from some 20 page case… and giving gyaan after the insufficient analysis. What are we? Magicians turned consultants? Giving direction to the company on what it should do after reading about it for the first time the previous night? And the prof sitting out there who would have been giving the same case generation after generation and have gained enough knowledge to ask questions that would stump even the master gassers…

All the above factors always work against me during presentations… whatever little confidence I used to self generate by looking at the ppt would dissipate when I find my groupies rehearsing… well I never believe in mugging up “good morning ladies and gentlemen… thank you for providing this wonderful opportunity for me to show you how I can put my foot in my mouth…”. I always was confident about speaking impromptu than I was about rehearsing because I at least had the excuse that I didn’t rehearse and I got intimidated by the crowd…

What is worse is the situation where in you are expected to wait like a sacrificial lamb till your number is being called in a random fashion. You know that you are gonna get screwed but don’t know when… and the longer he takes to call out your number the bigger the butterflies become – you know the ones in your stomach… they suddenly start feeling like dinosaurs and having dinosaurs in your stomach is not a very comfortable feeling. The slow fear avalanches into a trepidation and then makes you jump at any small twitch from the prof…

It all begins when the unprepared feeling kicks in at 3am the previous night… now you are so sleepy that your eyes remain firmly closed and have switched off all the character scanners… but your mind has that guilt alarm that says “boss it is ok if you sink alone, but today you are going to pull others in your group with you…”. That starts the dilemma – my bullet ridden body wants to sleep and my guilt ridden brain does not. A very disturbed sleep with bad dreams of daggers and blood and white tunics my eyes open to realize that the dagger was actually my roomie’s finger jabbing me. I hurriedly go about putting on formals after a hurried bath (both of which I hate) and stuff the tie into my bag and rush to the great dome triumphant at having accomplished the impossible – being there 5 minutes early before my group. I have missed my breakfast but so what? That shows my dedication doesn’t it?

Slowly my group filters in muttering their speech under their breath. First impact on unpreparedness. Then the CA in our group asks us “have you guys read the financial implication of the 600,000 we put in the lean management for increasing our throughput time”. Externally I remain silent like the rest of them, but inside I have my second impact – what if the prof asks me that question instead of the rest of the group, and what exactly was lean management? …throughput? …increasing ?

I open my laptop to go through the manual again, but the prof asks us to shut it and the show begins. Luckily we are not the first group and I seem to have time to find out what exactly was lean management and the rest of the question. But now during the presentation I cannot open my laptop… so I surreptitiously open it up under the table and I hear some tearing sound – I pray that it is not my LCD screen doing the honors. Somehow I manage to locate the manual, my face glowing like a beauty soap model in the light of the laptop screen. But I also read more unfamiliar symbols in the manual. I ask my groupie sitting beside me what they meant and he said something that sounded like greek and latin…

By now I am petrified as the probability of our group being next is increased (as the denominator is one down). And the prof calls the other group in our industry – am I to breathe a sigh of relief or should I fear the next new symbol that I am about to discover. But my CA now borrows my laptop for a quick glance, and I am forced to look at the action happening in the center of the room. I find some of my brave comrades being barraged under the machine gun fire of questions and fault finding under the effect of which the prof was just orgasmic… and after the brave soldiers were buried by their own countrymen (well who do you think asked those questions?) the prof dug up their graves to put them in deeper by pointing out presentation errors.

The butterflies were growing into the size of small birds now and I notice some really obvious errors in our presentations. Of course not my part, but my part was anyways strung with loads of gas and he might ask anyone to present in any order at any point in the presentation. We are not next nor the next. But the gunfire continues and my stomach is now host to a t-rex (and maybe more dinos) stomping in rhythm to my heart beat then ripples through my skin…

And finally the time comes, I am called in to do the most dreaded area of the presentation that I had no idea whatsoever (didn’t have time to ask our CA). And I go onto the center, a deafening silence surrounds me. I start speaking, the source of the words unknown, the meaning of the words unknown; in fact I can’t even hear what I am saying above the buzz of silence in my ears. Somehow I mechanically move to the laptop and press enter to move to the next slide. Then I hear the verdict that my turn is done and the other person substitute. I walk back in the same stupor that I was while in the center. My group finishes and the firing squad takes its shot. And then the prof puts our final writings on our tombstone and we are done. We go back to where we were seated, a huge sigh of relief washes away the t-rex and the other dinos. As the desk thumping fades, a fatigued relief washes over me and I just want to curl up under my blanket. We congratulate each other over the narrow escape that we have had and cross our fingers for a non-bottom of the pyramid score.

I go to my hostel to prepare for the other presentation in outsourcing that I have the next day. I go through the same dilemma and have a troubled sleep. But this time I dream about a freefall into darkness. I wake up to realize that there are only 15mins. I rush through my formals and into the classroom to see my group setting up the presentation; we were the first this time. They heave a sigh of relief on seeing me, as if I am the messiah; little do they know. My turn comes in pretty fast and I go ahead, gas away to glory and end the presentation. Desk thumping follows, and a couple of questions and some professorial criticisms later, I am back in my seat, indifference personified, eyes on my laptop screen, hands on the arrow keys, mind on winning the 7 lap race – deaf ears to what the others are presenting and the profs caustic comments.

What was the difference between the first and the second day – no time and so no evolution from butterflies to dinosaurs and hence no fatigue.