The Meeting

Sometimes there's just no way around making yourself look silly during a business meeting. And if it happened anywhere else, it wouldn't be any big deal...but meetings in the professional sphere have this aura of "nothing weird or upsetting can happen."

Let's take yesterday for instance. I go to meet with a few business associates who are helping me with a project. I am poised woman of confidence. Well, sort of. I mean, I was wearing a nice skirt and carrying a professional-looking binder. And I was glad to meet with them and talk about the project. To make things seem really professional, we sat in a formal conference room and take notes while we talk. A complete aura of "nothing weird or upsetting can happen."

3 minutes into the meeting, it was apparent that I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted to tell them. I didn't feel like I was being that helpful. So...I begin feeling silly because they're looking at me saying, "Tell us what you want!" and I say, "Um...something good? Do you need me to be more specific?"

Throughout the process of already feeling silly, I reach down to scratch my ankle...and I feel something smearing on my hand. I look down, and my entire hand is covered in blood! My eyes about bug out of my head! I look down at my ankle, which I had so innocently scratched, and it is also covered in blood. Apparently my nonchalant mid-meeting ankle scratch had uprooted a beastly Owyhee River-created scab.

So now what do I do? How do you look across a table during a business meeting and say, "May I be excused? I'm gushing blood." It doesn't really work. It would really interrupt the flow of the meeting. So I did what any normal person like me would do: ignored it and pretended like nothing was wrong. All while still looking my associates in the eye, nodding, and providing interesting feedback.

Praise the Lord, I don't think they noticed. Although, should they ever read this blog, I suppose my cover would be blown.