Forget I spoke. No really - please.

"Me? I have a Masters in Inane Conversation. Yes, did my undergraduate in the Social Sciences majoring in cross cultural small talk. Oh no, I didn’t study embarrassing myself professionally, I just learnt that on the job. But I have had several years experience."

Fortunately I can be relentlessly chipper. Fortunately for me that is. After what I could quite comfortably label the most challenging – nay hostile – meeting I have been in within living memory, I not only survived but somehow also managed to join and then steer a group of people through cheery dinner time conversation which was both safe and inclusive. Possibly I looked like I was on crack, or at least on some kind of Pollyanna Pill, but you know, it sure beat crying after the meeting and going back to my room to hide. And anyway, in the meeting the ‘griller’ became far more pleasant with time, as if it was somehow an endurance test, and the longer I stayed in the conversation, the more we had established that I had neither qualifications nor experience nor original thought nor the drive to seriously push my principles in the projects I’m involved with, the more friendly the conversation became. If I’d known I would have begun the conversation with a confession ‘look I really know bugger all about this, and you’re one hell of an expert, so let’s skip the bit where you ask me about particular text books and whether I’m familiar with them and then act mortified, let’s just skip that bit and get to the bit where you think I’m a knob’ and we could have saved a lot of time and got to dinner earlier. Hence dispelling any notions you might have that this particular work trip was a junket. Note to self: grow thicker skin. Note to self: avoid special one on one meetings with people you don’t know, about things you don’t know much about. Note to self: read people’s books before you speak to them.