After all of my years of theatre, I'm perfectly comfortable and collected in front of audiences. I don't even really get nervous anymore, just a tiny bit excited. It's fun, and I'm probably more relaxed onstage than I am offstage.
At work, however, it's proving to be a different story. I've been presenting a lot lately, and have noticed that the minute I walk into the room, I feel about 2 inches tall. My audiences tend to be mostly male, and mostly my parent's age or older; yet they are supposed to be my peers and associates at work. Many of them have advanced degrees, are doctors, nurses, lawyers, public health directors, or work for one of the State departments. I work with these people every day in one way or another.
So why does it intimidate me so much to have to present something to them? I feel like a little kid walking up to that podium, with no credibility at all. I don't have alphabet soup after my name. I'm just plain Wendy Collins. Gulp.
I also know that I'm easily the least experienced presenter in the room. Most of these people stand up with all sorts of professional poise and dignity and make speeches, often on a daily basis.
So I end up being an actress. I pretend to be confident. I stand up straight, look people in the eye, and keep my hands from moving too much. I plant my feet, and only move them for impact.
The only trick is, in order to be a good actress, I need rehearsal. When I don't rehearse, my voice work isn't good. The tension shows because the pitch of my voice goes up a notch, and occasionally I'll get going and my voice will actually waiver, which makes me sound afraid.
Which of course I am.
Master Ron says that no one in the world truly feels confident deep inside. He says that people just possess varying degrees of self-control which allow them to appear confident on the surface. Underneath we all doubt ourselves. I think he's mostly right. What's funny about it is that I don't doubt myself at all as long as I'm pretending to be someone else. It's just playing the role of Wendy Collins the Professional Person that fills me with terror.
I think I'm afraid they'll all find out I'm a fake; that I'm 26, haven't finished my degree, don't have any technical certifications yet, and have no real experience as a presenter. They might find out that I feel like a kid in a grownup world, feel awkward sometimes just unlocking my office door because it is such an alien concept to have one, and still wish I could be off somewhere travelling around having fun without any responsibilities at all.
They might guess that I spend my lunch hours sneaking off to see my boyfriend at the Store, or hiding someplace reading a fantasy novel instead of washing my car, getting my oil changed, and all the important things that I know they do on their lunch hours.
They might figure out that I'm not all that stable in my personal life, that I'm just now figuring out how to own a house and a car, just cementing a new relationship, and making all the mistakes that go along with those things. My coworkers have mostly been experienced in this stuff for longer than I've been alive.
They might see that deep down inside I'm very much a fantastical person, often too caught up in imagination. I think I come off as scatterbrained sometimes, because the train of thought chugs out of the station and then takes flight, only to dive into the ocean and start corkscrewing. I try hard when I'm at work to think inside the box. It rarely works. I don't think people would respect scatterbrainedness very much.
And one of the things I want most in the world is respect.
I keep telling myself that I've been hired here for a reason. Basically I have a knack for this technical stuff that's gotten me through a few different jobs. I just understand it, it seems logical to me. In my opinion, very few technical workers memorize manuals and schematics. Mostly they know just as much as I do on a theoretical level, and then find the details to fill in the gaps. I can do it, I really can.
Somewhere in the back of my head, though, I don't feel like that's a legitimate reason to have such a nice job. I didn't *earn* this. It fell into my lap in a stoke of extreme good fortune.
And I'm reluctant to believe in something that happened by accident. Most of the things in my life that I consider to be successes are things I worked hard to achieve. In my professional life I have no achievements. Just lucky breaks.
I get in front of the audience and I know this all too well, but you see, in the public speaking seminar that I attended last week, the lady pointed out that the most important thing to do in the first minute of speaking is to establish credibility.
My credibility. I have none!
For example, one of my coworkers introduces herself, then goes on to list some recent achievements relating to her talk. She basically says "You should believe what I'm saying because I earned my PhD from Harvard, then spent 3 years in India educating the medical community on HIV/AIDS epidemiology."
What am I going to say?
"I'm Wendy Collins, and today I'm going to talk with you about the benefits of switching technology versus hub technology in a wide area network. You should believe what I'm saying because I'm young and cute..."
No.
"You should trust me because I work with some very impressive people..."
No.
"I'm a credible source of information because just a minute ago I looked at all of you, and in order to psych myself up to talk, I made you all little kids in my mind. You were funny and threw peas at each other... "
No.
How about: "You should trust me because theatre people trust me. I never forget my lines..."
No no no!
"Because I'm a really nice person with a warm smile...
"Because I remind you of your granddaughter..."
"Because you need the information and no one else is going to give it to you..."
"Because I could kick you in the head..."
"Because I said so!!!"
Bah. This train of thought is getting me nowhere.
Last night after work I ended up not moving carpet padding for BCTG because it was raining, and I didn't want to flood the back of my van. Instead, I met Forest at Barnes and Noble and commiserated with him on his parents situation some more. He was pretty down about the whole thing yesterday, although I think his Judo class helped, and then some quiet time away from it all seems to have cheered him, too.
When he got home, he took a quick shower, and then we sat on the couch, watched Payback (The Mel Gisbon movie), drank some wine, and chilled out. He was quite affectionate, and so was I, but we didn't snuggle so much as we just were together, quietly. It was nice. We were so tired by 11 PM that we finally went to bed, and almost immediately were asleep. It was very nice this morning that I did not have to drag myself groggily out of bed, and wake up halfway to the office. Forest was still zonked when I left, but he doesn't have to work until 11 AM, so it's not such a big deal. I decided not to disturb him. He got even less sleep than I did this week, and tonight he's staying out later than I will, too. He's going out with his cousin Pat. I'm not sure what they are up to, but it doesn't particularly matter to me. I will be at home getting all grubby planting flowers. If it isn't raining.
If it rains, I think I'm going to hunt down the kitty-stench in our house and eliminate it, then watch a movie. A little peace and quiet sounds appealing, and I will be exhausted after today's presentation and meeting. Actually, I should have done housework last night, but I was just plain so drained and tired out from sleeping so little all week that I couldn't do it. The job just seemed too large.
Strangely enough, I'm actually enjoying the rainy weather this week. It puts me in a mellow sort of mood. I like to go for walks in weather like this. Honestly, though, I'm hoping it's sunnier and warmer less than a month from now when Forest and I head for Mackinac, because sunny weather actually puts me in a cheerier, more energetic frame of mind. It's better for travelling and adventuring.
Gak. I have to go set up for my presentation now. Fun fun fun.
