Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously – Meghan Markle PowerPoint Edition

“Okay, that is not the answer I was looking for. You show me a man with pride and I’ll show you a man with limited options.” – Malcom in the Middle

drool

Maybe we should sell PowerPoint™ presentations as an anti-insomnia treatment?

One time I volunteered to put together a presentation.  On what?  It doesn’t really matter, it’s my theory that Scott Adams is right – “PowerPoint© slides are like children:  no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours.”  Heck, I like PowerPoint® so much I can’t even have a conversation with The Mrs. without stopping her and letting her know that they’ll be time for questions at the end.

The real reason that I volunteered to put the presentation together is that I knew the material really well, and I could work on it alone.  It’s not that I have disdain for my coworkers, it’s just that I generally think they’re insignificant insects.  I suppose qualifies me for a career as either a serial killer or being best buddies with Meghan Markle.

markle

Meghan, one bit of advice – seat belts.

One other bonus of this presentation work.  I was getting paid to do something I really like to do anyway, which is write.  So, based on an agreed upon structure and content, I was free to create a masterpiece of business information, one that would resound for ages through the annals of corporate history, or at least sit unnoticed on a shared network drive until the aliens from planet Zatar invade in the year 2241.

I will admit that I’m only nearly perfect.  The presentation was sent out the group for comments.  I’m very pleased that some typos were found, and some people had some pretty good suggestions on where I had been less than clear could have been clearer.  And I thought that the feedback was great.  In general, I really do think that more eyes will help make a presentation like this clearer and more informative.  Since this presentation would be used for training throughout the company, I did want it to be good.

beertrain

Mathematicians have an alcohol problem – they can’t drink and derive.  But they do know their limits.

However, there was one response that suggested a major change in format.  That email was followed by other team members emailing that they thought it was a good idea in a lemming-like way.  Once a group of lemmings is in full motion in a corporate setting, forget it.  Standing up against the onslaught of emails from the ever-reliable corporate coalition of the uniformed and the uninvolved never looks good.

For whatever reason, this particular situation made me as angry as a Harrison Ford when the nurse at the desk of the retirement home is out of those hard candies he likes.  The comment that suggested the format change came from the New Guy, who joined the group long after I volunteered and we decided on just what we were doing.

When I find I’m getting angry at anything in life, I try to take a step back.  I understand that, for the most part, I’m not just a sack of water and chemicals.  I was angry because I was letting myself stay angry.  Yes, your first response is your first response.  But after you have that sudden impulse of emotion, you get to choose how you feel.  Being angry is, at first, a reaction.  After that, it’s a choice.

And I was choosing to be angry.

thinking

Sorry, I can’t hear you over my inner monologue.

I pushed my chair back from my desk and away from my computer.  I think dramatic music was playing, and there may or may not have been a crescendo while the camera pulled back.  I sat for a minute and thought.

“Why am I letting myself get mad about this?”

In reviewing his commentary, the major change wouldn’t impact the actual content.  In fact, it could be used in a similar fashion.  The only change was (in my opinion) that it would be packaged with more Stupid – it was mainly a formatting change.  Stupidity is more common in the universe than hydrogen, and is universally fatal if taken in large enough doses, but this wasn’t a fatal (or even harmful) amount of Stupid, merely at the “minor inconvenience” level.

So why was I letting myself be so cheesed?

I got up and got another cup of coffee.  I try to limit myself to two pots a day.

I sat back down at my desk, and exhaled slowly.  I would refuse to be mad.  And the anger went away.  For whatever reason, this suggestion had hit at my pride.  My conclusion was that I was taking myself too seriously.  I was taking my own opinion too seriously.  And also that I hadn’t yet had enough coffee – I could still feel my jaw.

What happens when you take yourself too seriously?

yoda

So, you’re saying George Lucas is the problem?

In the worst case, you become a stereotype – the screeching over-educated-sociology major with a dozen cats and Trump Derangement Syndrome who would jump from pro-abortion to raising babies with a loving husband instead of cat farming with chardonnay if Trump decided he hated babies and marriage.  But there are other examples.  Let’s look at familiar characters that take themselves too seriously:

  • Cartman©, from the comedy cartoon, South Park™. His major source of humor to the show is his inflated self-importance and complete narcissism.  You must respect his authorit-ay.
  • Nancy Pelosi, from the live-action comedy, Congress. Like Cartman®, but skinnier and older.
  • Evil©, from the Austin Powers© movie series. Dr. Evil™ has a series of grandiose schemes based on old Bond® movies.  So, this is like Congress, but with better special effects.
  • Most Hollywood Actors. It always makes me chuckle when they take private jets to climate change conferences to meet with autistic teens who ride in multi-million dollar yachts.
  • Leftists who knit (as noted in this excellent article – LINK).

View at Medium.com

french

What do you call a Frenchman in a World Cup® final?  Referee.

When you take yourself too seriously you become a stereotype.  You become a subject (rightfully) open for ridicule, like most of the examples listed above.  As I noted, I got over being angry by putting things in perspective.

Things I try to keep in mind:

  • I’m an Internet humorist. Life is inherently a comedy, and not a tragedy.  So I try to see the humor and potential for goodness when I see myself taking things too seriously.  I have a killer standup routine that’s perfect for funerals.
  • Part of my job is changing the world to meet my expectations. It’s actually fun.  But when part of your job is to change the world, you sometimes forget that you can’t make all of the world meet your expectations.  I’ll just leave this one thought:
  • Do I really want to be the kind of person who gets upset over PowerPoint® slides? They’re not actually poisonous if you have less than eighty in a presentation according to the CDC.  In reality, most decisions that you make are meaningless.  Buy the Progresso® soup or the Campbells™?  Who cares?  You probably won’t remember the outcome of the decision in a month.  Why take that decision seriously at all?  (Get Ruffles® instead.)
  • There are things that are based in my values (Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python): I care about those passionately and act on them.  But the effort to care about everything the way I care about those values will burn me up inside.  So, at least I could cut down on the heating bills.  Maybe I should only obsess in winter?
  • I have to realize that the person who remembers my silly mistakes, my miscues, and my faults most is me. And my ex-wife.  But my ego thinks it lives at the center of the world and that’s why it’s so protective of itself.

In the end, I made the change that irritated me to the presentation.  Yes, the presentation got a little Stupider and less easy to use, but I’m willing to admit that it doesn’t really matter.  The biggest gifts I got was two less things to care about – my ego, and changes to that presentation.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

21 thoughts on “Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously – Meghan Markle PowerPoint Edition”

  1. Of course, at least a modicum of seriousness, especially where one’s career is concerned, does not go amiss. I am suddenly put in mind of a youthful indiscretion from my early days in defense contracting when a touch of gravitas and decorum might have spared me some embarrassment (and a less-than-cordial summons from the HRpies in personnel).

    As a newly minted engineer, I signed on at Warlabs, Inc. as a tech writer late in the Reagan defense boom, and thought it would be a hoot to take a dry and highly technical paper and goose it a little. Unfortunately, I created my magnum opus on a classified computer, which required that it be permanently logged into the secure data system.

    Pretty sure I authored the only NSM-catalogued document that references a$$-loads of conventional ordnance and metric fvck-tons of nuclear yield.

    The ol’ career has followed a highly predictable trajectory ever since.

    1. See, now that’s classic. MFT of yield. That should be our yardstick.

      Reagan would have loved it. And the Russians would have had a metric version.

      1. My mother kept a yard stick behind her chair for any miscreant behaviour-is that the yard stick you’re talking about??

  2. Intense discussions about the formatting of a PowerPoint presentation pretty neatly summarizes most of my corporate career. Sure, we all pretended that what we were doing was super critical and important but it wasn’t. We had whole departments and spent months of work devoted to preparing an annual tax form that literally no one read and no one could explain why we created them in the first place. The key to success in corporate America comes courtesy of Office Space:

    Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.
    Bob Porter: Don’t… don’t care?
    Peter Gibbons: It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my a_s off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
    Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
    Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
    Bob Slydell: Eight?
    Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired. ”

    Your goal should be B-/C+ level work so they don’t target you when layoffs come around but also don’t expect much from you or give you extra assignments. The best jobs left me lots of time for coffee and blogging.

    On the other hand, having my own small business means that the harder (and smarter) I work, the more money I bring home. The motivation is completely different.

    1. I had (swear) two adult humans spend 45 minutes deciding the order of a pair of columns on a spreadsheet. The columns had text.

      I picked one way, the two (who were my supervisors) picked the other. The Big Boss liked my way – that made them think (swear) that I understood what he wanted.

      Still shaking my head.

  3. As I was working on a highway project, a beautiful woman passed, honked, waved, and I waved back. I turned to two large fellow workers. One was the brother, and the other was the brother-in-law.

    “I think she likes me”. I commented with a smile.

    “That’s my sister….”

    “That’s my wife…”

    ,,,,,,,,,,,,I didn’t know how to reply, so I went back to work, felt very foolish, and hoped they were just pulling my leg.

  4. Words of wisdom, ever applicable.

    And ouch.
    I say that because the Meghan Markle meme hurts when viewed whilst carbonated beverages are exiting your nostrils under pressure.

    Srsly.
    Ouch.

    Well done.

  5. PowerPoint was outlawed (thank the Heavens) at a silicon valley payments company I worked for. Yes that one. Unfortunately so was being even slightly right of Mao or Stalin.

    1. Your corporate Khmer Rouge outlawed Power Point -? That’s heart-warming: even the most died-in-the -wool prog has a bit of goodness they can share with the rest of humanity.

      And Epstein didn’t kill himself.

      1. As a developer I hated PP with the power of a thousand burning suns. If I needed to persuade somebody they can read the code comments or the README page in github.

        Besides who has time for slides when the Great Leader is busy buying back the company stock?

        And there is no way Epstein killed himself.

    2. Yeah, I hear that unless you want redistribution of wealth they’ll redistribute your wealth.

      Sounds like it’s time for competition.

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