THE EXCRUCIATING PREPARATION ON POWER POINT PRESENTATION

I am in marketing and I should enjoy doing power point presentation. No, I despice it with all my heart. There are amazing things that you can do with power point presentation but I swear to God that to do these things from scratch are out of this world. Time consuming and when you were trying to translate 'their' thinking into words are absolutely pain the b*** and a s******* nightmare. Recently, I had to prepare for a presentation which was presented by 'other' people, however, I had to visualise what 'they' wanted to present while I was doing the 'cosmetic' + trying to do mind reading. That was not a pleasant experience but I had to, to prove I could do these things.

I had to change things like mad, I felt like a pure 'graphic' designer without 'passion' to do them. I was staying up late forgot about food and ended up went to bed starving or ate too late. I was told by some 'younger' people that they had accomplished what I did, 1/2 of the time and with better 'graphic' than that. I felt like I wanted to smack that 'boy'. "Hey! why did you have to put yourself through all these agony? When I was in school, we used *flash* and we had tremendous things done within minutes!"...O yes I am sure of that and I wished he could have said that to me EARLIER! I could just freaking pay this boy to do the bloody animation and I did not have to spend hours in the office and my house doing freaking power point presentation! Duh! Here's the example:

1. Thursday...editing presentation, some said put this put that, throw this throw that.

2. Friday..ok..looked awful...change this change that...put this put that, throw this throw that...

Went home...edit....edit....8:00pm ate sumthing...put on startrek...edit....edit....edit....1:00 or was it 2:00am?...went to sleep on the couch...

3. Saturday...woke up switched on the TV (since I fell asleep on the couch..TV was just an arm's reach)...then edit...edit....edit.....coffee...edit...edit...

put on startrek...edit...edit.....everybody asked me to email to them...yeah...ppt presentation...big file...zip it....emailed...OMG I am just tired writing this....

OK...fell asleep on the couch again....

4. Sunday...tried to be a little civilised did a little bit of laundry and shower....2pm..arrived in the office and continued with the ppt presentation...and I forgot to have lunch...edit...edit....edit.... the presenter came in and had a look...went through a little bit here and there...another fella came in and said this and that...changed this and that and finally got the vote said...hey between us lets just say, "F*** it! Just stick to the design and not change any thing other than *content*!" I concur...only I was still left to do the cosmetic part of the presentation up til Midnite..and yes ...on a sunday...printed everything out and oh...I also managed to arrange the caterer...phuh at this time I felt like a wonder woman minus the super power.

5. woo hooo Monday!.the D day...the ppt presentation is going to be presented...

The lady that I was dealing with for the past week or so was so looking forward to see my dark circled eyed face. I was trying so hard to smile. Saw the guy we were supposed to give the presentation to...he was bouncy but I was not in the bouncy mood....there were a bunch of 'french' delegates had a meeting with him first and my eyes were quite sore..ahaa...not from the lack of sleep but one of the frenchees wore a 'maroon' suit. Ya haa welcome to freakin pareee with a 'great' sense of fashion and color...I was well entertained...ha ha

I peeked in the meeting room...the room was huge and expected spectator was 4 people..hmmm...I was like...perhaps...we all could be teachers...

After that, turned out that the guy we were suppose to present to had only "15 minutes" to spare on my two hour long presentation. I froze. The very 'hard-work' just flashed right before my eyes and flushed right down the toilet. Luckily he agreed that we 'briefly' presented to him thr gist of the presentation and gave us some hope that we will get more projects in the future.

We went to the conference room and saw the others were all ready and the meeting was chaired by a different person..but hey life must go on.... I saw some fell asleep but I was not offended because that was their way...I dealt with this client for more than 5 years...I know their style..only I felt like I should have just do the ppt presentation with white background, bullet points and no animation....they probably stick better in their heads.

The presentation went well and the presenter did a great job. I must learn how to be as eloquent as he was. I hope when I re-read this blog...I will be a 'millionaire' because of this presentation. And yeah...the caterer turned up...the food was wonderful....what was the title of this blog again? excruciating something something?....Oh I found food..everything will be alright...