My humor at least amuses me

So, my 10-minute public speaking engagement is over. Whew. How I loathe getting up in front of people. I was to show a few PowerPoint slides on my last project (which was a cool project, trust me. I can’t tell you anything about it, though. That would be wrong.) and stand there while my coworker showed a demo of the new web site. And then talk about what was coming up next and take any questions. That sort of thing. I know the topic better than anyone else in our company. A real expert, I am. Should have been a slam dunk. No biggie.

I had an icebreaker that I was working on all week. As I bounced it off some people, I pretty consistently got a “um, you might want to rethink that” reaction. Here it is. Ahem. *sips some water*

Uh, you know how in those public opinion polls, death always comes in as the
“second greatest fear”? Anyone know what number one is? Yes, you in the back.
That’s right, public speaking. Which is why I’ve never understood why the
suicide rate isn’t higher before these quarterly meetings.

*crickets*

Anyway, so I’d already abandoned the idea of using this masterpiece, but I was talking to my boss’s boss right before he was going on to talk about a related topic. I told him my ice breaker. He laughed and told me to use it. I considered his career path and the grand stalling of his upward trajectory. I didn’t use the bit.

So, it’s over now. It went fine. Not great or anything. But fine. My ice breaker still makes me laugh, though.