Meeting? Awesome!

This is a follow-up to my previous post about my first-ever pre-meeting. That pre-meeting, as I mentioned, was with a vendor who wanted to sell their product to my company. They were gathering our requirements so that they could give an effective presentation later. Yesterday, Wednesday, was that presentation.

That's right... I got to meet Little Miss Awesome face-to-face. She has fairly bright red hair. She had black pants and a white top, with a green undershirt. She also had a green sweatshirt that she was wearing in kind of a New Englandish type style... she had it draped across her back, with the arms of the shirt going over her shoulders and tied together in the front as if they were a scarf. The forgettable white and black really made her sweatshirt and hair stand out. The red and green made me think happy Christmas thoughts.

So, where was our Perky Presenter actually from? You make the call. She had:

- The before-mentioned New Englandy shirt/scarf thing
- An accent that sounded ever-so-slightly New Englandish
- A residence in Tampa, Florida
- Speech mannerisms that were almost California Valley-Girl-ish ("Like, Awesome!")
- An occasional un-accented "Y'all"

Remembering the conference call from last time, one of the first things I did was write "Awesome" and "Y'all" on a piece of paper, and I started keeping track. Flaming Red actually started out strong, but as she got deeper into her presentation she said the keywords less and less. Out of 6 (yes, 6!) total hours of presentation, she only said Awesome 12 times, and Y'all just 7. I was mildly disappointed.

At one point, She-Of-Many-Nicknames was using a web tool of theirs to upload an image. She went to a folder on her computer that had a bunch of random photos in it. She picked a photo of a surfer, saying, "We'll just use this surfer dude...". I had an immediate flashback to my Surfer-Dude story and had to suppress a giggle.

The Vice-President of this company was also here for the presentation. He was interesting. He actually started off the entire presentation with a brief slideshow of "This is our company, this is what we do" and so on. I was near the front of the room, where he was standing and pointing at the image being projected up on the wall.

VP sounded just a little bit like a preacher when he talked. Everything he said was said with deep conviction, as if he whole-hearted believed every word he was saying. He also had a perpetual smile that was just a tad bit creepy. While he was talking, for some reason, he zero'd in on me. Before long, VP was telling me all about the history of his company, and why they were the absolute best choice for our needs, and he never broke eye contact with me. I had to force myself not to laugh... there was only one person in the room with less seniority than me!

So... 6 hours of presentation. 4 hours solid after lunch. I couldn't feel my hinder by the time it was all done. Arg.