Head Over Heels for Earnings

Dear Diary,

Before I start you need some background information about this entry.  My Company is on a calendar-year cycle and June 30th marked the end of our second quarter.  What that means is more data to analyze; longer days at the office; and lots of meetings.  I was invited to attend one of those meetings, as a guest.  It was a Model Validation Committee meeting, which, long story short, is an important meeting.

The Attendance Roster:
1 Chief Operating Officer ("COO")
1 Chief Risk Officer ("CRO") [CRO related story]
2 Senior Vice Presidents
3 Vice Presidents
1 Mattrix (me)

These are important people each, of which, can either help (or hurt) my career at [...BEEP...][?].

The meeting starts and we are all sitting around the conference table in the Board room discussing some important stuff.  Basically, the decisions made in this meeting would either affect our earnings positively or negatively.  So the conversation is a bit heated and very tense.

Now comes the part I play in the meeting.  I'm a guest.  I don't speak, but I do nod my head in agreement or disagreement at various things.  BOOM!  It happens.

We're going to need to slow time way, way down because what happens next took only about three seconds, but could have changed my fate forever.  Start the clock...

0.5 second: I decide to lean back in my chair...

1.0 second: My chair starts to lean backwards... and feels like it's not going to stop...

1.5 seconds: [To Myself.] "Oh crap!  I'm going to fall backwards onto the floor."

2.0 seconds: My career flashes through my head as I'm pretty sure they'll want to fire me if I fall down...

2.5 seconds: My knee catches the table... [To Myself.] "Oh, thank you!"

3.0 seconds: I didn't fall over, but my heart is now pounding and I have that sweaty feeling all over.

Had I really fallen down that would have been click worthy of [CLICKx5][?].  But, thankfully, it was a close call instead.

Embarrassing Moment Counter Total: No click... counter remains at 2

Tags: embarrassing, meeting
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