PowerPointless

I have one of those suck-up jobs. Not one where I have to do a lot of sucking up, but where lots of people suck up to me. I work in a derivative of procurement, and I manage an 8-figure “spend” on a commodity represented by an oversaturated market. I receive no fewer than 6 cold calls a day, and that does not count those who send me e-mail, leave me long-winded messages or who call me and do not mark their attempt with a voicemail.

I have instructed the sales reps to stop upchucking their pitch on me. I was on their side of the fence for 6 years, and so I know what they’re going to say. I also know that most of it is generic sales blather, and as I have more in my job description than “Grow Bored Listening to Lies”, I must often cut them off. I don’t harbor any particular resentment for those earning their living the Smiling & Dialing way, but frankly, even though I have been in their shoes, I stepped out of them for a reason.

Here’s why: there are only so many ways to say, “Hi, my name is Nobody You Know, and I’m hawking Something You Don’t Need, but I’m hoping that if I keep you on the phone long enough, you’ll let me come visit you, so I can Put a Name With a Face.”

Well, first of all, it’s ‘put a face with a name’, but somehow, no one remembers how to invert the obvious. Second, who cares what I look like, and more to the point, who cares what they look like? If you ever want to see Boys from Brazil incarnate, go to any Fortune 500 lobby and watch the sales reps come and go. Never was there a more cookie-cutter bunch of coat-and-tie goofballs, sporting all the latest in TrendyWear, talking on their cell phones, and grinning through yet another throttling by someone like me who doesn’t want to talk.

And yet, as I am charged with managing the Cat Herd, I must speak with them. I must listen to them pitch, and I must sift the facts to find a pool of vendors to support my clients, the senior management.

Part of my job is evaluating who is calling on us now, cutting out the drek and replacing it with new and shiny models, eager to please their new client. I’ve given a presentation to the CIO on my plans for judging the pool, and I am now on the cusp of demonstrating how I will proceed. The last time I did the CIO meeting, I had a staffer put together all my documents. I wrote them up, I did the ‘director’s cut’ on the graphics and the layout, but he was the one who authored the slides and who ran the projector at the meeting. This time, in part because that guy is now too busy to do my work, and in part because I wanted to learn the tool, I decided to build the presentation myself.

Enter Microsoft PowerPoint.

I am a Microsoft Office wizard. This is as a lay person, admittedly, but I can make Outlook, Word, and Excel dance as if they had pistons in their Help directory. I know all the keyboard shortcuts, I type over 100 words a minute, and I’m an Old Crone when it comes to technology. I use it all, I like most of it, and I am the go-to girl among my non-technical colleagues. Want to know how to mail merge? Call Amy. Need a .pst to free up space in your Sent items? Come on by. Ever see a macro run? Ah, sit beside me, grasshopper…

PowerPoint has thus far evaded me. I studied enough to get ‘above average skills’ on a test once, but I forgot it all as soon as I hit the ‘submit’ button. Frankly, as a recruiter, my line of work never called for presentations. To a recruiter, “presentation” means ‘sending a resume via e-mail.’ Hardly reason for a slideshow.

This job, though, and in particular this company, crave PowerPoint presentations. They salivate at the pretty graphs, they ogle the bullet points, and they ooh like children at the circus at any kind of animation. Never mind that PowerPoint is essentially Tetris for Executives; pretty and interesting, but suitable only in small doses and never mixed with real work. PowerPoint takes serious messages and turns them into Eye Candy-Grams.

I learned this when a coworker offered to help me with my presentation. She’s done a slide show for this same CIO twice a month for over a year, so not only does she know PowerPoint to its core, she also knows what makes Captain Technology drool. I lugged my computer up to her desk, sent her the files I’d created and opened the first slide. I started to talk through my them, and she held up a graceful hand to quiet me.

“You’re not using the Standard Presentation Template. Hang on, it’s right here on the Portal.”

Her fingers stroke the mouse button and in a moment, her screen fills with a pre-designed slide the color of a melting dreamsicle. She half-turns toward me, fingers still gliding. “Captain won’t let you present if you’re on a non-standard template.”

Whoa, call the cops. I'm using a non-standard template. What if the neighbors find out?

“Thanks,” I mumble, wondering how I’m to get the Blessed Template to lay over my already-drafted slides. Coworker reads my mind.

“You can copy everything over. Here, I’ll do it for you.”

Never underestimate the motivation of the under-utilized. This woman is a powerhouse of skill and drive, but she’s 3 weeks from the end of her assignment, and her work load has dwindled to….well, to helping Goobers like me put their presentations on the Sacred Scrolls. I lean over, watching keystrokes blaze across her laptop screen. By the time I’ve mustered up words enough to ask what she’s doing, it’s finished. “There,” she reports. “Now let’s fix your slide text. It’s way too wordy. Didn’t they teach you about the PowerPoint four-by-four in MBA School?”

How in the world can you put four-by-four and PowerPoint in the same sentence? Is this MicroSoft’s SUV? Also, what does she mean, it’s too wordy? That’s how I write, it’s who I am, it’s all part of my charm!

As for ‘MBA School’, I have 4 half-degrees from institutions all over the country, primarily because I keep changing my mind about what I want to study, and invariably I get halfway through and decide that the degree program is pointless, because this is school, and I work in the real world. Then a few years pass, and I decide that I must have an advanced degree, and so I pick something that interest me, switch to Something Practical, get halfway through, decide that the degree program is pointless….So no, I never learned the PowerPoint/SUV secrets. Woe is me.

It turns out that ‘four by four’ is code for another acronym I know better and adhere to less, which is KISS, or ‘Keep it Simple, Stupid’. In this case, it means Keep it Short, Jackass. When delivering new information, one should have no more than 4 bullet points on a slide, and no more than 4 words per bullet. I stew on this while Coworker chops up my text. While she works, I practice my Bullet Haiku.

· This is impossibly stupid

· How can you morons

· Not understand what I

· Need to tell you?

Not bad. After all, I’ve always liked poetry.

· It’s okay if you

· Prefer pictures over words

· I make more money

· Than all of you.

My presentation grows to 23 slides, and wherever I can, I drop in the 4x4. I get crazy and do a little 3x4, and once, I split up the 4 into two 2x2. Sacrilege! Eventually I add hyperlinks, a few graphics, and Coworker helps me with 2 tables and a chart. When I’m done, it’s more Mess than Monet, but it’s stuffed with data, and lined by dreamsicles, and my accomplice pronounces me graduated.

At the end of the day today, my magnificent boss comes by to take a look at my work. I’m nervous still, even though I have conquered the 4x4. After all, my manager is the PowerPoint Hierophant, the One Great Graph Man, the All-Color Accountant complete with Pie Chart. Surely my measly texted bullets can’t compare.

He’d clearly prefer more art, but my gamble to seduce his left brain triumphs and he praises my work. We talk over a few minor things he’d like me to add-no criticism, just him thinking out loud to help me bolster my presentation. I shut down my laptop, satisfied.

“See you Monday at the meeting,” I tell him.

“Maybe next time,” he tells me. “You got bumped. Budgets come first, you know. Numbers before art.”

Curses! All that work for…

Well, hang on now. I have another sidearm in my MS arsenal. And now I can Speak Art to Power anywhere I like. I have the gift of graph. I am the PowerPoint Priestess. I write and bullet, and I am not heard.

But at least I look pretty.

184.0 pounds this morning. No idea how that happened. I’ve been 187 all week, and then Poof! I’m lighter. I did this, despite having some whack-job vendor deliver GODIVA chocolates to my desk. They are definitely off the list. Definitely.

It was really, really hard not to starve today, since I was down 3 pounds and there’s a weigh-in tomorrow. But I did it. I’m not snacking tonight, but I did eat all my dinner, including the carbs.

· Maybe next time I’ll

· Detail my loss by

· Drawing a chart and

· Sharing it. Or not.

A the T(runcated)