Focus!

Back when I was a tech rep in the printing industry I used to give seminars to our customers. In the big city papers this happened at ungodly hours. When I did my presentations in the daytime I would be introduced to the class by a production manager. At the 3 AM sessions I was on my own.

These 3 AM meetings were usually for apprentices on the 3rd shift. They were tired, just wanted to get through the night and saw my seminar as two hours of rest. So with no bosses around and a non-involved audience, I did things to keep myself amused.

One time I had a short sleeve white dress shirt on. I took off my tie, buttoned the top button, clipped about ten pens in my pocket, put on a logo ball cap and my spare pair of eyeglasses. I came into the classroom, changed the pitch of my voice and introduced myself as one of the dayshift production managers. I then proceeded to introduce tonight's guest speaker.

As I got into it I realized that no one was paying attention and that I could say anything. So I did. I claimed our speaker had 37 patents in the printing industry. That his maternal grandmother was Alexander Duessenburg, the inventor of the movable gear press. That he learned his trade in a union shop in the 1730's and that he flew here from North Dakota in an experimental linear accelerator. And a bunch of other stuff. No one even blinked.

I thanked them for their attention and assured them the speaker would change their lives. I walked to the door and told them he'd be right in. Once outside, I put my tie on, loosened it and unbuttoned the top button, I tossed the pens and hat aside, took off my glasses and put on a sport jacket. When I re-entered the room I was a different man.

I stood just inside the door, looking out, and thanked my host for the kind introduction. When I closed the door and turned around no one had moved. I walked to the front and began the intro for that night's material.

One of the apprentices was staring a hole through me. I thought What the hell, let's see what he has to say. "You look like you have something on your mind." I said to him.

He continued to stare at me, sat a little straighter and said, "You're that other fella, anitchya?"

"Yeah," I confessed. "That was me."

He stared a little longer, recrossed his ankles in front of him and asked, "You got any more of them hats?"