The chicken is rubber, the torture refined
From soup to quietly going nuts, corporate dinner events are hell
NTHATO Motlana, the late businessman, once said that one must leave a dinner table feeling that one could have eaten more.
The same could be said of speeches. The speaker should leave his audience feeling that they could have listened to him for longer. But most speakers don’t. They exceed their allocated time by a wide margin. The more boring the speech and the worse prepared the speaker is, the more time he will spend on the podium.
Long and boring speeches aren’t the only drudgery guests at dinner events are subjected to. Most events resemble a Guatemalan torture chamber.
First, the event starts an hour late. Then the sponsors claim their pound of flesh. You are lucky if all you have to sit through is a third-grade corporate video. Often, a representative of the sponsor can’t suppress his desire to waffle on about his employer’s generous support for Pygmies deep in the forests of the Central African Republic.
Corporate sponsors ought to read economist John Kay’s book Obliquity, in which the Financial Times columnist argues that our goals are best achieved indirectly. A few words of welcome and a very brief message about big-picture issues (obviously related to the sponsor’s business), delivered by an interesting person who does so in an entertaining manner generally leave a good impression.
Then come the speeches. I have been at events where the person called on to introduce the guest speaker has ended up giving his own speech. Twenty minutes later, you hear him say: “It is my honour and privilege to introduce our guest speaker, the honourable . . .”
The guest speaker ascends to the podium. You give His Excellency the benefit of your doubt. Wow me, Excellency, you say to yourself. But five minutes into his speech you know it’s going to be a very long night.
He wrestles with his text without ever making eye contact with the audience. Not that making eye contact will make any difference. The speech is a pile of lard anyway.
This sends the audience into their imaginary bunker. Your place of refuge is wandering down memory and every other lane. You wonder, for example, what happened to Fidelina. She was that high-school beauty you had your eye on until that stupid, good-for-nothing soccer player moved in on her.
Well, you console yourself, they probably got married, had 10 kids and she has lost all but two of her teeth. You return from memory lane to notice the chap sitting at the other end of the table fine-tuning his moves for the forthcoming nose-picking tournament.
Then the speaker declares the war over. This is met with wild applause, even a standing ovation. Bar the BEE fellows who are applauding His Excellency to guarantee future business, the rest of the audience are celebrating. They are saying: “Despite all you threw us, Your Excellency, we are still standing. We made it, dear honourable.”
The master of ceremonies announces to your delight that you will be entertained as you eat. Dinner is served. But as you chew, you wonder if you might be chewing on the remains of Jamludi, your grandfather’s ox that disappeared 42 years ago.
This is made worse by the band, which helps you understand the meaning of the phrase “It’s time you faced the music”. The band has no sense of occasion and the moment. They play as if they were at an openair concert at Johannesburg’s Zoo Lake. The singer is drowned out and LONG NIGHT: The late Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia’s president at the time, falls asleep during an assembly session in the parliament in Jakarta in 2000 screams louder and louder. You can barely hear the person sitting next to you. You think of sign language, but you perish the thought when images of that fellow at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service flash past.
Then comes the vote of thanks, the most unnecessary part of any evening. The person anointed for this task recounts the whole evening. For good measure, he thanks every Tom, Dick, Jane and Flora the florist, shaving a further 20 minutes off your evening. Five hours after you arrived, you stagger towards the door.
As you exit, one of the young ladies who have been sitting outside the venue oblivious to the torture you were being subjected to thrusts a glossy paper bag into your hand. She smiles and asks: “Did you enjoy the evening, sir?” You have no idea, you say to yourself.
You rummage through the bag. There might be comfort eats in there. Chocolate, for example, is a good comforter at times like these. So is ice cream. But there’s none. There’s a key holder that glows in the dark, a pen, a notebook and a glossy magazine. All courtesy of the platinum sponsor. You whip out the magazine and there, staring back at you, is a Pygmy fellow. He is wearing a very broad smile, and you notice that he has beautiful eyes. He looks very contented with his bare existence. Then it hits you why. Obviously, the poor bugger has never been anybody’s tortured — eh, sorry, I mean honoured — guest.
Sikhakhane is deputy editor of The Conversation Africa