Coldplay Again!

Against my better judgement (another bitter joke- when have I ever had a better judgement) I went and agreed to give another seminar about 2 months ago and it is tomorrow.

Here I am again, it's almost midnight and I'm struggling to finish all my work so that I can be out of the office tomorrow afternoon giving a seminar whilst nothing blows up in my in-box/ in-tray/ office dustbin whilst I am otherwise occupied. The sheer irony of it! It's not like I'm going on leave tomorrow or anything. It's ... like working extra today so that I can work extra tomorrow afternoon. And then come back to the office and work extra late to finish all the other work I could have done whilst I was giving the seminar. Grrr... this is almost indescribably stupid. In fact, it is. Indescribably stupid.

The whole seminar circuit is a vicious cycle. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Lots of good publicity for the firm and myself if I do (although the possibility of getting new clients is dubious if I don't have enough time to prepare, or simply if the seminar attendees are not interested in appointing external counsel for that particular topic/ issue anyway) and no publicity for the firm or myself if I don't. No shortage of other speakers to fill up the slots anyway! Every time I see anyone else speaking on a seminar topic that I think I could have done (better?) I chip another molar with the clenching and grinding of teeth, and chip another ankle with the kicking of myself.

Tomorrow will, however, be a "watershed seminar" for me since the next speaker (right after me! eeek!) will be none other than my very first boss/ mentor. The man who got me interested in this area of practice in the first place. My original inspiration, my Shi Fu. I was extremely traumatized when I handed him my letter of resignation in 2001. In the Kung Fu movies, no one ever hands their Shi Fu a letter of resignation, it's just not good TV. When he last worked with me, I was a junior tiger cub wannabe lawyer. He gave the seminars - I changed the slides and constantly forgot to switch off the screensaver. Now I'm meeting him (kinda) on equal ground. As cliched and ridiculous as it sounds (particularly at my advanced age), I still find it extremely nervewracking.

I can imagine it now and will probably have nightmares tonight about it. I'll be speaking, and he'll be sitting in front of the audience, listening and trying not to laugh. Or he'll just look horrified, and think, Thank goodness she quit. God forbid she should be dishing out this crap advice to my clients.

To add stress to stress, his current junior tiger cub associate will be in the audience too. Grinning.