Jokes
"And next, we have Dr. Katherine Calvin to give us a presentation on the mission statement of her company, Calimov." The man – sporting a gelled black hairstyle and a dark blue tie – gestures Katherine up to the whiteboard with very little trace of friendliness in his smile.
Feeling oddly nervous, though that may be mostly down to the fact nearly everyone in the room is a millionaire at least twice over, Katherine gets up from her seat next to Nick – who gives her a cheery thumbs-up, as if this fact doesn't bother him at all – and heads for the front of the room. How she wishes she had forced Nick to run the presentation for her.
"Hello. My name is Katherine Calvin, and I run a technology-based company called Calimov."
They've heard of it. Murmurs come from around the room, and Katherine sees a few people give her PowerPoint a dark look. She needs to make her presentation count. Calimov has not been getting good results recently, mostly due to the whole Mary situation, and of course, as the boss, it's her job to rectify this.
"Can you tell us about the recent – problems that have been troubling Calimov?" a woman on the back row calls politely, halfway through her presentation, just as Katherine is beginning to be able to breathe. "For example, the unexpected resurfacing of the supposedly deceased Mary Douglas - who then proceeded to nearly take you and your company down with her."
Katherine throws an annoyed look at the woman responsible for the query. Great. They're already picking out obvious holes in her argument. Already.
"Well, as I'm sure you've all heard, we've been having some issues with some of Calimov's experiments recently. But I can assure you that we're working to solve these issues around the clock." Katherine gives the room a flashy smile that she hopes is confident enough. "Though honestly, there's not much we could have done at the time to avoid the issues we ran into, despite all the planning we put into it. Hey, as I always say, no amount of advance planning will ever replace dumb luck! Am I right…?" Katherine's voice trails off as she scans her audience for any sign of anyone having. Stony faces are her only reply.
That joke was definitely in the category of "wrong things to say during an important business presentation".
The only sound that breaks the awkward silence is a splutter from the front row.
Nick tries to straighten out his expression as the woman sitting on the other side of him gives him an uncertain look, though he lets out another strangled giggle before he manages to shut himself up. Not helping, Nick.
"It wasn't that funny," Katherine grumbles under her breath as she taps one high heel against the floor, sat back down next to Nick two minutes later. A smiley woman stands talking loudly about her own oh-so-successful company up at the front. Two smartly-dressed men are nodding at a point she's just made from a couple of rows back, their expressions very different to the sceptical looks on their faces during Katherine's presentation.
"It made sense in our context," Nick points out hopefully.
Katherine sighs. "Yeah, and that's a great result in a room full of important businesspeople that I really needed to make a good impression on. One laugh. From my co-worker. Who probably wouldn't understand a sophisticated sense of humour if it hit him in the face."
"That's the last time I laugh at any of your jokes," Nick mutters darkly.