My First Formal Business Meeting

About 6 months out of University I found myself sat in a day long meeting with my employers (at the time) CEO, COO, Operations Director, Compliance Manager and our external ISO auditor.

I had been maintaining the IT environment up until this point, this meeting was to kick off our ISO27001 audit process hence my attendance.

Needless to say on my drive in I questioned the decisions I had made in my life to get to this point, not that they were bad ones so to say, more the fact I was sh*tt*ng myself about the scenario of a day long meeting with those present.

After we conducted the normal pleasantries we took our seats. As my nerves caused me to have dry mouth like a sheet of 60 grit sandpaper I decided to pour myself what I thought was a glass of orange juice.

It was cordial.

WHO SERVES CORDIAL!?

After slugging through 330ml of that without pulling a "blue steel" sour pout I went from having a mouth of gravel to my saliva glands being turned up to 11 making every moment I had to take part in the meeting even more painful for me.

Skip ahead to lunch we ordered food to the room.

CEO:

Sandwich

COO:

Salad

Operations Director:

Salad

Compliance Manager:

Toastie

Me:

Spicy Chicken Wrap

ISO Auditor:

Chicken Wrap

...

Well you can guess what happened next?

...

After a sweet juicy mouthful of the chicken crap I raised my head to make eye contact with the ISO Auditor (who hates spicy) as they sunk their teeth into a huge bite of my spicy wrap.

Eyes welled, tears forming, he glared across at me as I swallowed my mouthful of his.

"I think I have your wrap, they mixed them up" I said.

He nodded in silence.

Mouthful taken from each there was no turning back.

The rest of the meeting was okay without other notable hiccups, but wow was it a baptism by fire to begin with.

This was my first ever formal business meeting and it set the bar.

...

Think it did me good in the long run - Only drink water and don't go for spicy.

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What are your worst meetings to mention?