Cajun Humorist Justin Wilson used to tell a story about an LSU professor that worked the lecture circuit. He had a chauffeur drive him from university to university. At each school, the professor recited the same speech.
Over time, the chauffeur grew jealous, saying, "You ain't so big. I've heard that speech so many times, I've memorized it, and I can deliver it better than you."
"Oh, really?" Asked the professor. "Well, at the next stop, give me your hat, we'll trade places, and you can do the next lecture."
They followed this plan and the chauffeur received a standing ovation—something the professor had never done. In fact, he had completed the lecture in record time—finishing 20 minutes early.
A representative of the college announced, "Since we have time to spare, does anyone have any questions for the professor?"
A physics student in the back asked a question so complex that the disguised chauffeur could not even understand it.
"You, miss, call yourself a senior physics major? You should be ashamed of asking such an elementary question. That problem is so simple, I'm going to have my chauffeur stand-up and explain it to you."
At the EnvisionConnect Training and Conference this year, we elected not to ask programmers to present. The management team wanted to ensure that all developers were fully engaged in meeting their goals for the year. Thus, Marketing, Management, and Client Services took over the classes. The developers attended merely as spectators.
When Donald Bresee and I took questions about using EnvisionConnect for field inspections—questions we did not know the answer to, I was embarrassed, so I asked a couple of my "chauffeurs" to answer from the back of the room.
Thanks, Mike and Joey! I'm sure somewhere, Justin's ghost is laughing his hat off.
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