Friday, February 27, 2009

Fake it, if you don't belong, yeah

I had a bit of an adventure today.

My father's PR firm was up for a CSR award with PRNews. Since the awards luncheon was being held at the National Press Club here in DC, and I've done some work for his company, I was nominated to attend the event, as it would be cheaper than flying someone else out.

Great!

Oh yeah. I'm not a PR person, and now I not only was going to be hob-knobbing with top PR professionals, I was also possibly going to have to address the whole group in an acceptance speech. Luckily, I was given a prepared little blurb by my dad, but still.

Cue butterflies in stomach.

I met a lovely Canadian woman about my age, and a charming executive from Travelocity (who called himself, in his speech, the father of the roaming gnome, but I never got a chance to ask why), as well as a handful of other people. The lunch itself was delicious and everyone was friendly. No one interrogated me too much.

The sad news? We were the runner-up, and got an honorable mention. That's actually nothing to scoff at, but it isn't quite winning.

The good news? I did not have to speak to the entire group.

I was much relieved.

It was still a good experience, and hopefully the award will be good for my dad and his firm.

The following is a rather terrible picture of me (shiny! washed out!), but I am amused at how my crooked nose is highlighted (click to enlarge, if you dare).

I'm glad I was able to attend. If you want to know more about my dad's business, let me know and I'll pass along the information. I'm simply not posting it here in an effort to keep somewhat anonymous.

Congrats, Dad!

2 comments:

Giggles said...

I'm guessing he was the one in the meeting who suggested the weird garden gnome thing, and that's why he's the father, of the idea.

Too bad you didn't have your own garden gnome handy for him to sign.

AmandaStretch said...

Well, yeah, I figured that much. I just wanted the story. :)

And yeah, that would have been rad.