Embarrassing And Awkward Moments

@phil-a-dork said
Exactly.

@fmf said
I don't live in Poland either. You have me mixed up with someone else.

@FMF

You are saying stories don't need character descriptions though.

Does Bill's bag prevent stories that describe characters?

@Very-Rusty
Does anyone want to share their most embarrassing and awkward moments?

I got roped into a scam a few years back. The Indonesian Youth Hostelling Association, after someone cancelled, needed a speaker for their annual conference in a hotel in Jakarta. I agreed to pose as an International Youth Hostelling Expert.

I had a PowerPoint loaded up with photos of youth hostels around the world and intended to waffle mellifluously in whatever ways the pictures and locations and data graphics dictated.

When I put the flash disk into the laptop, the PowerPoint file was immediately destroyed [by a virus, we thought at the time] and I had to stand there in front of about 140 people and endure a Q & A session for two hours.

The first question came from an attendee who had got a whiff of the fact I was bogus over a cup of coffee before my presentation had started. He asked 'Who is the current chief executive of the International Youth Hostelling Federation?" Of course, I had no idea.

It was an agonizing ordeal with many questions about the internal politics of the IYHF and about an infamous corruption scandal over international funding for a youth hostel in Bali which had lead to the Indonesian Youth Hostelling Association being expelled ~ stuff I knew nothing about.

I was supposedly an International Youth Hostelling Expert, speaking in Indonesian to Indonesian youth hostel owners, and I did not even know that the Indonesian Youth Hostelling Association was not a member of International Youth Hostelling Federation [at that time].

Excruciating. But the gig paid a handsome fee.

@phil-a-dork said
You are saying stories don't need character descriptions though.

@phil-a-dork said
No the whole creativity of red over white and white over red mixed me up.

@FMF

Candid, as in, I won the argument.
Yes I agree.

Stories need character descriptions.

Thank you. 🤗

@fmf said
You are mixed up about a "book" and a "publisher" and a "manuscript" as well.

@phil-a-dork said
Stories need character descriptions.

@phil-a-dork said
Does Bill's bag prevent stories that describe characters?

@fmf said
And you believe your funny black man character made your fart story funny and it wouldn't have been funny without the funny black man and the funny way he talked. Got it.

@phil-a-dork said
Good luck writing a book that doesn't describe characters other than their occupation

@phil-a-dork said
If he didn't stand up and expose me it would have been a non story and disgusting.

@FMF

Dude, I won.
Stories need character descriptions.

You lost.
Let it go.

@phil-a-dork said
He made it funny.