I love coaching engineers on communication and presentation skills – partly because they have the most outrageous anecdotes about their peers. Today I heard a real doozy!

Turns out, in the middle of his presentation at a major annual conference, a high-level, well-known engineer answered his cell phone! Yes, that’s right . . . he was on-stage, in front of a large audience, his cell phone rang in his pocket, he took it out, said hello, told the caller he was in the middle of a presentation and couldn’t talk, then he hung up, put the phone back in his pocket, and resumed the presentation.

Now if that doesn’t take the grand prize, I give up! Wow, I was speechless!

Beth Levine