Bad things happen… but they make for the best stories. This blog is for all the jinxed souls out there who seem to attract bad luck in academia. As conferences are the perfect stage, almost predestined to showcase our most embarrassing moments, we will start right there.
This blog post is for everyone who shivers at the thought of presenting on the conference stage. All the PhDs who just started and want to know the worst-case scenarios (and how they are not that bad). All the ones who envy the improv geniuses on stage and feel alone at being presenters in the category “meh”. The ones who’ve had their share of mishaps and meltdowns in the limelight. Here’s the start of my collection of my most cringe-worthy, face-palm-inducing moments from the academic battlegrounds, also known as conferences.
First off, let me be clear: presenting at conferences is not my cup of tea. It’s not the act of presenting itself but the cocktail of nervous anticipation and the high probability of embarrassing incidents that turns my stomach. And let’s not forget, the advent of hybrid conferences in the post-COVID era has only upped the ante on technical glitches. As a scientist I don’t believe in the supernatural but looking back I sometimes wonder about a “conference curse”.
But here’s the silver lining: the fear of conferences starts to fade. With each presentation and each mishap, you become slightly less terrified of the sea of critical eyes staring back at you. And if bad luck does not want to leave you alone, I guess you can tell a funny story later.
The Cough Symphony
The story actually starts 1-2 weeks before the conference. I got sick. It wasn’t too bad, and most symptoms were gone by the start of the conference. However, I still couldn’t get rid of my annoying cough. As the morning of my presentation approached, I went to the pharmacy and bought cough drops. Everything went fine until I went on stage (except for the fact that my phone got stolen on the second day of the conference. Being a phone-dependent millennial with an exceptionally bad sense of orientation, and knowing only one other person at the conference, I was almost glued to my colleague in fear of wandering alone in this criminal city in the evening – but that’s a story for another time).
I started my well-practiced talk, and already on my second slide, I felt a cough building up. I tried to clear my throat. Several times. It didn’t help. Sounding like Dolores Umbridge, I continued. Hem, hem. Which is, by the way, “Ejem, ejem” in the Spanish Harry Potter version. I think I was somewhere between the German “Ähem, ähem” Umbridge and the Dutch “kuch, kuch” Umbridge. With a ratio of 35% coughing and only 65% scientific content, I continued.
It was time for a fully grown cough. Turning away from the audience, I coughed into the crook of my arm. Unfortunately, I forgot about the fancy head microphone, which at that moment felt like a megaphone.
And so it continued. I tried to hem, hem and cough my way through the presentation, and when that didn’t help, I just tried to talk through my tickling throat. While I was wheezing through my results and discussion, I felt a tear building in my eye from the tickling and overstimulation. I saw my colleague in the audience grabbing my water bottle, looking undecided if she should interrupt and hand it to me. The session chair jumped up and ran to get a cup of water. And it went on.
Obviously, I survived (although my ego suffered quite a lot). After my presentation, an unusually high number of people approached me – not to discuss my research (maybe they couldn’t hear much through my wheezing) but to congratulate me for surviving. Even at the end of the week, people approached me, still knowing me and my topic. However bad it was for my ego, it was very good for networking! Can recommend.
