“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”
That was one week before the training day.
## The Morning of the Workshop
I got up at six. I made coffee, went over my materials one more time, and got dressed. I wore a dark blue blazer and gray pants, the combination that I have determined over years of doing this work is the right level of professional for an internal training room. Not a suit, which reads as an auditor. Not jeans, which reads as under-prepared. The middle register that says I take this seriously and I’m not performing it.
Daniel was already up. He had a seven-thirty start time and I had an eight forty-five setup. He made himself toast and we were both quiet in the kitchen, the specific quietness of two people who have said what needs to be said and are now waiting for events.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Rachel–“
“Daniel.”
He stopped. He looked at his toast. “I know I handled this badly.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to fix it. After. I’ll talk to everyone properly.”
“I know you will,” I said. And I meant it, not as a capitulation but as a simple prediction. He was going to fix it because he had no other option now, and he knew it, and that was going to have to be enough for today.
He left. I sat at the kitchen table and ate breakfast slowly and thought about the workshop.
I have been in front of rooms full of people for six years. The first few times I was terrified in the way everyone is terrified the first few times, and then I developed the specific version of calm that comes with doing something repeatedly. I know what I’m talking about. I have seen the problems I am going to describe in every room I have ever worked in. I know how to read a group, how to handle the person in the back who thinks this is a waste of time, how to make a process diagram interesting to people who became convinced in elementary school that they were not good at abstract thinking.