Friday, August 27, 2010

Awkward.

At work today I gave another presentation on healthcare reform and had an interview with the Wall Street Journal. And, no, I'm not particularly special - it was a transitional interview, so I really didn't do more than sit there and pass notes across the table to my boss, who was doing the talking. The idea is that I'll eventually take over all public speaking for our product - our VP has asked my boss to relinquish all media interviews to me, so I sat on this one with our PR director and observed, I'll do the talking next time and after that, it'll be just me and the PR director.

The whole situation is really odd and uncomfortable, but apparently while I was on maternity leave and my boss gave interviews to certain well-known publications, he let some of his ignorance and political views seep into the discussions, so he was barred from interviewing without me, the PR director or both to serve as chaperon until I received more formal media training to take over the interviews entirely. I was also given three of his speaking engagements for next month and October and asked to attend the AARP conference to exhibit. I don't know what to make of this. I'm flattered, but it's weird and I don't like it.