2 November 2016, 4.30 pm
I head off for the grand launch of the IP Inclusive Women in IP network. Although the idea of a bespoke Women in IP group can be a little controversial, for example among the Men in IP, a packed room and a sudden need for additional chairs suggest that it does in fact meet a demand. I address the packed room feeling very proud. As the person apparently responsible for this whole IP Inclusive business, which I have of course not done Properly or with Dignity but which nevertheless appears to be steam-rollering forward, it falls to me to say a few words of support. They are very enthusiastic words. I have not lost my touch on the old speech-making front, no sir. There then follows a panel discussion on the subjects of networking and mentoring. Some proper Women in IP, by which I mean they appear to be proper women and also to have proper IP jobs of their own as opposed to just stirring up trouble in other people’s, tell their stories and proffer advice. They manage to do this without interrupting or talking over one another, which takes some getting used to in the context of an IP event. They invite questions from the floor. Ooh, ooh, I say, putting down my Red Bull® for a moment and waving my hand excitedly at the proper women panellists. I have a question! The proper women roll their eyes. What do you do, I say, when someone you’re trying to network with spends all their time looking over your left shoulder to see if there’s anyone more interesting to talk to? There is a pause, and then the proper women suggest, tactfully of course, that perhaps I’m just not very interesting. Someone else from the audience asks what to do about the bloke who gives you his business card and then asks you out for an intimate lunch à deux. Apparently the correct way to deal with this is to decline the invitation politely, and not – as I had previously thought – to rip up the business card in the bloke’s face and place it, with the aid of a well-aimed punch, in his nether regions. It is good to know this. No wonder I am not very good at networking. One of the other proper women panellists reads us a poem she once wrote about the horrors of networking. This is my kind of woman. The poem includes all those difficult moments like trying to insinuate yourself into a conversation from the side-lines, and trying to insinuate your canapé into your mouth without engendering its structural collapse, and trying to insinuate your business card out of your bag when your fingers are greasy with collapsed canapé and there’s nowhere to put your glass of fortification, ie alcohol. I have never been able to cope with any of this. I would rather starve to death than try to eat canapés with a potential new business acquaintance. As for the thing about insinuating yourself into conversations, the panellists are agreed that the only way to do this is to wait patiently on the edge of the group, until sooner or later they take pity on you and offer to mop up your collapsed canapé. This sounds a most civilised approach. But I don’t think all the Men in IP have heard of it yet. In the past I have waited patiently on the edge of a conversation, only to be handed an empty glass and asked for a refill. So I have given up the patient waiting and resorted to the well-aimed punches instead, and these are guaranteed to get you into any conversation, no matter how macho.
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