Trickle-down stress-outs

It’s amazing sometimes how little things become big things for no reason. For instance, sometimes a bigwig can make a passing comment to an underling that becomes blown way out of proportion.

Exhibit 1: Lately I’ve been the resident PowerPoint expert at SMU as we prepare for another visit from the Board of Trustees. This time around, instead of requiring me to actually push the buttons as the President and Vice Presidents give their presentations, we’ve gotten smart and have invested in remote-controlled presentation clickers that the head honchos can hold themselves and press as they move from slide to slide. That should make life easier, right?

Yep…until you realize that there are many clickers out there with varying levels of features. Some have laser pointers, some don’t. Some have timers, some don’t. Some work with PCs, some work with Macs. (And usually not the same ones.)

So here where’s the trickle-down stress-outs come in. I imagine the President had a conversation with one of the Vice Presidents on Friday that went something like this:

PRESIDENT: Hey, I like that little clicker with the laser pointer. Can we use it for the Board presentation?

VICE PRESIDENT: Absolutely.

PRESIDENT: No big deal. Now on to other, actually important things…

Then, the Vice President has a conversation with his henchman:

VICE PRESIDENT: We’ve just got to have the president’s preferred clicker on Thursday. Make sure we don’t use the one he didn’t like from the last time. We’ve just got to have it.

HENCHMAN: Absolutely.

VICE PRESIDENT: Ok, no worries. Now on to other important things…

Then, the henchman makes it downstairs, where he finds my boss.

HENCHMAN: I can’t believe we gave the president the wrong clicker last time! How could you be so dumb. We’ve got to have his preferred clicker. The vice president told me how important it was at least five times. Don’t screw this up! Get the right clicker.

Then, my boss calls me.

BOSS: We need to order at least ten of the President’s preferred clickers. Order them right now from Office Depot. Can they deliver this afternoon? Better yet, drive to Best Buy right now and buy them. Also buy a box of batteries. No, make that a case. We can’t screw this up! The President loves his clicker. Whatever we need we need to get it right now. It’s got to have a laser pointer on it. Don’t forget the batteries. I’m so stressed about this. Do you think you can go right now?

And that’s how a relatively innocent little comment from the top gets blown out of proportion. No wonder heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. these days!