15. The Awards Lunch

Nora is a de-motivational speaker, in her own words. After a speaking engagement, she’s asked to stay and attend an awards luncheon. She’s not very familiar with the organization’s work, and that’s why she loves it.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay. 

One of my jobs is as a speaker. I definitely would not call myself a motivational speaker, for obvious reasons, but I’m a…de-motivational speaker, perhaps? I’m not going to come to your business or your conference and give people, like, 10 top tips for productivity! I have zero life hacks. All my talks are titled things like Terrible, Thanks for Asking or Better Than Fine and you know what? I might be a tough sell for the wrong crowd, but I know that I am actually very good at this. And hands down the very best part of doing that job is that I get to meet all kinds of people from all over the country, that I would never, ever in a million years have the chance to meet otherwise.

I used to do this job exclusively in person, which meant that I would get on a plane and arrive in a new city and meet an entirely new group of people with entirely different careers and lives than the one I have. And then COVID happened and this job existed mostly online, where instead of looking people in the eye and having intense conversations in the hotel ballroom when I’m done, I would look myself in the eye on a Zoom call and have intense conversations via Zoom chat.

But! Travel is back, and I got to travel to a city halfway across the country, to meet with a professional organization dedicated to the invisible work of making society work. This sounds dark, sounds like it was the Illuminati, which I have been accused of being a member of, which was flattering. It was not the Illuminati, as far as I know, but then again that’s exactly what the Illuminati wants you to think! 

But from what this organization told me, this was a professional organization that comprises all the kinds of jobs you don’t notice until something goes wrong: making sure the trash gets picked up, that the streetlights work, that the electricity and water systems work. These are the kind of jobs I just didn’t really think about, in the same way these people did not think about the jobs that I do, either. 

And this, by the way, is my favorite kind of person to meet: a person with a job or a life so different from mine that I just can’t imagine what their days look like. If you are an accountant, I want to sit next to you at a dinner table, in the imaginary universe where I’m invited to dinner parties. I really do. I want to know exactly what you do all day, and how you do it. My accountant knows that I love him and am fascinated by him and his brain because when we end our calls I have more than once accidentally told him I love you! And Mike…I do.

So my job, in situations like this, is to stand on the stage, deliver the talk that the client has ordered from me, take some audience questions if they have any. And usually, I’m back at the airport a few hours after I step off stage, but this trip had a weird flight schedule, and I had extra time. Which I could have spent it at the germ factor, also known as the airport, but then an attendee asked if I would like to join the group for lunch. 

And I decided yes, I would like that very much, and so I followed him into a hotel conference room filled to the max with round tables set for 10, little salads and desserts at every seat, a glass of both ice water and iced tea for every guest. And then I realized that it wasn’t just a lunch. It was an awards lunch. This professional organization with — they announced — 1200 members — was having an annual awards ceremony, and I was a guest. And at the front of the room there was a table of trophies of various sizes, and the program began. 

During the salad course, they announced scholarships for children whose parents were a part of this organization, and we all applauded for the 18-year-olds who had already decided to spend their lives in public service. Then came the anniversary awards, where men and women who had worked in the field for 20 or 30 years walked to the front of the room to thunderous applause. There was only one award for having served 35 years, and the honoree had died just before the conference, and so his daughter, who couldn’t have been older than 35 herself, walked up to the stage and received her father’s trophy for all the days and the nights he had spent taking care of and worrying about and serving his community. And the entire room stood up and clapped, and the people on stage all hugged her and held her, and people wiped their eyes, and so did I, because I still have no idea what exactly any of these people do for work, or what their days look like, but there is something so wonderful about being in a room of people so deeply connected to one another through their work and their humanity. There is something so wonderful about the celebration of another person’s accomplishments. About applauding and cheering and acknowledging another person’s work, even if you have no idea who they are, or really what they do. 

What a feeling to be a part of a group, even just for a luncheon, to give a standing ovation to any person, for any reason. Like just do it! To stand up and clap and let the sound of your hands meeting join in that cacophony, to let out a whoop if the spirit moves you. To join the celebration for someone else’s win, even if you don’t know what they’re winning.

[claps] That’s my round of applause. That’s my round of applause for you. For anything you do that you feel good about. For anything that I forgot to celebrate of yours. Or something that I just didn’t know that you were celebrating. [claps] That’s for you. [claps] That’s for us.

OUTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny. And it’s going to be okay.

CREDITS