Uh Counting

All first year students at my college alma mater are (well, were) required to take a year-long symposium class. The purpose: teach us how to write and speak for the next four years, and hopefully after we graduate. There were different "topics" or "genres" of symposiums that everyone could choose from when registering for classes, created in an attempt to allow students to find something related to their intended major. It was the only class where everyone that was in the first semester was guaranteed to be in the same class during the second semester, so the class of 13 students really got to know each other after a year-long class, during what is usually known as a major personal identification creation year at college. 

Although the topics of the symposiums differed, the core assignments and grading systems were identical. Each semester had one large presentation/report project, that included a week of showing our professor new references for the report, group trips to the library to learn how to find information (using real books, not Wikipedia or Urban Dictionary), practicing the presentation, drafting several versions of the report, and visiting the campus writing department for assistance; basically every OCD aspect involved in writing a really good report was forced down our throat and we were graded on how well we did each step. Grading was actually emphasized on the process of writing rather than the final product itself. 

I'm not writing this to brag about my writing or speaking skills though. You will not see much of the MLA format in any of my posts, and I could really care less about how to properly reference a periodical at the end of my report. Hyperlinking is awesome. 

Something that was drilled into our heads during the speech presentation portions of the class, though, continues to haunt me in my everyday professional life. While practicing and presenting our final presentation, our public speaking skills were dissected by our classmates, then read back to us afterwards. It was very humbling, and embarrassing, but also very, very informative. Each classmate was assigned to record certain habits that you have while presenting:

Looking at the audience. 

Shuffling your feet. 

Biting your lip. 

Posture.

Your wardrobe.

Fidgeting. 

I still do this mentally during presentations at work or during conferences. It's a terrible habit, and I usually leave conferences that aren't particularly applicable to what I do with nothing but criticisms on the speakers' public speaking habits, rather than being able to discuss any substance of the presentation itself. 

One mannerism in particular haunts me the most though: the "Uh/Um" counter. To this day, if anyone mutters just one "Uh" or "Um" during their speech, I instantly mark it down on the closest piece of paper. 

I'm not sure what drives me more insane; the Uh's and Um's coming from the speaker, or the fact that I can't look past them and focus solely on them. It's like hearing a ceiling fan click at every rotation, and as soon as you realize it and start to listen to it, you can't tune it out and it drives you batty. The ticking of clocks is the same way. I've actually disarmed clocks from their batteries/electrical supply in public places due to incessant ticking. 

During the last year or two, I have been able to suppress the urge to physically mark each Uh and Um down, but I still count mentally, marking the start time on my watch and counting for a minute. Then using that number and averaging it out over the duration of the speech to get a rough estimate of the number of stalls the speaker input into their speech. I've sometimes resorted to the manual heart rate method of counting for 6 seconds, then multiplying by 10 to get the bpm (upm in this case), but if the speaker is an Uh Extender, meaning they say "Uhhhhh" rather than "Uh," then the results are skewed because just one "Uhhhhh" can take a second or two, not leaving enough time for another "Uhhhhh." 

It's very scientific. Trust me. 

So, yesterday, we had a MD come into our office to present to us research that he's been doing for a few years. His presentation was a voluntary portion of his job interview actually, so it was a rather unorthodox way of saying I want the job. The effectiveness is yet to be determined, as he actually hasn't been offered the job yet, but when my manager comes to me asking what I thought of the presentation, this is all I can say:

Yep. The presentation was littered with them. And not just the occasional-beer-bottle-in-the-ditch litter. We're talking WALL-E littered.

Note the start and finish times at the top. His speech wasn't just 4 minutes and 40 seconds long. I was actually intrigued with his presentation, and thought I was making progress with my...condition. But after he lost me on a graphic slide, I instantly started to focus on his slightly southern US drawl during his extended, and sometimes medially inserted Uhhs. I tried so hard to resist the tick marks, but finally gave in, checked my watch, and began the Uh seismograph. 

86 Uhhs in 4 minutes and 40 seconds. It has to be a record. That's one "Uhh" every 3.25 seconds. When considering that each Uhh, on average, lasted about a half a second to just under one second (for practical purposes, we'll say 3/4 of a second), he only presented actual substance for about 77 to 85 percent of his time slot. Take away the dead air that occurred every time he tried switching slides (another 2 to 3 seconds per slide, for about 20 slides), and that's another minute out of his presentation that could have been filled with information. His presentation started at approximately 2:03, and the Q and A portion started at 2:42, giving him 39 minutes of presenting time. Take away the Uhhs, slide switches, and an occasional reading mishap, one can end up with about 28 minutes of actual presentation.

Over 1/4 of his presentation was lost to all of us. Time which we'll never get back. 

And time where he might have wished he had spent preparing a presentation that was actually applicable to what we are researching at our company.