Bad Speaker Behavior

Bo Bradley, operations manager, and yours truly at offending event.

Are you a want-to-be speaker or a professional speaker? Today's peanut gallery wisdom comes after a rude speaker proceeded to disrespect the audience's time not by 15 minutes, not by 30 minutes, not by 60 minutes, but probably longer since we got up and left after the offending hour had past. For all we know this speaker continued another two hours past time allotment. Why no one got up and left sooner than they did is beyond me. My operations manager Bo Bradley and I sat and became more and more miffed as we wanted to go home -- it was already 10:00 p.m. and her speaking time was supposed to end at 9:15 p.m. A few attendees began to slowly slip out to family responsibilities. We finally ran into the group organizer who encouraged us to pack up. Well, I am a business owner (3L Publishing), and I am mindful of appearances. I didn't want to give a "rude" appearance to the group, but after the inconsiderate speaker continued on "past our bed time," we got fed up and packed up despite appearances. Bo, who runs her own group, was disgusted and remarked how it shows a complete lack of integrity and respect for other people's time to allow a speaker (I don't care WHO that speaker is) to run so far over-time it's insane and just plain rude. I could excuse the speaker if she didn't have a habit of running over-time everywhere she goes. If you intend to become a speaker or routinely speak, it is a point of integrity and respect not to run over-time. I run the group Writer's Who Mean Business, and I always make it a priority not to go over-time and end on time. People invest their time and attention to see you speak, but that doesn't give you carte blanche to do whatever you like and go on and on. To make matters more annoying, her over-time was invested in doing an "info-mericial" pitch for her conference. Who likes an info-mercial? Not me. And I certainly don't enjoy one when I'm exhausted from a long day and the over-time buzzer went off an hour ago. And that's my friends is a big "just saying."