Mr. Coleman,
Your youtube clips have infected me to no end. I was in a teleconferenced work meeting the other day. A colleague, Tyrone, was going over some recent findings w/ regard to his ongoing oncology research. He mentioned that one of our lead oncology drugs showed efficacy in his latest studies.
From the back of the room I uttered a soft “Yeah buddy.” A co-worker, Larry, sitting next to me writhed in his chair, his hands shielding his face and mouth, as he tried to stifle a giggle. Tyrone then went on to say how some other compounds showed some promise but were more or less ineffective after putting them through a stringent battery of tests.
I let out a gentle “light weight”. Larry couldn’t sit still. He was about to blow. Like Larry I had a hard time keeping my composure. People were starting to take notice. The Director of Oncology gave us a look. Larry’s boss gave him a glare. I was busting up inside because it was Larry receiving all the unwanted attention.
Tyrone continued by saying that he needed to rerun some tests on those ineffective compounds and hit them with some different analyses. I let out an audible “Gotta dig deep.” Darrell, another co-worker who was sitting across the conference table, heard this, shook his head, looked down and smiled.
The VP of oncology at our site, who sat two feet in front of me, turned around. I looked down, scribbled some articulations on my steno pad but could see in my periphery that he was glancing at me and Larry.
Tyrone oblivious to this clandestine mockery rambled on about how a competing company has a compound similar to our lead drug and is going through Phase II clincal trials but is having issues with it’s therapeutic parameters and needs to rethink its approach.
To this I added “Everbody wanna be a bodybuilder but nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight.” Larry lost it and had to excuse himself from the room. The eyes of many followed him as he walked out the door, slightly hunched over, deperately trying not to laugh. My supervisor (Tookie) looked at me inquisitively. The lead chemist (Trayleeka)looked at him then at me.
I shrug my shoulders. I had no answers. The meeting quietly resumed but the damage was done. The utterances have spread like wildfire and no meeting is safe. Thanks again, Ronnie.
