Spending lunchtime at a seminar where you don't really learn anything always feels bad.

Particularly so, when the topic is sexual harassment.

In fairness, I spent a number of years working in a university environment. They don't really pay money, but there are several benefits, including more free time than a European, and a thorough grounding in all the ways Americans may now vent personal offenses through the legal system. Add to that a couple of decades passing through dozens of workplaces, and it's impossible not to pick up an understanding of the legal dynamics of workplace sexual situations.

I've seen situations which seemed to be grievances worth redressing but ignored, some which seemed fabricated as an alternative to honest communication, and some which seemed deserving of penalties up to and including actual matrimony. It's an issue deserving serious attention, but honestly, I think I should be able to test out of sexual harassment classes by now.

Unfortunately, there's no way to do that and still protect my company from liability, so I spent precious time today listening to a presentation that was astoundingly similar to the first one I heard on the topic nearly twenty years ago. In the absence of new content, I felt fortunate to note brilliant details about its presentation.

A consulting company did the talk; I never saw the speakers before nor will I see them after. It was clear early on that we were getting our thirty minute speech from the rookie team of presenters. (The sleek blonde who sat unintroduced and wordlessly watched their presentation was either their management evaluating their performance, or some form of bait.)

While the rookies were certainly as effective as they needed to be, I found some of the MBA-speak from the young gentleman to be brilliantly out of place for this particular topic. Some examples:

When coming to a slide on a topic the discussion already had covered:
"We kind of hit on that already."

When trying to ensure a key point on a slide did not go unnoticed:
"One more thing I wanted to pull out..."

Both of those would have been perfectly standard American Business English in a finance presentation, but today, it just made me want to snicker.

The best thing, though, was the advice I received should I find myself suddenly dealing with a sexual harassment situation. I think I can handle the thing I was told to do first.

"Keep a level head, and be frank."