Question Time

Tonight I attended a very interesting seminar - the subject doesn’t matter. What was interesting us the one thing that always happens at these types of things: supposedly intelligent people forget very simple rules that they should have (I’ll venture so far as to say did) learn at primary school.

The offending rule in this instance: a question should end with a question mark.

For some reason, when confronted with an expert in any given field, lecture-goers seem predisposed to imparting their own opinions on those there to speak. During question time.

I’m going to pose a radical suggestion: don’t.

Nobody wants to hear your thoughts. If we did, we would read your blog/talk to you. We all go to such events to take advantage of the large amounts of knowledge the speakers have - if you want them to know how you feel about it, write them a letter/write a book and hope they read it (if it’s interesting and relevant enough, odds are they actually will.)

Don’t waste valuable question time that others of us could actually use to further our knowledge and/or careers. Especially when the discussion so far has been reasonably interesting.

When the host asks you to get to the point of your ‘question’, this is a sign that your rambles must come to an end. Another thing to look out for is an eye-roll the person said question is directed towards. A very tell-tale sign.

If we all remember what question time is there for, I won’t leave with a sense of my time being wasted.

If in doubt, remember the punctuation – if your question ends in a full-stop, the probability that you are boring everyone is tending towards a healthy 1.

They teach you this in Year One, presumably with the intention of creating vaguely interesting adults. Somehow, some always slip through the gaps.