Nervous jokes

Last night was my first official meeting as a parent governor. I was nervous because I knew I would be nervous when I got there and I sometimes say silly things in an attempt to compensate for my nervousness.

It all went off without any issues. I managed to ask one question in the meeting (I had planned to listen only, as it was my first ever) and made one small joke. It’s usually the jokes that get me into trouble*, but this one went down well.

Although I work in education (at a university) it is a new area for me, so when the team of governors and school leadership were talking about key stages, examination criteria and began getting the acronyms out I was a little outside of my comfort zone. I scribbled down all kinds of things to look up and ask about later.

* {The worst nervous-joking time was when I was on the phone to Princess Anne’s private secretary. I had been tasked with organising an event with HRH as host for the charity I worked for until 2016. I was on the phone with the private secretary to make the arrangements for my chief exec and me to meet with her at Buckingham Palace to discuss the event. I was mainly listening to her instructions, but I felt so nervous speaking to this person of elevated….something… that when she told me that the usual gate would be being painted the day we were scheduled to visit so we would need to arrive at a different gate I interrupted her and said ‘there’s no need to go to the trouble of repainting the gate especially for our visit’. My joke was met with a long-enough moment of absolute silence to teach me that jokes were not appreciated or expected.}