Help me find the story about a hilarious/offensive conference intro...

February 18, 2013 12:12 PM

I'm going bananas trying to find a comment that I *think* I read on the green. The story was about an intro at a conference, or maybe at just a business meeting? And the person giving the talk lead with a pretty raunchy or out-there joke or anecdote, after which half the people balked and left and the other half stayed and had like, the best conference ever. I seem to remember that the joke-teller was a woman in a male-dominated field, but I could be wrong about that. IIRC, this story was told reverently, not disparagingly, and I think it appeared within the last two years. Is this ringing any bells?
posted by Charity Garfein to MetaFilter-Related at 12:12 PM (14 comments total)

There are probably several things that match your description, but I recall something similar from a tech conference a few years ago. The talk title was something like "Code Like a Porn Star"... I'd try to get more info, but I'm not going to search "porn star" from my work computer.
posted by Horselover Fat at 12:55 PM on February 18

Horselover Fat: You're thinking of the CouchDB "Code perform like a pr0n star" talk at a Ruby conference in '09. I think I remember the same anecdote the OP is asking about, though, and this wasn't it; the one I remember was an older man giving the talk.
posted by asterix at 1:06 PM on February 18

It sounds similar to the clusterfuck at Microsoft Norway last year, which was discussed on the blue.

Failing that, try looking at the Geek Feminism timeline of sexist incidents in the geek community and see if any of them trigger a memory, and then search for that incident on the Green?
posted by Phire at 1:17 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I have a story I thought I mentioned in AskMe once (but can't find it) about a presentation that I had to give once to a bunch of publishing executives, and one of my slides was about bad business models and I used a screengrab from the South Park Underwear Gnomes episode which showed their business plan.
Crickets. Just a look of confusion on all their faces. No recognition from any of the twenty to thirty people there. Next slide.
It may just be a coincidence but after that they removed the portion of that annual meeting that included a presentation, which was actually kind of a bonus. I think of that story every time I hear people accuse publishers of being out of touch.
posted by Toekneesan at 3:36 PM on February 18

I think you probably mean glaucon's co-worker's joke.
posted by jacalata at 4:21 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

(google search: site:ask.metafilter.com opening joke half the room left)
posted by jacalata at 4:21 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Tha CouchDB presentation was also discussed on the blue.
posted by ardgedee at 4:56 PM on February 18

I don't think it's the CouchDB talk, although I may be wrong. I have met people who went to that conference. At least in their telling, it would be pretty incorrect to claim that anybody went on to have "the best conference ever."
posted by koeselitz at 7:27 PM on February 18

Jacalata has it! (I was googling "walked out.") Hallelujah! And that joke is totally great.
posted by Charity Garfein at 8:17 PM on February 18

That was a really good joke, but, and I feel a little dumb asking this but I want to make sure I really get it before I use it myself, what does it have to do with engineering?
posted by latkes at 10:08 PM on February 18

It's not specific to Engineering, it would work anywhere you need to break the ice at a total sausagefest.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:11 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Wow, glaucon's coworker's joke is pretty offensive. It's the apostrophe in "suck it's dick" that does it.
posted by ambrosen at 10:58 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

That's what we call a grocer's blowjob.
posted by exogenous at 11:57 AM on February 19 [13 favorites]

This is not the story you're looking for. Pardon me if I've told it before.

Long ago I worked at a medium-sized regional retail company in their computer division. The company had an unusually high number of top executives named Richard.

One of those Richards, whom I worked with daily, plopped himself down for some exec meeting or other and promptly announced, in his brassy NY voice:

"This company is run by a bunch of Dicks!"
posted by trinity8-director at 1:06 PM on February 19